Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/111

 The disasters of the year 1859 proved the impossibility of continuing a system of absolutist government that was in direct contradiction to the ancient historical constitutions of Bohemia and Hungary. The sovereign again granted constitutional institutions, and it was resolved to establish in Vienna a central parliament consisting of two houses. The upper house was to contain a large number of hereditary members, and a certain number of life-members appointed by the sovereign. Among the latter was Palacký. He was now generally recognized as the leader of Bohemia, as Otec Vlasti, ‘father of the country,’ as it became customary to call him. Palacký only spoke twice in the Vienna parliament on both occasions in the year 1861. His words have since become prophetic. Palacký opposed the claims of the Hungarians, who demanded that almost entire independence which they have since obtained. He disapproved of the creation of new small states at a moment when all Europe was in favour of large agglomerations; for Italy was then beginning to become a united country, and to a shrewd statesman as was Palacký the subsequent unity of Germany also already appeared probable. Palacký therefore recommended a federal constitution for the whole empire, which, while largely recognizing the ancient constitutions of Bohemia and Hungary, yet permitted the vast empire of the Habsburgs to maintain a certain amount of coherence. Palacký’s views were distasteful to most of the members of the parliament; and he left the Vienna assembly, never again to take his seat there.

The subsequent evolutions of Austrian politics through which Hungary in 1867 obtained almost complete independence, while Bohemia became a mere