Appendix I.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Daily News,' dated
January 17th, 1852_, by Sabbas Vucovics, _late Minister of Justice
in Hungary, in answer to_ Count Casimir Bathyanyi.
So early as the commencement of the Serbian insurrection, the popular
suspicion gained ground that the insurrection had been stirred up by the
secret intrigues of the court, and confidence in the truth and good
faith of the King disappeared accordingly. The nation, however, still
indulged the hope that a weak King, though betrayed into ambiguous
proceeding, would not permit himself to be carried away into a flagrant
breach of the constitution. This was the time when the King, in the
opinion of the people, was kept distinct from the Camarilla. But when
the Austrian ministry openly attempted to deprive Hungary of its
ministries of war and finance, when the base game of the degradation and
restoration of Jellachich was played, and when the Hungarian army,
fighting in the name of the King against the insurrections of the
Serbians and Croats, became aware that the balls of that same King
thinned their ranks from the hostile camp, the nation arrived at the
universal conviction that the Hapsburg dynasty were only pursuing their
old absolute tendencies, and that they wanted to force Hungary into
self-defence, in order, under the pretext of rebellion, to deprive it of
all its constitutional rights and guarantees. It needs no proof that a
loud indignation, and even hatred of the dynasty, spread far and wide in
the country, in consequence of these intrigues and proceedings. In spite
of this natural excitement, and of the war itself, carried on by the
nation with an increasing enthusiasm of hatred of the House of Austria,
no party in the country urged a declaration of _déchéance_ or
forfeiture against the dynasty. Even all the faithless acts recorded in
the letter of Count Casimir Bathyanyi, and the cruelties committed in
the name of that court in Lower Hungary and Transylvania, did not turn
the scales in this direction. The Pragmatic Sanction was still
considered as good in law; and the many precedents of our history, when
the nation and its kings went to war with each other, and ultimately
settled their disputes by solemn pacts confirming the constitution of
the land, conveyed the notion that a reconciliation was even then not
impossible.
Without these precedents and reminiscences of history, and only guided
by the universal feeling of the country against the dynasty, the
Hungarian parliament would have pronounced the forfeiture of the House
of Austria so far back as October, 1848, when Jellachich was appointed
absolute plenipotentiary of the King in Hungary, with discretionary
power of life and death; or in December, 1848, when in Olmütz the
succession of the Hungarian throne was changed and determined, without
the concurrence of the nation through the Diet. To force the nation and
its parliament to the last step in this momentous crisis, the court
itself broke the dynastic tie.
This was done by the imposition of the constitution of the 4th of March,
1849, by which the House of Austria itself annihilated the Pragmatic
Sanction, treating free and independent Hungary with the arrogance of a
conqueror. The nation, more irritated by this act than by any preceding
event, saw that the hour was come, beyond which further to defer the
dethronement of the dynasty would be alike incompatible with the laws
and the honour of Hungary. _All the channels of public opinion, the
public press, the popular meetings, and even the head quarters of the
army, resounded with emphatic declarations of the impossibility of
reconciliation with the dynasty. The garrison of Komorn_--the most
important fortress of the country--_petitioned the government for the
declaration of forfeiture_. Most assuredly no party manoeuvres were
wanted in this universal excitement, caused by the constitution of the
4th of March, to carry a parliamentary resolution of forfeiture.
When the proposition of forfeiture was made on the 14th of April, 1849,
in the House of Representatives, only eight members voted against it, in
a house never attended by less than from 220 to 240 members. The House
of Magnates adopted this resolution without opposition. The press of all
shades of opinion, though enjoying the most unlimited freedom, also
declared for the resolution of the Diet. It was moreover received
throughout the whole country with patriotic assent and determination. If
there was a party opposed to the forfeiture, how came it that it did not
hold it to be a duty to declare its opposition in the Diet or through
the press?
When the intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Temeswar reached the
Governor Kossuth, who was then in the fortress of Arad, he immediately
summoned a council of the ministry to deliberate on measures of public
safety still possible. At this council, in which all the ministers took
part, it was resolved to invest Görgei, who stood alone at the head of
an unconquered army, with full powers for negotiating a peace. It was,
moreover, resolved to dissolve the government, which could not be
carried on in any fixed place of safety under the existing
circumstances. We did not, however, insert in the instrument investing
Görgei with full power (and despatched to him immediately) the
abdication of the government. On the same day--it was the 11th of
August, 1849--Görgei declared in the presence of some of the ministers
who had assembled at Csányi's (who was one of them), that he could not
accept the commission because the resignation of the government was not
contained in it, while he was sure that the enemy would enter into no
negotiations with him, so long as Kossuth and his ministry were thought
to be behind him. The ministers who were present, after a short
deliberation, considering it to be their duty not to stand in the way of
the negotiation which had been resolved on as necessary, accordingly
sent their resignation to the governor, _whom they requested to resign
as well_. The governor soon after sent his abdication for
countersignature by these members of the ministry, and accordingly the
government formally dissolved itself, after having done so _de
facto_ in the previous council of ministers. I must mention the
circumstance that _in the governor's instrument of abdication
conditions were proscribed to Görgei, which were not inserted in the
original instrument of authorization, issued by the full council_.
These conditions were, the preservation of the nationality and the
autonomy of Hungary. Four ministers took part in this resignation of the
governor, as above stated, Aulich, Csányi, Horvath, and I. Two of the
ministers, Szemere and [Casimir] Bathyanyi, were absent when the formal
declaration of the abdication was discussed at Csányi's residence. I
have not mentioned among the ministers our late colleague, the finance
minister Dushek, because his treachery, which was afterwards brought to
light, excludes him from our ranks. From all these circumstances, it
will be manifest how unjust the reproaches of Count Casimir Bathyanyi
are, that no new cabinet council was held.
It is notorious that Görgei abused the full powers with which he was
entrusted, instead of procuring the preservation of Hungary by a
negotiation for peace, by an ignominious treachery to his native
country. From that very moment the power conferred on him by the
above-mentioned instrument, and the conditional abdication of the
government, consequently and legally reverted to him who had invested
him with it. To deny this, would be to recognize in the foreign rule
which crushed Hungary, in consequence of that treachery, legitimate
right and lawful power.
I, however, perfectly agree with the noble count, that the nation, once
more restored to its constitutional existence, and free from foreign
yoke, will have the unlimited right to dispose of all the affairs of the
country, and consequently of the executive power. To assert a contrary
opinion would be a crime against the nation. Not over a liberated nation
(which, of course, would have the right to choose whom it will), but
over a nation crushed by an usurping power, the claims of Kossuth, as
elected Governor of Hungary, are, I submit, lawful.
Republican principles have not been proclaimed at Kossuth's dictation as
the aim of our national exertions. They were, during our struggle, the
well-ascertained and deep-rooted sentiment of the country, and Kossuth
could only faithfully represent the proclaimed will and feeling of the
nation, by inscribing them on his banner. Immediately after the
declaration of independence, all the manifestations of the national will
were unanimous in the desire for a republic. The ministry, which was
nominated by the Governor as a consequence of that legislative act,
declared in both houses of the Diet, that its efforts would be directed
to the establishment of a republic. Both houses joined in this
declaration, and in the government no opposition whatever was manifested
against it. One of the first acts of the new government was to remove
the crown from all national scutcheons, and from the great seal of
Hungary. The press in all its shades developed republican principles.
The new semi-official paper bore the name of _The Republic_. It is
true that the government was only provisional, for the war continued,
and the definite decision of this question depended on unforeseen
circumstances. We should have preferred almost any settlement to the
necessity of a subjection to the Austrian dynasty; and at the price of
emancipation from that detested power, the nation would even have been
prepared, for the sake of aid, to choose a king from another race; but
certainly if it had been the unaided victor in the struggle, never.
Monarchical government would have been for us the resort of expediency.
The government of our wishes and principles was "The Republic."
I do not feel at all convinced, as the noble count asserts, that the
institutions and habits of Hungary are incompatible with a democratic
republic. I find, on the contrary, traits in them which lead me to an
opposite conclusion. The aggregate character of the numerous nobility
which resigned its privileges in the Diet of 1847-48 of its own accord,
and which was in its nature more a democratic than an aristocratic body,
because neither territorial wealth nor rank interfered with or disturbed
the equality of its rights,--the national antipathy to the system of an
upper house, which was considered as a foreign institution, because it
had been introduced under the Austrian dynasty,--the immemorial custom
of periodically electing all officials, and even the judges,--the
detestation in which bureaucracy and all the instruments of
centralization were held in all ages, while the attachment to the
municipal self-government was ineradicable,--the fact that, in
consequence of the laws which had been sanctioned in April, 1848, the
county authorities, formerly only elected from the "nobility," were
democratically reconstituted, and exercised their functions in this form
till the catastrophe of Világos, without the slightest collision between
the different classes of society,--the peaceful election of the
representatives of the last Diet conducted almost on the principle of
universal suffrage,--all these facts unmistakeably prove that the germ
of democracy lay in our institutions, and that these could receive a
democratic development without any concussion. Those characteristic
_traits_ of our nation, which have been so often misrepresented as
signs of an aversion to a republic, and which may be more properly
called civic virtues; as, for example, our respect for law, our
antipathy to untried political theories, our attachment to traditional
customs, and our pride in the history of our country, are no obstacles
to, but rather guarantees, and even conditions of a republic, which is
to be national and enduring. It would indeed be an unprecedented event
in history, if staunch royalism could be the characteristic of a country
which, like Hungary, has found in its kings for three hundred years the
inexorable foes of its liberties, and which in that time, for its
defence, had to wage six bloody wars against the dynasty.
As to the criticisms by the noble count of the personal character of
Kossuth, I take leave to assert that a great majority of the Hungarian
nation do not share his opinion. It is not my task to appear as a
personal advocate, and I wish, therefore, to advert only to one point of
his attack, which may seem to be based on facts. The noble count
asserts that Kossuth has attained to power _by doubtful means_. I
am amazed at this assertion, knowing, as I do, that Kossuth was proposed
by Count Louis Bathyanyi, and nominated by the King, with the universal
applause of the nation, to the Ministry of Finance. After the
resignation of the first Hungarian ministry, he was freely and
unanimously elected by the Diet to the Presidency of the Committee of
Defence, and after the declared forfeiture of the dynasty to the
Governorship of the country. I know no more honourable means by which a
man can be raised to power.