Prague Slavic Congress, 1848

Introduction

The Prague Slavic Congress of 1848 (also known as the Pan-Slav Congress of 1848) took place between June 2 and June 12, 1848. It was one of the few times that voices from all Slav populations of Europe were heard in one place. The meeting was meant to be a show of resistance to the German nationalism in the Slav lands.

Pan-Slavism

“Pan-Slavism” developed over time leading up to the Congress in 1848. The development of some sort of national identity helped to unite the Slavic lands against the increasing German nationalism. The identification of these lands as Slavic does not mean that they are all the same. Within the overarching Slavic category, there are many other groups such as Poles, Hungarians, Czechs and Slovenes.

The intensity of “Slavism” varied among the different factions coming to Prague. Hungarians exhibited the greatest “cultural Pan-Slavism” due to Magyarization (Orton 6). The Slavism was less noticeable with the Czechs and Slovenes because of the already large German influence. Polish Slavism was also intense and was mostly exhibited through the literature of writers such as Jan Gawiński (Orton 6).

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Prague Upheavals of 1848

Prague Upheavals of 1848 in Prague arose from processes similar to those in other major Austrian and German cities. The Habsburg authorities faced diverse and growing opposition in the Bohemian capital in the 1840s, but no group initiated a revolution before news of other uprisings and the government's own weakness provided the opportunity. Earlier in the decade some of the aristocrats in the Bohemian Diet had begun to attack the centralization of authority in Vienna and the regime's failure to address provincial problems. In Prague, students, educated professionals, and some entrepreneurial elements also criticized the sclerotic bureaucracy, the lack of representative institutions and civil equality, and the persistence of the peasants' obligatory labor services. The nascent Czech nationalist movement, which was strongest among the petty bourgeoisie of Prague and the lesser Bohemian towns, called for liberal constitutional reforms and equal educational rights for Czech-speakers and Germans. These opposition groups became increasingly vocal in the mid-1840s, but none of them planned for the imminent seizure of power. Nonetheless, the hardships of the 1840s depression, the resulting popular unrest, and the growing paralysis of the Habsburg government created a crisis situation by the end of 1847.

At this time Prague had a population of over 115,000 that was increasing rapidly due to migration from the countryside and the beginnings of mechanized industry. In face of the laborers' misery, some of Prague's most radical students and intellectuals developed an interest in utopian socialism, but the middle-class liberals as well as the aristocratic opposition generally rejected any infringement of property rights. As the economic and social problems mounted, the highest authorities in Prague, like those in Vienna, increasingly showed themselves to be unsure and divided as to how to respond to the situation.

News of uprisings in Italy and then of the Parisian revolution in late February 1848 galvanized Prague's oppositional groups to call for immediate constitutional reforms. On March 2 a group of noblemen demanded that the provincial governor convene the Bohemian Diet with increased middle-class representation. Independently on March 6, radicals from the "Repeal" group issued a call in Czech and German for a public meeting at the St. Vaclav's (Wenceslas) Baths to draft a petition to the emperor for reform. That gathering, held on March 11, a second one on April 10, and the associated committee meetings became the principal venues for liberal political action in Prague during the spring of 1848. The participants in the first public meeting were mostly young and Czech-speaking, primarily middle and lower middle class with few workers, almost none of the upper bourgeoisie, and no noblemen. They approved a petition calling for full civil liberties, the abolition of the peasants' feudal obligations, creation of a citizens' militia, Czech-language instruction in the schools, and a constitutional government with elected representatives of the nobility, clergy, burghers, and peasants. Czech nationalists inserted the demand for a united annual Diet for Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia, but radicals found little support for any "organization of labor" along utopian socialist lines. Indeed, Prague's liberal constitutional reformers, both Czech and German, took a conservative stand on social questions throughout the spring.

In March and April, the mayor, the more conservative burghers, and even the provincial governor were willing to concede many to these demands, particularly after the imperial court dismissed Metternich and promised reforms. In March and April, Czech and German-speaking liberals worked together for constitutional reform, but by mid-May all of the Germans had withdrawn from the National Committee, leaving it a major forum for Czech nationalist political activity. To advance the cause of civil and cultural rights for all Slavic peoples in the Habsburg Monarchy, the historian Frantisek Palacky and other Czech leaders began in late April to organize a Slavic congress to meet in Prague five weeks later.

Bloody repression by the Habsburg military in June ended the liberal efforts in Prague to win constitutional reform. Radical Czech students viewed as a provocation the return on May 20 of the reactionary military commander Alfred Prince Windischgrätz. on Whit-Monday, June 12, during the Slavic congress, they organized an outdoor "Slavic" mass at the Horse Market, now Wenceslas Square. After the mass, students and workers soon began to fight with Windischgrätz's soldiers. After six days of street fighting, artillery bombardments, and more than a hundred casualties, Windischgrätz took control of the city under a state of siege.

The last significant attempt at revolutionary activity in the Bohemian capital came in May 1849. Encouraged by Mikhail Bakunin, a group of Czech and German student radicals planned an uprising. The police uncovered the conspiracy and imposed a new state of siege which lasted until August 1853. http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/ip/prague.htm

1848 was a year of European-wide revolution. A general disgust with conservative domestic policies, an urge for more freedoms and greater popular participation in government, rising nationalism, social problems brought on by the Industrial Revolution, and increasing hunger caused by harvest failures in the mid-1840s all contributed to growing unrest, which the Habsburg monarchy did not escape. In February 1848, Paris, the archetype of revolution at that time, rose against its government, and within weeks many major cities in Europe did the same, including Vienna.

As in much of Europe, the Revolution of 1848 in the Habsburg monarchy may be divided into the three categories of social, democratic-liberal, and national, but outside Vienna the national aspect of the revolution fairly soon overshadowed the other two. On March 13, upon receiving news of the Paris rising, crowds of people, mostly students and members of liberal clubs, demonstrated in Vienna for basic freedoms and a liberalization of the regime. As happened in many cities in this fateful year, troops were called out to quell the crowds, shots were fired, and serious clashes occurred between the authorities and the people. The government had no wish to antagonize the crowds further and so dismissed Metternich, who was the symbol of repression, and promised to issue a constitution.

From that beginning to the end of October 1848, Vienna ebbed and flowed between revolution and counterrevolution, with one element or another gaining influence over the others. In mid-May the Habsburgs and their government became so concerned about the way matters were going that they fled Vienna, although they did return in August when it appeared that more conservative elements were asserting control. The emperor issued a constitution in April providing for an elected legislature, but when the legislature met in June it rejected this constitution in favour of one that promised to be more democratic. As the legislature debated various issues over the summer and autumn, the Habsburgs and their advisers regrouped both their confidence and their might, and on October 31 the army retook Vienna and executed a number of the city's radical leaders. By this time the legislature had removed itself to Kremsier in the province of Moravia, where it continued to work on a constitution. It finished its work there, issued its document, and was promptly overruled and then dismissed by the emperor.

In other parts of the monarchy, the revolution of 1848 passed quickly through a liberal-democratic to a national phase, and in no place was this more evident or more serious than in Hungary. Joseph II's effort to incorporate Hungary more fully into the monarchy, along with the early 19th century's rising national awareness throughout Europe, had a profound impact upon the aristocratic Hungarians who held sway in the country. Modern nationalism made them even more intent on preserving their cultural traditions and on continuing their political domination of the land. Consequently, after 1815 the Hungarian nobility engaged in a number of activities to strengthen the Hungarian national spirit, demanding the use of Hungarian rather than Latin as the language of government and undertaking serious efforts to develop the country economically. The revolution in Paris and then the one in Vienna in March 1848 galvanized the Hungarian diet. Under the leadership of a young lawyer and journalist named Lajos Kossuth, the Hungarian diet demanded of the sovereign sweeping reforms, including civil liberties and far greater autonomy for the Hungarian government, which would from then on meet in Pest (Buda and Pest were separate cities until 1873, when they merged under the name Budapest). Under great pressure from liberal elements in Vienna, the emperor acceded to these wishes, and the Hungarian legislators immediately undertook creating a new constitution for their land.

This new constitution became known as the April Laws and was really the work of Kossuth. The April Laws provided for a popularly elected lower house of deputies, freedom for the “received religions” (i.e., excluding Jews), freedom of the press, peasant emancipation, and equality before the law. As the Hungarians set up their new national government based on these principles, they encountered from some of the minority nationalities living in their land the kind of resistance they had offered the Austrians. A characteristic of the new regime was an intense pride in being Hungarian, but the population in the Hungarian portion of the Habsburg monarchy was 60 percent non-Hungarian. And in 1848 all the talk about freedom and constitutions and protection of one's language and culture had inspired many of these people as well. But Kossuth and his colleagues had no intention of weakening the Hungarian nature of their new regime; indeed, they made knowledge of Hungarian a qualification for membership in parliament and for participation in government. In other words, the new government seemed as unsympathetic to the demands and hopes of its Serbian, Croatian, Slovak, and Romanian populations as Vienna had been to the demands of the Hungarians.

In March 1848 the Habsburgs made an appointment that would lead to war with the Hungarians: they selected as governor of Croatia Josip, Count Jelacic, well-known for his devotion to the monarchy, for his dislike of the “lawyers' clique” in Pest, and for his ability to hold the South Slavs in the southern portion of the monarchy loyal to the crown. Jelacic did not disappoint Vienna. One of his first acts was to reject all authority over Croatia by the new Hungarian government, to refuse all efforts by that government to introduce Hungarian as a language of administration, and to order his bureaucrats to return unopened all official mail from Pest. He also began negotiations with the leadership of the Serbs to resist Hungarian rule together.

From April to September 1848 the Hungarian government dealt with its minority nations and with the government in Austria on even terms, but then relations began to deteriorate. The return of the Habsburgs to Vienna in August, the more conservative turn in the government there that the return reflected, and Austrian military victories in Italy in July prompted the Habsburg government to demand greater concessions from the Hungarians. In September, military action against Hungary by Jelacic and his Croats prompted the Hungarian government to turn power over to Kossuth and a Committee of National Defense that immediately took measures to defend the country. What then emerged was open warfare between regular Habsburg forces and Jelacic on the one hand and the Hungarians on the other.

The war was a bloody affair, with each side dominating at one time or another. In April 1849 the Hungarian government proclaimed its total independence from the Habsburgs, and in that same month the Austrian government requested military aid from Russia, an act that was to haunt it for years to come. Finally, in August 1849, the Hungarian army surrendered, and the land was put firmly under Austrian rule. Kossuth fled to the Ottoman Empire, and from there for years he traveled the world denouncing Habsburg oppression. In Hungary itself many rebel officers were imprisoned, and a number were executed.

A second serious national rising occurred in Italy. Since 1815, many Italians had looked upon the Habsburgs as foreign occupiers or oppressors, so when news of revolution reached their lands the banner of revolt went up in many places, especially in Milan and Venice. Outside the Habsburg lands, liberal uprisings also swept Rome and Naples. In Habsburg Italy, however, war came swiftly. In late March, answering a plea from the Milanese, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the only Italian state with a native monarch, declared war on the emperor and marched into his lands.

The Habsburg government in Austria was initially willing to make concessions to Sardinia, but it was strongly discouraged from doing so by its military commander in Italy, the old but highly respected and talented Field Marshal Radetzky, who had been the Austrian chief of staff in the war against Napoleon in 1813–14. In July 1848 Radetzky proved the value of his advice by defeating the Sardinians at Custoza, a victory that helped restore confidence to the Habsburg government as it faced so many enemies. Radetzky reimposed Habsburg rule in Milan and in Venice, and in March 1849 he defeated the Sardinians once again when they invaded Austria's Italian possessions.

Besides the Hungarians and the Italians, the Slavic peoples of the monarchy also responded to the revolutionary surge, although with less violence than the other two. In June 1848 a Pan-Slav congress met in Prague to hammer out a set of principles that all Slavic peoples could endorse. The organizer of the conference was the great Czech historian František Palacký (most of the delegates were Czech), who had not only called for the cooperation of the Habsburg Slavs but who had also endorsed the Habsburg monarchy as the most reasonable political formation to protect the peoples of central Europe. Upon being asked by the Germans to declare himself favourably disposed to their desire for national unity, he responded that he could not do so because it would weaken the Habsburg state. And in that reply he wrote his famous words: “Truly, if it were not that Austria had long existed, it would be necessary, in the interest of Europe, in the interest of humanity itself, to create it.”

Unfortunately, the Pan-Slav congress met in a highly charged atmosphere, as young inhabitants of Prague likewise had been influenced by revolutions elsewhere and had taken to the streets. In the commotion, a stray bullet killed the wife of Field Marshal Alfred, Prince zu Windischgrätz, the commander of the forces in Prague. Enraged, Windischgrätz seized the city, dispersed the congress, and established martial law throughout the province of Bohemia. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-33362/Austria

The Congress

Congress of the Slavs in Prague (1848)

The Congress of the Slavs in Prague (1848), aimed at the manifestation of power, unity and vigilance of the Slavs, endangered in their existence by the plans of unification of Germany and the nationalistic policy of the Hungarians. It was the first attempt to negotiate the future relations among neighboring Slav nations of the Habsburg monarchy; and to regulate international, rather than inter-state relationships. However, it also revealed political divisions among the Slavs and disappointed many participants.

The idea of the Congress was first conceived on April 20, 1848, by Croat Ivan Kukuljevic Sakginski and Slovak L'udovít Stúr; this inspired similar projects by Jedrzej Moraczewski of Poznan, Poland. The reason was a startling intensification of German nationalism, which is why it was supported by the Czech politicians as well. On May 1, the preparatory committee of the congress issued an address inviting delegates; officially only representatives of the Slavs living in the Habsburg monarchy were invited, although Slavs from other parts of Europe were welcomed too. Altogether 340 delegates arrived representing Croats, Czechs, Dalmatians, Moravians, Poles, Ruthenians, Serbs, Silesians, Slovaks and Slovenes, as well as 500 official guests.

The congress held debates in three sections: Czechs and Slovaks, Poles and Ruthenians (joined also by some Silesians and by the Russian revolutionary and one of the founders of Anarchism Mikhail Bakunin), and South Slavs. Each section elected its officers and designated 16 representatives for the plenary committee. The section of Czechs and Slovaks was headed by Pavel Josef Šafařík, the Poles and Ruthenians by Karol Libelt, and the South Slavs by Pavao Stamatovic. Czech liberal František Palacký was the president and moving force behind the congress, aided by deputies Jerzy Lubomirski from Galicia and Stanko Vraz from Slovenia.

Issues of Individual Slavic Nations

The early sessions were marked by discontentment with the vague agenda; moreover, fragmentation along national divisions were exposed right in the beginning of the congress deliberations.

• For the South Slavs, the danger of Magyarization (Hungarization) was the primary concern, which led to an inevitable conflict with the Poles. The Poles sought the regeneration of the independent Polish state within the boundaries of 1772 and expected the congress to condone their right to a sovereign country. Polish aspirations were popular with the younger Czech democrats but in conflict with the political interests of most of the Czech politicians, who advocated Austroslavism – transformation of the Habsburg monarchy into a federal state, where Slavic nations would forego full political independence in favor of cultural freedom within Austria. This idea also suited the Serbs and Croats, who were likewise under Habsburg domination and threatened by Hungarian nationalism. Czechs between 1848 and 1849, with Palacky at the head, were alarmed by the vision of a united Germany whose boundaries would include the Czech lands.

On the other hand, some Czech politicians, such as Václav Hanka, saw the best future for the Slavic people in their gathering around Russia. This earned a partial approval among the southern Slavs and Ruthenians in Galicia, but certainly not so with the Poles, who were threatened by the expansion and strenghtening of the tsarist Russia, their neighbor to the east. The Poles even made attempts at mediation between Slavs and Hungarians.

The Ruthenian delegates representing the Supreme Ruthenian Council [Holovna Rus'ka Rada] in Lvov viewed the congress as an opportunity to state their grievances against the Poles and publicly present a demand to divide Galicia into eastern (Ruthenian) and western (Polish) parts. The Polish and Czech delegates were against the division, and so was Mikhail Bakunin, who stated that neither St. Petersburg nor the reactionary Austrian bureaucracy would give it a go-ahead. Finally, thanks to the efforts of Leon Sapieha, who represented the Ruthenian Assembly [Rus'kyy Sobor], representing Poles of the Ruthenian origin, a Polish-Ruthenian compromise was signed on June 7, 1848. This document stipulated that Galicia would remain undivided until appropriate decisions were taken by the local Diet, both nations would have equal rights, especially language-wise); the official language in regional offices and schools would be one spoken by the majority of inhabitants of that region; and the Uniate clergy would enjoy equal rights as the Roman Catholic Church. The last requirement was not approved by the Ruthenian Supreme Council or by the Polish National Council in Lvov.

Objectives

On June 5, Karol Libelt proposed a new agenda of three objectives:

1. To issue a manifesto to all European nations stating the political orientation of the congress
2. To send a petition containing the demands of the Slavs to the Emperor
3. To draw up plans of promotion of cooperation and unity among Slavs

The "Manifesto to the European peoples" was a Polish accomplishment led by Karol Libelt and Jedrzej Moraczewski, who prepared a politically and socially radical counter-proposal to the adulatory address to the Austrian emperor proposed by the Czechs. It became the basis of the final version of the "Manifest," worked out by Libelt and Palacky, assisted by Moraczewski, Lucjan Siemienski, Bakunin and Frantisek Zach. Although many radical fragments were removed under the pressure of moderate Czech delegates, the "Manifesto" was important for its emphasis on the superiority of national rights over international treaties. The delegates even pledged readiness to acknowledge and support equal rights of all nations, regardless of their political power", and called on all Slavonic nations to organize a general congress of European peoples so that they could "regulate their international relationships on a one-to-one equal basis... before the reactionary politics of some cabinets succeeded in stirring again hate and jealousy of one nation against the other."

The Manifesto appealed to the Austrian emperor to transform the monarchy into a federation of equal nations. Under the Polish influence, the initially strong anti-German tendencies were accommodated, and the right of German-speaking population outside Germany to cooperate with the inhabitants of Germany was acknowledged. From July 1848, political events were increasingly unfavorable to the liberation aspirations of suppressed Slavs, and the "Manifesto" did not change the course of political events. Still, it charted a new concept of regulating international relations in Europe, influenced by the French Revolution.

On June 12, the draft of the manifesto was approved, with the final session scheduled for June 14. Street fighting broke out shortly after noon, and the week of scuffles that followed disrupted the congress. Most of the delegates left Prague; some were arrested and expelled. Jolanta Pekacz http://www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/ac/congslav.htm

The exact goal of the Congress was unclear even as it was beginning. In addition to lacking a goal, the conference planners also quarreled over the format and the agenda of the gathering (Orton 57). Perhaps this was an indication of how difficult the conference would be for the factions to come together.

Once underway, the conference met in three sections: Poles and Ukrainians; South Slavs; and Czecho-Slovaks. The Pole-Ukrainian section contained a combination of Ruthenes, Mazurians, Wielopolaks, and Lithuanians (Orton 62). Of the total 340 delegates at the Congress, the greatest number came from the Czecho-Slovak section. 237 Czecho-Slovaks participated along with 42 South Slavs and 61 Pole-Ukrainian (Orton 63).

During the Congress, there was debate about the role of Austria in the lives of the Slavs. Dr. Josef Fric argued that the “primary goal is the preservation of Austria,” adding that the Congress “only differs on the means.” (Orton 69) This point was disputed by L’udovit Stur who told the Congress, “our goal is self-preservation.” (Orton 69) Such a disconnect was typical of the environment of this conference.

One important statement did come out of the conference around June 10, when the Manifesto to the Nations of Europe was pronounced. The statement was a strongly worded proclamation that demanded an end to the oppression of the Slav people (Orton 87). It’s important to note that the Slavs did not look for any type of revenge (Orton 88). Rather they wanted to “extend a brotherly hand to all neighbouring nations who are prepared to recognize and effectively champion with us the full equality of all nations, irrespective of their political power or size.” (Orton 88). This was an important development because it indicated some sort of unity among all of the Slav people of Europe (Polišenský 147).

The Congress was unfortunately cut short on June 12, when fighting broke out on the streets (Orton 86). This later became known as the Whitsuntide events because of the timing during the Christian holiday of Pentecost. The delegates left in disgust and some were even arrested because of the revolutionary nature of the Congress (Orton 86).

Who’s who in the Prague Congress of 1848?

The four most important individuals of the Congress were František Palacký, Karol Libelt, Pavo Stamatović, and Pavel Šafárik (Orton 62-63).
- František Palacký oversaw the entire conference as president.
- Karol Libelt, from Prussian Poznan, was the chairman of the Poles and Ukrainians.
- Pavo Stamatović, from Serbia, was the chairman of the South Slavs.
- Pavel Šafárik, from Slovakia, was the chairman of the Czecho-Slovaks.

Frantisek Palacky [29-03-2000] By Nick Carey

Frantisek Palacky is often called the Father of the Czech Nation. He pleayed an important role in Czech National Revival in the nineteenth century. He also defended the rights of the Czechs, the Slovaks, and many other Slavonic peoples, including the people in his native region of Moravia... Frantisek Palacky was born in the East Moravian village of Hodslavice on June 14th 1798, the son of an evangelist teacher. His family was part of the very small Protestant minority in Moravia, which was predominantly Catholic, He was, however, a man with a strong Czech national conscientious. At the time, the Czech National Revival, a movement which aimed to revive the Czech language, culture and history, was in full swing. He decided to become a historian to aid this process, even though this was not a field he had had much experience in. He worked first as the chronicler for individual noble families, such as the Counts of Sternberk. These chronicles met with great success. During the 1920s, the Austrian Habsburg Empire worked on centralising power. As a counter-measure, the nobles in various countries around the empire appointed their own historians to further their national interests. The nobles in the Czech Lands approached Palacky, and offered him the post of historian of the Bohemian estates. He accepted, and held the post until his death in 1876. This post gave Frantisek Palacky a prominent role in the Czech National Revival, but the only Protestant, and the Catholic members mistrusted him to a certain extent.

Another source of tensions between Palacky and the other members of the Czech National Revival was the fact that although he himself was not a nobleman, he moved in aristocratic circles. Frantisek Palacky began work on a Czech language version of his history of the Czech Lands in 1948. This was the year of revolutions and national uprisings across Europe. Frantisek Palacky put forward his own plan for a federal Austrian state. This placed him in a unique position, not only for the Czechs, but for many of the other Slav nations in the empire:

The political freedoms that started in 1848 were brought to an end in 1850, when the Habsburg Empire restricted national aspirations in Central Europe, during another period of centralisation. Palacky was banned from all of his public activities, except his post as the historian of the Bohemian estates, and he was constantly followed by the Austrian secret police. Forced to retire from public life, he devoted himself to research. Historian český historik a politik

narozen 14. 6. 1798 v Hodslavicích u Nového Jičína zemřel 16. 5. 1876 v Praze, pochován v Lobkovicích u Mělníka

synem luteránského učitele Původně se měl státi knězem, ale nakonec přijal postavení soukromého vychovatele dětí ve šlechtických rodinách na dnešním Slovensku, kde působil v letech 1818 - 23. Zprvu se zabýval poezií, ale brzy si uvědomil, že v tom není dosti silný a rozhodl se věnovat historii. V roce 1823 přišel poprvé do Prahy. Z existenčních důvodů se musel i nadále věnovat vychovatelství, ale také pracoval jako rodopisec a archivář českých šlechtických rodů, např. u barona Astfelda, potom u Šternberků, u Černínů a dalších. Zároveň se začal zabývat intenzívním studiem českých dějin a pod vedením Josefa Dobrovského se učil metodám historiografické práce. Roku 1831 byl oficiálně jmenován zemským historiografem a pověřen sepsáním dějin Království českého. Již v roce 1832 započal s psaním své celoživotní práce Dějin národu českého. Brzy se spřátelil s pražskými vlastenci a obrozenci Václavem Hankou, Josefem Jungmannem, Josefem Dobrovským a dalšími, zejména z okruhu Českého muzea. V saloně u Palackých se scházela vlastenecká a buditelská společnost. Brzy se stal jedním z předních organizátorů kulturního života pražského. podílel se na založení Matice české, čili fondu k vydávání českých knih.. Stál v čele snah o vznik české encyklopedie a o zřízení Národního divadla, k němuž položil 1868 základní kámen. Významná byla i Palackého politická činnost. Patřil ke konzervativnímu státoprávně orientovanému křídlu. Odmítal odtržení Českého království od rakouské monarchie a jeho připojení k německé říši. Byl zastáncem austroslavismu - tj. autonomie slovanských národností v rámci habsburské monarchie a proměny Rakouska ve federativní národnostní stát s rovnocennými politickými a národními právy. Jako hlavní představitel strany staročechů vystoupil s českým státoprávním programem 11. 4. 1848, když v dopise do Frankfurtu odmítl účast na frankfurtském sněmu, čímž zároveň odmítl souhlasit se začleněním Čech do jednotného Německa. Téhož roku potvrdil svůj politický program v manifestu Slovanského sjezdu v Praze, kterému předsedal Jako poslanec předložil svou federalistickou koncepci habsburské říše. "...kdyby státu rakouského nebylo již od dávna, musili bychom...přičiniti se co nejdříve, aby se utvořil." Palacký kladl velký důraz na národní osvětu a nutnost setrvat na vysoké mravní úrovni. Svým dílem dokládal, že " kdykoli jsme vítězili, dálo se to pokaždé více převahou ducha, nežli mocí fyzickou, a kdykoli jsme podléhali, býval tím vinen vždy nedostatek duchovní činnosti, mravní statečnosti a odvahy."

Po porážce revoluce a nástupu císaře Františka Josefa I. odešel Palacký do ústraní, ale v letech 1861 - 72 se opět stal poslancem českého sněmu a na krátkou dobu i poslancem panské sněmovny říšské rady. Palackého odpověď na neochotu Rakouska zajistit národům v monarchii rovnoprávnost opět vyjadřuje jeho citát: Byli jsme před Rakouskem, budeme i po něm". Ke konci života svou původní myšlenku habsburského mocnářství opustil a byl přívržencem pasivního odporu vůči říšské radě i zemskému sněmu. Měl obavy z centralistického nebo dualistického uspořádání monarchie, které rakousko-uherské vyrovnání (1867) potvrdilo. 1872 se zcela vzdal politické činnosti a uchýlil se do ústraní.

Vděčnost a úcta národa k jeho zásluhám se projevila přízviskem Palackého Otec národa či Otec vlasti, které mu bylo dáno ještě za jeho života. Jeho pohřeb byl významnější než pohřeb královský, národ ho chápal jako svého vůdce a cítil k němu velkou úctu.

Ač nepříliš vzdělaný, byl velmi bystrý a snažil se být dobrým vychovatelem mládeže.

Definitivní verzi dokončil v roce své smrti, 1876. Dějiny zahrnují dobu od počátků až do nástupu Habsburků 1526. Nešlo mu jen o objektivní skutečnost historických událostí, ale o národně povzbudivý záměr. Proto byly napsány jazykem přístupným široké veřejnosti. Líčení slovanského pravěku je založeno na důvěře v pravost Rukopisů královédvorského a zelenohorského, takže dnes již nemá vědecký význam. Dílo je koncipováno jako výklad filozofie českých dějin, jehož hlavním smyslem byla svoboda.

http://www.pis.cz/cz/dalsi_informace/info_a_z/palacky_frantisek/searchresult=palacky#searchres

In 1860, when the political situation relaxed once more, Frantisek Palacky was offered a seat in the Upper House of Parliament in Vienna, and a title. He refused both, and preferred to remain in Prague, where his position was more of a spiritual one than a political one. Throughout the 1860s and the early 1870s, Palacky continued to work on his history of the Czech Lands, completing first the German version in the 1860s, and then the Czech version, which he finished a few months before his death. Frantisek Palacky passed away on May 26, 1876, aged seventy-eight. http://www.radio.cz/en/article/36682

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Sources:
Orton, Lawrence D., The Prague Slav Congress of 1848. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

Polišenský, Josef, Aristocrats and the Crowd in the Revolutionary Year 1848. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980.

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