Observations which I made in the country as to the venality and chicanery of the “district sergeants” and other subordinate officials, and petty conflicts which I had with the government in Stettin as deputy of the “Circle” and deputy for the provincial president, increased my aversion to the rule of the bureaucracy.  I may mention one of these conflicts.  While I was representing the President, then on leave, I received an order from the government to compel the patron of Kuelz, that was myself, to undertake certain burdens.  I put the order aside, meaning to give it to the president on his return, was repeatedly worried about it, and fined a thaler, to be forwarded through the post.  I now drew up a statement, in which I figured as having appeared, first of all as representative of the Landrath, and secondly as patron of Kuelz.  The party cited made the prescribed representations to himself in his capacity as No. 1, and then proceeded in his capacity of No. 2 to set forth the ground on which he had to decline the application; after which the statement was approved and subscribed by him in his double capacity.  The government understood a joke, and ordered the fine to be refunded.  In other cases, things resulted in less pleasant heckling.  I had a critical disposition, and was consequently liberal, in the sense in which the word was then used among landed proprietors to imply discontent with the bureaucracy, the majority of whom on their side were men more liberal than myself, though in another sense.

I again slipped off the rails of my parliamentary liberal tendencies, with regard to which I found little understanding or sympathy in Pomerania, but which in Schoenhausen met with the acquiescence of men in my own district, like Count Wartensleben of Karow, Schierstaedt-Dahlen, and others (the same men of whom some were among the party of Church patrons in the New Era subsequently condemned).  This was the result of the style, to me unsympathetic, in which the opposition was conducted in the first United Diet, to which I was summoned, only for the last six weeks of the session, as substitute for Deputy von Brauchitsch, who was laid up with illness.  The speeches of the East Prussians, Saucken-Tarputschen and Alfred Auerswald, the sentimentality of Beckerath, the Gallo-Rhenish liberalism of Heydt and Mevissen, and the boisterous violence of Vincke’s speeches, disgusted me; and even at this date when I read the proceedings they give me the impression of imported phrases made to pattern.  I felt that the King was on the right track, and could claim to be allowed time, and not be hurried in his development.

I came into conflict with the Opposition the first time I made a longer speech than usual, on May 17, 1847, when I combatted the legend that the Prussians had gone to war in 1813 to get a constitution, and gave free expression to my natural indignation at the idea that foreign domination was in itself no adequate reason for fighting.[31] It appeared to me undignified that the nation, as a set-off to its having freed itself, should hand in to the King an account payable in the paragraphs of a constitution.  My performance produced a storm.  I remained in the tribune turning over the leaves of a newspaper which lay there, and then, when the commotion had subsided, I finished my speech.