refused a union with Germany. The controversy on the subject of the Frankfort Parliament became still more violent, and the ill-feeling between the Czechs and the Germans more manifest.
The attitude of the Czechs was clearly shown in Palacký's famous letter addressed to the Commission of Fifty, in answer to an invitation to take part in the work of preparing the Constituent Assembly. In this letter he contested the German assertion that Bohemia had always belonged to Germany. The relations between Bohemia and Germany were, according to his opinion, only an understanding between the sovereigns, not between the peoples. The efforts of the Parliament were directed against the independence of Austria, and were therefore threatening the existence of the Slav nationalities. Palacký then gave the above-mentioned arguments as the grounds on which the Czechs abstained from participating in the formation of the new Germany. In this letter the political programme of all the Czechs and Austrian Slavs of 1848 was clearly set forth, and it was then that Palacký used his celebrated and so often quoted sentence, "In truth, if the Austrian State had not already existed, we ought in the interest of Europe and even of humanity itself, to work for its establishment." Later on, when Palacký realised how completely the Habsburgs had given the Slavs over to the Germans, he completed his
