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The annexation of Transylvania to Hungary against the will of the majority of the inhabitants of Transylvania.

..... The duration of right in its diverse manifestations, depends on the existence of right at its origin.

robert von mohl.[1]

..... Lapse of time never changes violence into right.

T. mamiani.[2]

The Magyars think that with a few speeches, they have settled the question of the annexation of Transylvania to Hungary.

Our Fellow Students, as well as the authors of this annexation, trying to justify this action, which will always bear the marks of violence and injustice, wish to force upon the reader the impression that the great principality of Transylvania would never have been autonomous or independent.

But historical truth cannot be denied, neither can the facts and events already accomplished be dissimulated.

The history of the constitution of Transylvania is divided into three periods, that of the vayvodat[3] that of the independence of the principality[4] and that of the personal union or of the autonomy of the great principality.[5]

In the first, the vayvodes of Transylvania acknowledged the authority of the Hungarian kings, but had their own legislation, courts of justice, administration and army.

In the second, the country was entirely independent of Hungary, and its princes were sovereigns in every acceptation of the word.

In the third, the kings of Hungary were also princes of Transylvania. During this period, the sovereign and the army only were common to both countries.

Their legislation, their courts of justice, their administration, all were entirely separated.[6]

Besides the fact, of the independence and of the autonomy of Transylvania may be clearly seen in the unwilling[7] admissions of the most fanatic writer Dr. Korbuly, in his treatise on Hungarian common law. This classical manual is to be found in all the law courts of Hungary. If the Magyars were honest, they would not, with a view to arrange historical facts according to their fancy, disclaim their own professors.

Yet every reader, however little he may know about the question must admit that: if Transylvania were not independent, of what use was it to decree, by so many laws,[8] its union with Hungary?

If Transylvania had never been autonomous, what need was there to decree its annexation?

For it is clear that the very act of effecting a union proves the former autonomy and independence of Transylvania, when, in the historical life of the two countries, the question of union and annexation was taken into consideration, two factors, not one, were necessarily required,which proves that those who decreed this union and this annexation, recognized by the decree the former autonomy and independence of Transylvania.

What was the cause of this annexation?

That is easily explained, if we remark that the warmest advocate of this idea was the Hungarian baron Wesselenyi,who was at the same time the most fanatical propagator of the ideas of magyarisation.[9]

But who decreed the fusion of Transylvania with Hungary, and upon what right did they act?

The Magyars alone decreed it, that is to say, those who form an absolute minority in Transylvania.

The Magyars affirm that in the diet of Cluj in 1848, which decreed this union « none of those who had a right to take part in it were excluded ».

These are mere words!

The diet of Cluj, in 1848, had no right whatever, to decree the union of Transylvania with Hungary, for the excellent reason that the Roumanian people, that is the absolute majority of the population in Transylvania, were not represented at this feudal diet; the composition of which was based on the eleventh law of Transylvania of 1791, which only recognized the right of the Magyar aristocracy to legislate in the name of the whole country.

Not only the Roumanians did not assist at this Diet, but they protested a priori against the union, in their celebrated national assembly held on the « Champ de la Liberté. May 15^th and 16^th 1848.

In their 16^th article, the Roumanians demanded, « that the Magyars should not discuss the question of the union with Hungary, until the Roumanian nation had been constituted and organized as a national body having a deliberative and decisive vote in the parliament; if on the contrary, the Diet of Transylvania should discuss this union of our country without us, the Roumanian nation would in this case solemnly protest ».[10]

This protest was sent by a deputation of 110 members to the Transylvanian government, and by another to the emperor Ferdinand.

The Roumanians would not admit that the country of which they formed the preponderant majority of the population should be annexed to Hungary to satisfy the Magyar minority, without their even being asked whether they consented or not, or under what conditions they would consent.

Besides the laws of 1848 are no longer valid, in consequence ot the events which happened in the same year when the Roumanians rose up in arms against their Magyar oppressors.

In 1863, the autonomy of Transylvania was re-established; this was the instigator of the convocation, the works and the decisions of the Diet assembled at Sibiu, in 1863 and 1864 and was based upon the equality of the right of nations.

But the Roumanians did not long enjoy this equality.

In 1865, the situation ot the empire of the Hapsburgs was in a critical state, and a war with Germany was foreseen.

The Magyars seized the opportunity and succeeded in persuading the crown to convoke another diet at Cluj, oct. 6^th 1865, « again to deliberate upon the question of the Union of Transylvania with Hungary » as the address of the emperor expressed it.

This diet declared the union voted in 1848[11] to be valid, and the diet of Pesth ratified[12] this union.

But the diet had not the right, any more than that of 1848 had, to decide this question of union, because neither the one nor the other had been convoked on the basis of the equality of national, political, and personal rights, but on that of law XI of 1791, a feudal and aristocratie law.

This diet was constituted in the following manner: « The deputies elected numbered 89 Magyars, 31 Saxons and 13 Roumanians. Those named by the king and having the right of vote were 189 in number, and were taken exclusively from the Magyar aristocracy.[13]

It is thus that the Roumanians, as much in their national as in their personal politics, have been humbled and trodden under foot.

It is evident then that the annexation of Hungary with Transylvania, in the way that it has been done, contrary to the wish of the Roumanians, is an act ot violence, directed against their existence.

M. Fischhof, who is famed for his knowledge on the questions of nationality, writes thus on the subject of the annexation:

« The Magyars, in annexing Transylvania, which had until now enjoyed its own legislation and its own administration, have not even left it a provincial diet, and by this means have rendered it impossible for the majority of the population, the Roumanians, to use their mother tongue in any large deliberative body... It is not the libels of Bratianu, but the want of tact in the Magyar politics which threatens our interests on the Lower-Danube »[14] etc.

Let the Magyar nation, as well as its students be thoroughly convinced that the Roumanians will never forget the violence that has been done them.