This dynasty, however, which can at no epoch point to a ruler who based his power on the freedom of the people, adopted a course towards this nation, from father to son, which deserves the appellation of perjury.

The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery.  Foiled in this effort by the untiring vigilance of the nation, it directed its endeavour to lame the power, to check the progress of Hungary, causing it to minister to the gain of the provinces of Austria, but only to the extent which enabled those provinces to bear the load of taxation with which the prodigality of the imperial house weighed them down; having first deprived those provinces of all constitutional means of remonstrating against a policy which was not based upon the welfare of the subject, but solely tended to maintain despotism and crush liberty in every country of Europe.

It has frequently happened that the Hungarian nation, in despite of this systematized tyranny, has been obliged to take up arms in self-defence.  Although constantly victorious in these constitutional struggles, yet so moderate has the nation ever been in its use of the victory, so strongly has it confided in the king’s plighted word, that it has ever laid down arms as soon as the king, by new compacts and fresh oaths, has guaranteed the duration of its rights and liberty.  But every new compact was as futile as those which preceded it; each oath which fell from the royal lips was but a renewal of previous perjuries.  The policy of the house of Austria, which aimed at destroying the independence of Hungary as a state, has been pursued unaltered for three hundred years.

It was in vain that the Hungarian nation shed its blood for the deliverance of Austria whenever it was in danger; vain were all the sacrifices which it made to serve the interests of the reigning house; in vain did it, on the renewal of the royal promises, forget the wounds which the past had inflicted; vain was the fidelity cherished by the Hungarians for their king, and which, in moments of danger, assumed a character of devotion; they were in vain, since the history of the government of that dynasty in Hungary presents but an unbroken series of perjured deeds from generation to generation.

In spite of such treatment, the Hungarian nation has all along respected the tie by which it was united to this dynasty; and in now decreeing its expulsion from the throne, it acts under the natural law of self-preservation, being driven to pronounce this sentence by the full conviction that the house of Lorraine-Hapsburg is compassing the destruction of Hungary as an independent State:  so that this dynasty has been the first to tear the bands by which it was united to the Hungarian nation, and to confess that it had torn them in the face of Europe.  For many causes a nation is justified, before God and man, in expelling a reigning dynasty.  Among such are the following: