The April Laws , also called March Laws , were a collection of laws legislated by Lajos Kossuth with the aim of modernizing the Kingdom of Hungary into a parliamentary democracy , nation state . The laws were passed by the Hungarian Diet in March 1848 in Pozsony (Pressburg, now Bratislava , Slovakia ) and signed by king Ferdinand V at the Primate's Palace in the same city on 11 April 1848.
8-467: The April laws utterly erased all privileges of the Hungarian nobility. In April 1848, Hungary became the third country of Continental Europe [after France (1791), and Belgium (1831) ] to enact law about democratic parliamentary elections. The new suffrage law (Act V of 1848) transformed the old feudal estates based parliament ( Estates General ) into a democratic representative parliament. This law offered
16-466: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . The Estates The Estates , also known as the States ( French : États , German : Landstände , Dutch : Staten , Hungarian : Rendek), was the assembly of the representatives of the estates of the realm , the divisions of society in feudal times, called together for purposes of deliberation, legislation or taxation . A meeting of
24-584: The April Laws of the revolutionary parliament (with the exception of the laws based on the 9th and 10th points) were accepted by Francis Joseph. Hungary did not regain full external autonomy until the Compromise of 1867 which would later influence Hungary's position in World War I . The conservatives, who generally stood in opposition to the majority of reforms, managed to retain a narrow advantage in
32-792: The French Revolution. Estates continued to meet in Navarre until 1828, in Hungary until 1848, in Sweden until 1866, and in the Duchy of Mecklenburg until 1918. In some countries, the parliament kept the same name when its feudal organization was replaced with a more modern kind of representation, like census or universal suffrage . In Sweden, the Riksdag of the Estates was replaced with
40-455: The estates that covered an entire kingdom was called an estates general . The first estate was the clergy , the second the nobility and the third the commoners , although actual membership in the third estate varied from country to country. Bourgeoisie , peasants and people with no estate from birth were separated in Sweden and Finland as late as 1905. Representation through estates
48-540: The traditional feudal parliament. On the other hand, the reform-minded liberals found themselves divided in their support for either Széchenyi's or Kossuth's ideas. Immediately before the elections, however, Deák succeeded in reuniting all the Liberals on the common platform of "The Twelve Points". The so-called "Twelve Points" of reformers became the ruling principles of the April laws. This Hungary -related article
56-555: The widest suffrage right in Europe at the time. The imperative program included Hungarian control of its popular national guard , national budget and Hungarian foreign policy , as well as the removal of serfdom . In 1848, the new young Austrian monarch Francis Joseph arbitrarily "revoked" the laws without any legal competence. 18 years later, during the negotiations of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 ,
64-529: Was the norm in Europe until the advent of popular representation beginning with the French Revolution . The Estates General of France were convoked only twice between 1614 and 1789, both times during the Fronde (1648–53), and in neither case did they actually meet. At the final meeting of the Estates in 1789 , they voted to join in a single National Assembly , generally seen as marking the start of
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