Romantic Nationalism at Frankfurt

The Frankfurt assembly was compared to the French assembly in 1789, as both were good examples of revolutions whose leaders were less concerned with the reality of their times and more concerned with the ideals they hoped to be able to follow. The Frankfurt Assembly hoped to be able to draft a liberal constitution and then bind an existing monarch by it, an enormously great goal for such a small and powerless group. The Frankfurt assembly demonstrates the reason why Bismarck would become necessary later in German history for unification - Frankfurt would be the example that proved why bottom-up nationalism built on ideals would fail, and fail utterly. This failure was ultimately cemented by Frederick William IV's refusal of the throne - he rejected even allowing a bottom-up structure to exist, saying that all power had to come from divine right.