After his retirement from the public service in 1863 he supported in the Bohemian Landtag and the Austrian Reichsrat the federal policy of his brother Leo.
A Landtag was first called together in 1387, and the landgraves were con stantly at variance with the electors of Mainz, who had large temporal possessions in the country.
In the Bohemian Landtag he became the acknowledged leader of the nationalist-federal party.
The government of Baden is an hereditary monarchy, with the executive power vested in the grand-duke, while the legislative authority is shared by him with a representative assembly (Landtag) consisting of two chambers.
Locally it is ruled by an Imperial governor (the Statthalter) who resides at Innsbruck, where, too, meets annually the local legislature or Diet (the Landtag), composed (according to the constitution of 1861) of 68 members; the archbishop of Salzburg, the bishops of Trent and Brixen, and the rector of the university of Innsbruck sit in person, while the great ecclesiastical corporations send four deputies, the chambers of commerce of Innsbruck, Trent and Rovereto each one, the nobles ten, the towns 13, and the peasants 34.