Fazekas Csaba: Palóczy László beszédei és írásai 1848-1849 (Miskolc, 1998)

The Speeches and Writings of László Palóczy (1848-1849) Summary in English

sition he stepped on the stage of party politics again. He was elected unanimously in the southern district of Miskolc on the first election of popular representation in 1848. The Act 4 of 1848 § 8 said that - according to the practice of most democratically elected parliaments - the institute of the president by seniority was introduced, which meant that it was the oldest MP (the so-called doyen) who presided over the sessions from the establishing of the House to the electing of the chief clerks (the president and the vice-president). The first president of seniority was László Palóczy in 1848 and later there were some people wondering why it was just him, since there are no records of anybody previously having examined the personal particulars of the more than four hundred elected members. On the other hand he was undoubtedly thought the most respected person with widely known history in the opposition party, and as a fine political orator he guaranteed the success of the opening ceremony of the parliament. On 4 July 1848 he greeted the representatives of the nation, though as some people remarked - his pathetic speech did not express the lively atmosphere of the times since he compared their activities with Árpád the Conquering and the assembly in Opusztaszer, when he summarized the history of the legislative body of Hungary. While the sessions were held in Budapest he received several commisions: the most important was, that he became the president of the 15 member petition committee of the Parliament. Its task was to judge and propose previously the petitions coming in overwhelming volumes to the legislative chamber. There were applications and petitions requested by private persons, institutions, municipal authorities and also files sent by different ministries. Personal problems were of rare occurence, the majority of requests they had to judge were based on real needs of different social circles waiting to be fulfilled by the legislative chamber (for example the serf villages applied for abolishing the remnants of statute labour, tradesmen for the abolishing institutes that prevented free competition, others applied for laws granting civic rights for the Jews and remedy for the nationality problems, catholic priests applied for repealing celibacy, etc.). In theory the petition committee could have had a main role in putting the representatives in touch with the society, but since autumn he had more and more difficulties in doing his job. In the autumn of 1848 Palóczy mainly sympathized with the radical. His proposal at the end of December created a sensation: it demanded uniform indemnities for the former landowners for the lands in villein tenure all over the country, though the Minister of Finance wanted to divide the counties into nine categories according to the quality of the land. Palóczy's proposal could be wrecked only after long delaying tactics and repeated votes, though the attention was rather drawn to the events of the war on 30 December. At the beginning of 1849 the Parliament removed its residence to Debrecen because of the advancing of the Austrian troops. His activity became essential here, because (in the absence of the official presidents) he presided at the parliament as a president by seniority, and considerably contributed to the more or less efficient functioning of the Parliament. One of his fellow-members did not exaggerate when he claimed that 'the oldest member of the parliament had the honour of presiding the debates during the hardest times. The president appointed by