The Casino faction was a moderate liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 faction

Political faction

A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...

 within the Frankfurt Parliament

Frankfurt Parliament

The Frankfurt Assembly was the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany. Session was held from May 18, 1848 to May 31, 1849 in the Paulskirche at Frankfurt am Main...

 formed on June 25, 1848. Like most of the factions in the parliament

Factions in the Frankfurt Assembly

The factions in the Frankfurt Assembly were the groups or political factions that developed among delegates to the Frankfurt Parliament that met from May 18, 1848 to May 31, 1849 in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt am Main. They coalesced as groups of like-minded representatives started meeting, and...

, its name was a reference to the usual meeting place of its members in Frankfurt am Main. Casino was the largest and most influential fraction at Paulskirche. Its members were for the most part national liberals

National liberalism

National liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining nationalism with some liberal policies, especially regarding economic liberalism. The roots of it are to be found in the 19th century, when conservative liberalism was the ideology of the political classes in most European countries, then...

.

Casino was a faction of moderate left-wingers

Left-wing politics

In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

 or liberals, or right-centrists. The members of the Casino were overwhelmingly drawn from the intelligentsia of Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

 and the rest of Northern Germany, and the group's political positions were closer to those of the right wing

Right-wing politics

In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...

 in the Prussian assembly than to the center-right there, whose positions corresponded to those of center-left factions at Frankfurt.

With approximately 130 members, it was the largest faction. Members of the group and their publications had played major roles in preparing for and organizing the meeting of the parliament, for example in publicity in the Deutsche Zeitung, a liberal newspaper that came to be the organ of the faction, and participation in the Heppenheim Meeting, the Heidelberg Assembly, and the Vorparlament, the preliminary assembly that met in the Paulskirche from March 31 to April 3, 1848. They also had a decisive influence on the work of the parliament, especially the Frankfurt Constitution that it produced. The majority of the Casino members joined with the Westendhall faction to form the coalition of Erbkaiserliche (hereditary imperialists

Hereditary monarchy

A hereditary monarchy is the most common type of monarchy and is the form that is used by almost all of the world's existing monarchies.Under a hereditary monarchy, all the monarchs come from the same family, and the crown is passed down from one member to another member of the family...

) that met in the concert hall of the Gasthof zum Weidenbusch and pushed through the specification of constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...

 as the preferred political form of the sought-after national state. Casino also influenced the eventual adoption of a more restricted franchise

Suffrage

Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...

 than advocated by the republican groups. Members included a large number of prominent politicians: Heinrich von Gagern

Heinrich von Gagern

Heinrich Wilhelm August Freiherr von Gagern was a statesman who argued for the unification of Germany.The third son of Hans Christoph Ernst, Baron von Gagern, a liberal statesman from Hesse, Heinrich von Gagern was born at Bayreuth, educated at the military academy at Munich, and, as an officer in...

 and Eduard von Simson, both of whom served as President of the assembly, Friedrich Daniel Bassermann

Friedrich Daniel Bassermann

Friedrich Daniel Bassermann was a German liberal politician who is best known for calling for a pan-German Parliament at the Frankfurt Parliament...

, chairman of the committee that wrote the constitution, and other liberals and right-wing liberals such as Hans Adolf Erdmann von Auerswald

Hans Adolf Erdmann von Auerswald

Hans Adolf Erdmann von Auerswald was a Prussian general and politician.-Biography:Auerswald was born in Faulen, West Prussia where the family possessed the estates of Plauth and Tromnau....

, Hermann von Beckerath

Hermann von Beckerath

Hermann von Beckerath was a banker and Prussian statesman.-Biography:He was born at Krefeld, in Rhenish Prussia. His youth was spent in learning the business of banking, after which he became the head of a banking firm which had considerable influence in German financing, especially in the Rhenish...

, Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann

Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann

Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann was a German historian and politician.He came of an old Hanseatic family of Wismar, then controlled by Sweden...

, Johann Gustav Droysen

Johann Gustav Droysen

Johann Gustav Droysen was a German historian. His history of Alexander the Great was the first work representing a new school of German historical thought that idealized power held by so-called "great" men...

, Georg Gottfried Gervinus

Georg Gottfried Gervinus

Georg Gottfried Gervinus was a German literary and political historian.-Biography:Gervinus was born in Darmstadt. He was educated at the gymnasium of the town, and intended for a commercial career, but in 1825 he became a student of the university of Giessen...

, Friedrich von Raumer, August Hergenhahn, Felix Lichnowsky

Felix Lichnowsky

Felix Lichnowsky, fully Felix Maria Vincenz Andreas Fürst von Lichnowsky, Graf von Werdenberg was a son of the historian Eduard Lichnowsky who had written a history of the Habsburg family....

, Karl Mathy

Karl Mathy

Karl Mathy , was a Badensian statesman.He was born at Mannheim. He studied law and politics at Heidelberg, and entered the Baden government department of finance in 1829...

, Gustav von Mevissen

Gustav von Mevissen

Gustav Mevissen, after 1884 Gustav von Mevissen was a German businessman and politician.Mevissen was born in Dülken, Rhine Province. He started by investing in textile industry and later in railway construction and heavy industry. He founded numerous banks, including the Darmstädter Bank, and...

, Alexander von Soiron, Georg Waitz

Georg Waitz

Georg Waitz was a German historian and politician.He was born at Flensburg, in the duchy of Schleswig and educated at the Flensburg gymnasium and the universities of Kiel and Berlin...

, and Carl Theodor Welcker

Carl Theodor Welcker

-Biography:He was a member of the Baden legislature, and a colleague of Karl von Rotteck's in the editing of The Independent . He also joined Rotteck in writing the Staatslexikon . He was a member of the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848....

.

In September 1848, the Landsberg faction split off from Casino; its members advocated a more prominent role for the national assembly. Following the resignation of the Austrian deputy Anton von Schmerling on December 21, 1848, the Casino members who preferred a "Greater Germany" including Austria likewise split off under the leadership of Karl Jürgens and formed the more conservative Pariser Hof.

Jacob Grimm

Jacob Grimm

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...

was nominally a member of the Casino faction, but after the September 5, 1848, vote spearheaded by Dahlmann rescinding the Malmö ceasefire between Prussia and Denmark, took a leave of absence and then resigned as a deputy.

Unlike most of the factions, the Casino's meeting place was not an inn or cafe, but a self-improvement and networking club.