The manner in which it was formed had a significant impact on the nature of the new German state.

The conservative army, the monarchy, and the Prussian prime minister, who wished to outflank Prussian liberals, unified Germany.

A united Germany, which had been sought by two generations of German liberals, was really attained for the most illiberal of reasons.

During the 1850s, German unity appeared improbable. The German Confederation, founded at the Congress of Vienna, was the governmental framework of the German-speaking territories.

It was a loose federation of thirty-nine states of varying size and power, whose chosen delegates gathered in Frankfurt at a central diet. Austria and Prussia were by far the two most powerful powers. Austria ruled over the diet of the 1850s.

During the 1850s, Austria presided over the German Confederation's diet. Through the Zollverein (tariff union), the main nations continued to trade with one another, and railways linked their economies.

When Bismarck became Prime Minister in 1862, he immediately went against the liberal Parliament. He claimed that, even in the absence of additional financial levies, the Prussian constitution allowed the government to carry out its tasks using previously approved taxes.

As a result, despite the legislature unwillingness to vote on them, taxes could be collected and spent. This reading of the constitution was endorsed by the army and the majority of the bureaucracy. However, further elections in 1863 maintained the liberal majority in Parliament. Bismarck needed to find a means to sway public opinion away from the liberals and toward the monarchy and the army. As a result, he went about unifying Germany through Prussia's conservative institutions. Bismarck, in fact, adopted German nationalism as a tactic.

Bismarck, in fact, adopted German nationalism as a strategy to allow Prussian conservatives to outflank Prussian liberals. A succession of domestic political developments and conflicts inside Prussia rapidly upset this stagnant state.

Frederick William IV was declared insane in 1858, and his brother William took over as regent. William I (r. 1861–1888), who succeeded his brother as King of Prussia in 1861, was less idealistic than his brother and more of a Prussian nationalist. In typical Hohenzollern fashion, his first priority was to increase the Prussian army.

His war minister and chief of staff suggested expanding the army, increasing the number of officers, and extending the length of conscription from two to three years in 1860.

Frederick William IV of Prussia had abandoned plans for Prussian-led unity.

Austria remained adamantly opposed to any union that would diminish its power. Under Bismarck's leadership and with the strong support of its royal dynasty, Prussia employed diplomatic and military tactics to forcefully unite the German states into a powerful national entity on both the German and international theaters.

The Prussian Parliament, established by the 1850 Constitution, declined to pass the required taxes. The liberals, who dominated the body, aimed to avoid giving the monarchy further authority.

For two years, the king and Parliament were at odds. In September 1862, William I sought assistance from Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), the man who, more than any other single individual, influenced the next thirty years of European history. Bismarck was descended from a Junker (noble landowner).

He went to university and expressed an interest in German unity.

In the 1840s, he was elected to the provincial legislature, where he was so conservative that he irritated even the monarch. Nonetheless, he had made his mark. Bismarck was the Prussian representative from 1851 until 1859.

Bismarck was the Prussian delegate to the German Confederation from 1851 until 1859. Later, he served as the Prussian envoy to Russia and as the Prussian ambassador to France after William I named him Prime Minister. Unlike German liberals, Bismarck, the great conservative chancellor, supported a democratic franchise because he predicted that peasants would vote for conservatives.

Furthermore, the Reichstag had limited actual power because ministers were only accountable to the king. The Reichstag was unable to even initiate legislation.

All legislation have to be proposed by the chancellor. Military budgets might be approved by the legislature, although they were normally presented for many years at a time.

The constitution of the North German Confederation, which became the constitution of the German Empire in 1871.

The constitution of the North German Confederation, which became the constitution of the German Empire in 1871, had some of the looks of liberalism but none of its content.

Germany was essentially a military monarchy.

The liberal opposition in the Prussian Parliament was overpowered by Bismarck's stunning accomplishments. Liberals were divided into two groups: those who valued liberalism and those who advocated unity. In the end, nationalism proved to be more appealing.

In 1866, the Prussian Parliament accepted the military budget that it had previously refused. Bismarck had crushed the Prussian liberals by elevating the monarchy and the army to the country's most popular institutions. His domestic Prussian political aim of German national unity had been realized.