To what extent did the constitution ensure the Kaisers power was preserved? To a large extent the Kaiser had all power over Germany and with the desire for changes in the way Germany was run, it resulted in the improvements such as the creation of a constitution which was without a doubt crucial to the consolidation of the Kaisers position. The constitution consisted of 25 federal states, within this there were 4 kingdoms, 12 Duchies, 6 Grand Duchies and 3 free cities.

At first the Kaiser had pretty much entire control over all of these states, however each one did have a government which could decide on a healthcare system, education and justice policies. The states were at this point happy with this situation, so on the whole they were content to remain part of Germany. The Kaiser had autocratic control over diplomatic policy and this meant he could even dismiss his own chancellor. He could control the entire political system of Germany as he could select people who agreed with his policies. He also made a rule that in order to rule the Kaiser must be a Prussian, ensuring his control over the German people. His rule also meant he could change the constitution so that these rules had to stay in place. The control of these factors played a big role in keeping his position a stable one. The chancellor was the chief minister of the Reich, the only person who controlled him was the Kaiser with his ability to dismiss state secretaries and anyone else who he didn’t like. He was pretty much dictated entirely by the Kaisers wishes and could also easily be ignored by him. In any case the Kaiser would obviously choose someone who would obey his every order to prevent any questioning of his authority. This played a major role in the way the Kaisers power was preserved as it created the impression of a democracy over the very real autocracy hidden behind. By providing the illusion of democracy, the Kaiser was able manipulate the general public and his own governing bodies to keep his own power and dominance, yet keeping the opposition happy with the little power they had. This can be seen by how the Reichstag was given powers over the Kaisers government budget and also the budget for the army. Ultimately however, hidden behind the scenes, the Kaiser had private incomes from which meant he had no obligations to adhere to the proposed budgets meaning what little power the Reichstag thought they had, had no real effect on the German constitution.

The Bundesrat was the upper house in the parliament, it had 58 members and could change the constitution and (in theory) the idea of the group was to stop radical legislation, as first proposed by Bismarck. The dominance of Prussia was assured by the fact that it held 17 of the 58 seats in the Bundesrat, thereby ensuring that no legislation could be passed without the consent of the Prussian chamber of deputies. The catch was in this arrangement was that the electorate for the Prussian chamber of deputies was divided by what was known as the ‘three class franchise’ In effect this meant that the votes of those who paid more tax counted for more than the votes of those who paid less. As a result of this hugely biased voting system, the Prussian chamber of deputies was always dominated by conservatives. This was also a key part to the Kaisers preservation of power as having a governing body full of conservatives means they will always stay loyal as they do not want change. In the 1908 election in Prussia, 418,000 voters translated into 212 conservative seats, whereas 600,000 votes (from mostly the third tier) were rewarded with six social democrat (socialist) seats.

In conclusion I feel that the constitution fully allowed the Kaiser to uphold his power and dominance for a number of reasons. Firstly the constitution created a political structure that was not clear, that was dominated by the conservative elites. Although being fragmented the fact that the upper tiers where all conservative allowed the Kaiser to uphold his power through the different governing bodies as well as maintaining political dominance through Prussia. By also having the conservative elite on his side, the Kaiser was in a very powerful position as internal rejection of policy’s and political decisions made by either himself or his government would see little or no opposition as the conservative elite would do anything to conserver what little power and status quo they have. I also feel that enshrined in the constitution was the dominance and veto of Prussia. Being the King of Prussia this allowed the Kaiser to integrate his power into the constitution, and as seen by the structure and voting rights of the Bundesrat this enabled him to Taylor the structure towards his reign to be uninterrupted. This meant that the only way he could be overthrown politically was by that of a rebellion. In all I feel that the most significant factor to the constitution upholding the Kaiser power was that of the very constitution itself. By fragmenting small amounts of power to the 3 governing bodies, and allowing the federal states to have their own powers of government, this allowed the Kaiser to remain the ultimate leader through the dominance of Prussia and the support of the conservative elite. This very similar to how the general population of Russia envisioned their constitution to be like as this way, the population of Germany is kept happy through small amounts of power and political stance, with what is effectively an autocracy hidden under the illusion of democracy.