RELATIONS BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY 531 



to coincide. In 1222, seven years after the Magna Charta, appeared 

 the Golden Bull of our King Andrew II, which, like the older 

 British document, laid no claim to being considered as a new enact- 

 ment, but was meant to be a confirmation of old liberties. The 

 legal distinction between constitution and law, that chief feature of 

 American institutions, is unknown to Hungarian public law. It 

 is within the power of our legislature to effect constitutional changes 

 through simple legislative acts, just as she can alter a tariff or legis- 

 late on railway matters. In fact, the strongest conservatism pre- 

 vails in dealing with constitutional questions, and that compound 

 of time-hallowed prescriptions which bears the collective name of 

 constitution is cherished with a respect nowhere to be surpassed. 

 Some aspects of our constitutional growth will be placed now before 

 this distinguished audience preparatory to the subject proper of my 

 present address. 



From the day when our forefathers were converted to Christianity 

 (at the end of the tenth century) we find at the head of the nation 

 a king with a vast prerogative, which it was necessary to invest him 

 with, because the constant dangers threatening our country from 

 the west as well as from the east could be faced only by a strenuous 

 concentration of power. But that prerogative was subjected from 

 the beginning to several checks. There was the national assembly 

 - the gathering of all freemen - soon to evolve into national 

 representation, the assent of which was needed to give permanent 

 force to royal enactments, and which became an openly recognized 

 and organized factor of legislative power in the second part of the 

 thirteenth century. There was the semi-elective character of the 

 Crown which, though vested in a reigning dynasty, could be trans- 

 ferred by election to any member of that dynasty, making it advisable 

 for the King to conciliate public opinion if he wished to insure suc- 

 cession to his son. There was, moreover, that remarkable clause 

 of the Golden Bull, which remained in effect till 1686, conferring in 

 so many words on the Estates of the realm a right of resistance to 

 the King should he infringe their liberties. There are two laws 

 more remarkable still, considering their date, which are 1235 and 1298, 

 enacting, the first of them, that the Palatine (head of the King's 

 Government) should be dismissed on a vote of the National Assembly 

 adverse to his administration, while the second one states that no 

 royal ordinance should take legal effect if not signed by certain 

 dignitaries designated by the National Assembly. In what other 

 country do we find at so early a date such full-grown elements of 

 parliamentary government? 



Medieval Hungary could reach such a high state of constitutional 

 development for the same reason as made the power of Hungarian 

 Kings the most efficient one of that epoch, and that reason was the 



