RELATIONS BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY 535 



differ from that of the peasantry; sometimes the peasantry of whole 

 counties became enfranchised by one single act of prerogative or of 

 legislation. Gradually it became so numerous that the number 

 of our franchise-men in the eighteenth century - - and probably at 

 an earlier date, too, but of this we have no statistics - - was com- 

 paratively larger than the French electorate under Louis Philippe 

 and perhaps even the English one before the great parliamentary 

 reform of 1830. 1 Within that large body of privileged citizens, so 

 large as to bear a distinctly popular stamp, there was no further 

 class distinction. And this is the most characteristic fact in our old 

 constitution ; it is the fact which chiefly warrants me in calling that 

 constitution quasi-democratic. There existed, of course, vast 

 differences of wealth and of social influence (I suppose even modern 

 America knows something of the kind), but legally recognized and 

 fixed subdivisions of privilege there were none. It was only in 

 much later time, under the Hapsburg kings, that German titles were 

 bestowed on Hungarian nobles, and that an hereditary aristocracy 

 sprang up and began to sit in an Upper House, which was legally 

 recognized in 1608; originally, the national representatives consisted 

 of one House only, which might not unfittingly be compared to the 

 English Commons. And so, while in England the Lords were fore- 

 most in seizing upon some part of public power and the Commons 

 slowly and gradually followed to the front, in Hungary, what we 

 may call the Commons were powerful from the beginning, and no 

 such thing as Lords existed till, at a much later date, that institution 

 was to some extent imported from without. Where England beats 

 us, as it beats the greatest part of our Continent, is the early growth 

 of a free peasantry; but then she has almost wholly lost that most 

 valuable class, while we have kept it in full vigor and look to it as an 

 inexhaustible source of national strength. 



The reign of privilege certainly took its mildest form in Hungary; 

 true, it lasted longer than most in other countries. It was ultimately 

 abolished by the glorious legislation of 1848, which has been effected 

 through no uprising or agitation among the disfranchised people, who 

 persisted in perfect political apathy, but through a spontaneous resolve 

 of the privileged class itself. Class magnanimity is a feature unknown 

 to general history; that we can show a sample of it in our annals is 

 perhaps the proudest, certainly the purest, glory of our nation. 



1 Since he delivered this address, the author has been enabled to add a few 

 figures which make good the above statements. At the epoch of the French Re- 

 volution we find in Hungary 75,000 families (corresponding to 325,000 individuals) 

 belonging to the privileged class, out of a total population of 6,000,000, while at 

 the same time France numbered only 28,000 such families against a population 

 of 26,000,000. In 1805 we find 340,000 " nobiles " (or as we call them freemen) 

 against a total population of 7,500,000; in 1848 they numbered 675,000 out of 

 nearly 12,000,000. But to these numbers must be added the clergy (numbering 

 by itself 16,000 voters in 1805), the members of other enfranchised liberal pro- 

 fessions, and the burghesses of privileged cities. 



