inexperience and weakness, and recognition of constraints imposed by an authoritarian constitutional monarchy led Palacký in January, 1861, to ally with the party of conservative great landowners, at that time the only powerful political force favoring greater autonomy for the historic Czech lands. He did so, recognizing that that party upheld ideals and interests more often than not incompatible with those of most Czechs, especially peasants or workers of little property or education. Palacký and Rieger nonetheless found this alliance necessary in obtaining a majority of votes in the Bohemian Diet on certain issues and in trying to wring concessions from the imperial authorities. Prudence and a sense of the possible also helped dictate Palacký’s expression of Czech demands for greater political autonomy in terms of historic Bohemian state-rights, on the theory that the crown would be more likely to restore what it had once taken away than to make political concessions on the basis of any natural rights of man or of small nations.10 Bohemian state-rights based on historical precedent also, in Palacký’s opinion, reminded Czechs of that glorious past from which they derived a sense of nationl identity and confidence concerning the future. But prudence, more than that precedent, required that party programs be based upon existing laws and institutions and phrased in terms that did not frighten the Habsburgs, even though Palacký viewed that dynasty as an episode in the histories of peoples who long predated and would long outlive it.11 Indeed, so long as the Czechs kept this in mind and maintained self-governmental institutions and a liberal state-rights program, they did not need to fear making small day-to-day compromises with the Habsburgs.
By deed as well as by word, Palacký argued that the advancement of Czech interests at times required courageous and principled action, as well as clearly enunciated principles, prudent conduct, and a keen sense of historical continuity. At moments of great danger or opportunity, the Czechs had to have the courage to act decisively on the basis of principle instead of expediency. This he did on several occasions, notably in sending his famous open letter to the Frankfurt Vorparlament of 1848, in attending the 1867 Slavic Ethnographic Congress in Moscow, and by having with Rieger brought the Czech question to French attention before and during the Franco-German War. All three acts aroused strong Habsburg and Austrian German disapproval and led to Palacký being denounced for “Panslavism” or for meddling in foreign policy, whose management remained the prerogative of the crown. By these actions, Palacký may temporarily have set back the Czech national movement to the extent that more imperial officials became prejudiced against it and its leaders. But, at the
