The Hungarian Declaration of Independence declared the independence of Hungary from the Habsburg Dynasty during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.
The Declaration of Independence severed Hungary’s dynastic allegiance to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and dissolved the personal union linking the Kingdom of Hungary to the other Habsburg realms. The text did not frame this act as "secession from the Austrian Empire" (established in 1804), since the Kingdom of Hungary had never been constitutionally part of that empire.
The declaration of Hungarian independence was made possible by the positive mood created by the military successes of the Spring Campaign. It was presented to the National Assembly in closed session on 13 April 1849 by Lajos Kossuth, and in open session the following day, despite political opposition from within the Hungarian Peace Party. The declaration was passed unanimously the following day.
The Declaration accused the Habsburg dynasty of treachery, treason, perjury, and waging war against the Hungarian nation, declaring Franz Joseph's actions as a rebellion against the ancient constitutional order.
The Hungarian Declaration of Independence declared the independence of Hungary from the Habsburg Dynasty during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.
The Declaration of Independence severed Hungary’s dynastic allegiance to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and dissolved the personal union linking the Kingdom of Hungary to the other Habsburg realms. The text did not frame this act as "secession from the Austrian Empire" (established in 1804), since the Kingdom of Hungary had never been constitutionally part of that empire.
The declaration of Hungarian independence was made possible by the positive mood created by the military successes of the Spring Campaign. It was presented to the National Assembly in closed session on 13 April 1849 by Lajos Kossuth, and in open session the following day, despite political opposition from within the Hungarian Peace Party. The declaration was passed unanimously the following day. The Declaration accused the Habsburg dynasty of treachery, treason, perjury, and waging war against the Hungarian nation, declaring Franz Joseph's actions as a rebellion against the ancient constitutional order.
Usurpation of the Hungarian throne
On 7 December 1848, the Diet of Hungary formally refused to acknowledge the title of the new Habsburg monarch (Franz Joseph), "as without the knowledge and consent of the diet no one could sit on the Hungarian throne", and called the nation to arms. While in most Western European countries (like France and the United Kingdom) the monarch's reign began immediately upon the death of their predecessor, in Hungary the coronation was indispensable; if it were not properly executed, the kingdom remained "orphaned".
Even during the long personal union between the Kingdom of Hungary and other Habsburg ruled areas, the Habsburg monarchs had to be crowned as King of Hungary in order to promulgate laws there or exercise royal prerogatives in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary. From a legal point of view, according to the coronation oath, a crowned Hungarian king could not relinquish the Hungarian throne during his life; if the king was alive and unable to do his duty as ruler, a governor (or regent, as they would be called in English) had to assume the royal duties. Constitutionally, Franz Joseph's uncle Ferdinand was still the legal king of Hungary. If there was no possibility to inherit the throne automatically due to the death of the predecessor king (since King Ferdinand was still alive), but the monarch wanted to relinquish his throne and appoint another king before his death, technically only one legal solution remained: the parliament had the power to dethrone the king and elect a new king. Due to the legal and military tensions, the Hungarian parliament did not grant Franz Joseph that favour.
Francis Joseph was, in the strict constitutional sense, a textbook usurper in Hungary: under the Pragmatic Sanction of 1723 (Arts. I–III) and the established Hungarian constitutional law governing succession and coronation, the throne was not vacant while the crowned King Ferdinand V was still alive, and Ferdinand’s unilateral abdication could not by itself make Francis Joseph King of Hungary; without the consent of the Hungarian Diet, the constitutional oath, and coronation with the Holy Crown, Francis Joseph had no lawful authority to exercise the Hungarian royal power—his seizure of that power thus constituting a clear case of usurpation. In short: Francis Joseph was regarded by Hungarians as a usurper and a rebel against the ancient constitution and the established order.
Dethronement of the Habsburg dynasty
The dethronement was prompted by four principal causes.
The first was the Imperial Constitution of Olmütz, proclaimed on 4 March 1849, which threatened to strip Hungary of its ancient constitution, abolish its old parliamental system and extinguish its thousand-year-old statehood and reduce it to a mere province within the centralized Austrian Empire. This provoked a widespread outrage in Hungary and became a key immediate cause of the dethronement.
The second cause was Francis Joseph's usurpation of the Hungarian throne;
The third was the repudiation by the Habsburg court of the April Laws, which had been enacted by the Hungarian Diet and sanctioned by King Ferdinand V on 11 April 1848;
And fourth, most decisively, the "usurper's" attempt to forcibly overthrow Hungary's legitimate constitutional government and elected representative parliament by the Habsburg army, which was interpreted by the government and Hungarian parliament as an "attempted coup by military force". The Hungarian Diet consequently declared the dethronement of the entire Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty at the Great Calvinist Church of Debrecen on 14 April 1849.
This event gave to the revolt an excuse of legality. Actually, from this time until the collapse of the revolution, Lajos Kossuth (as elected regent-president) became the de facto and de jure head of state of Hungary.
Declaration of independence
The declaration accused the Habsburgs of crimes, saying
The House of Habsburg-Lorraine is unexampled in the compass of its perjuries [...] Its determination to extinguish the independence of Hungary has been accompanied by a succession of criminal acts, comprising robbery, destruction of property by fire, murder, maiming [...] Humanity will shudder when reading this disgraceful page of history. [...] "The house of Habsburg has forfeited the throne".
— Kossuth, In Liszt, The Weimar Years
In a banquet speech before the Corporation of New York, Kossuth urged the United States to recognize Hungarian independence, saying
The third object of my humble wishes, gentlemen, is the recognition of the independence of Hungary. [...] our Declaration of Independence was not only voted unanimously in our Congress, but every county, every municipality, has solemnly declared its consent and adherence to it; so it became not the supposed, but by the whole realm positively, and sanctioned by the fundamental laws of Hungary.
— Kossuth, In Headley's Life of Kossuth
The declaration
But no one can by any family compact dispose of the constitutional throne without the Hungarian nation.