Twelve Points (1848)
12개조 (1848)
The twelve demands, headed "What the Hungarian nation wants", put forward by the revolutionaries of Pest on 15 March 1848: freedom of the press and an end to censorship, a responsible government in Buda-Pest, an annual parliament, equality before the law, a national army, equal taxation, the abolition of socage, juries, a national bank, an army oath to the constitution, the release of political prisoners and union with Transylvania. They became the guiding principles of the April Laws.
In depth
With the reformers divided, Ferenc Deák united the liberals on a common platform just before the elections, and the Twelve Points that came out of it were taken up on 15 March by the "Youths of March" of the Pilvax coffee house. That morning Mór Jókai read the Twelve Points and Sándor Petőfi recited the National Song at the faculties of the university, and at the Landerer press the crowd printed both without censorship, carrying out the first demand, freedom of the press, on its own authority.
After a mass meeting before the National Museum in the afternoon, the crowd had the Pest town council sign, crossed to Buda, made the Governor-General's council sign the Twelve Points and freed the political prisoner Mihály Táncsics. The Twelve Points were then enacted as the "March Laws", the April Laws, and in the negotiations of 1867 they were restored except for the ninth and tenth points.