By these laws Hungary became a modern state, possessing a constitutional government. The Government was vested in a ministry responsible to the Parliament, all the inhabitants of the country were declared equal before the law, the privileges of the nobility were abolished, the soil was declared free, and the right of free worship accorded to all. The institution of national guards was introduced, the utmost liberty of the press was secured, Transylvania became a part of the mother-country--in a word, the national and political condition of the country was reorganized, in every particular, in harmony with the spirit, the demands, and aspirations of our age. At the same time the men placed at the head of the Government were such as possessed the fullest confidence of the people. The first ministry was composed of the most distinguished patriots. Count Louis Batthyanyi was the President; and acting in conjunction with him were Francis Deak, as Minister of Justice; Count Stephen Szechenyi, as Minister of Home Affairs; and Louis Kossuth, as Minister of Finance.
The great mass of the people hailed with boundless enthusiasm the new Government and the magnificent reforms. The transformation, however, had been so sudden and unexpected, and the old aristocratic world, with all its institutions and its ancient organization, had been swept away with such vehement precipitation that even under ordinary circumstances, in the absence of all opposition, the new ideas and tendencies could have hardly entered into the political life of the nation without causing some confusion and disorder. But, in addition to these natural drawbacks, the new order of things had to contend with certain national elements in the population, which, feeling themselves injured in their real or imaginary interests, were bent on mischief, hoping to be able to rob the nation, in the midst of the ensuing troubles, of the great political prize she had won. Certain circles of the court and classes of the people strove equally hard to surround with difficulties the practical introduction of the Constitution of 1848.
The court and the standing army, the party of the soldier class, feared that their commanding position would be impaired by the predominating influence of the people. The non-Hungarian portion of the inhabitants, choosing to ignore the fact that the new laws secured, without distinction of nationality, equal rights to every citizen of the State, were apprehensive lest the liberal constitution would benefit chiefly the Hungarian element of the nation. They, therefore, encouraged by the secret machinations of the Government of Vienna, took up arms, in order to drag the country, which was preparing to take possession of her new liberties, into a civil war. The Croatians, under the lead of Ban Jellachich, and the Wallachs and Serbs, led by other imperial officers, and yielding to their persuasions, rose in rebellion against Hungary, and began to persecute, plunder, and murder the Hungarians living among them.