spokesman, of the Czech-dominated Národní výbor (National Committee).37 In May, Palacký helped to organize the Prague Slav Congress, to counteract Great German nationalism and Magyar separatism and to reaffirm Slav loyalty to the Monarchy. Convinced of the correctness of the policies that underlay the move, Havlíček endorsed the congress and publicized it enthusiastically in the press.38 In mid-June, the Whitsuntide uprising forced an end to the congress, and both men condemned the revolt.39 Armed insurrections invariably provoked military reaction, they believed, and were antithetical to stable, productive change. For that reason, too, they condemned the October student rebellion in Vienna and efforts by the anarchist Bakunin to topple all legally established European governments.40
Nevertheless, the two men gradually developed some differences, and in some areas the differences were more than incidental. Palacký, for example, had a sophisticated appreciation of almost all aspects of governmental reform. As the greatest Czech constitutional thinker of the nineteenth century, he recognized in 1848 the difficulties of drafting a constitution that would provide Austria the decentralization of authority demanded by revolutionaries and, at the same time, be acceptable to the Crown. In three constitutional drafts, he struggled to reconcile contradictions between the principles of “historic state-rights” (Staatsrecht) and “nationality,” the most frequently mentioned criterial for determining the nature and scope of federalization.41 As we know, he never resolved the problem. But his failure resulted more from factors beyond his control than from any lack of insight or from a lack of trust in him by authorities who appointed him to the imperial constitution-drafting committee.42
Havlíček, in his constitutional thinking, more closely resembled the average Austrian citizen. Sometimes interested, sometimes not, he was often confused. Already in March, 1848, he had warned that “constitution” was an evasive word, variously interpreted, and easily misunderstood.43 Yet in commenting on constitutional issues, he favored first Staatsrecht, then “nationality,” and sometimes both simultaneously, as the basis of Czech autonomy.44 When finally in December, 1849, he endorsed Palacký’s scheme for an Empire of eight autonomous ethnic units, he did so to revive an already dead revolution, rather than from a conviction that the plan was the best possible one.45
Other differences were due to contrasts in personality or to occasional disagreements over tactics. Palacký’s temperament enabled him to get on well with most persons. Among his friends he counted Slavs and non-Slavs, bourgeois, aristocrats, and ecclesiastics. His zealous
