Bohemian nobility, who were always indifferent in national matters and who
had strong conservative and clerical leanings, concluded this pact with the
Czech democrats purely for their own class interests This unnatural
alliance had a demoralising influence on the Old Czech Party and finally
brought about its downfall.

The Czechs elected two delegates to the parliament summoned for April 29,
1861, while Hungary and Dalmatia sent none, so that the parliament had 203
instead of 343 deputies. In the Upper House the Czechs were represented by
Palacky. In the Lower House the Slavs, forming a united body, again found
themselves in a hopeless minority which was absolutely powerless against
the government. In June, 1863, the Czechs decided not to attend the chamber
again, seeing that all hopes of a modification of the constitution in the
sense of the October Diploma were in vain. The government replied by
depriving them of their mandates and by suspending the constitution in
1865. A period of "Sistierung," that is of veiled absolutism, then set in.

4. In the meantime, a new political group came to the front in Bohemia,
called the Young Czechs. The party was led by Sladkovsky, and had more
democratic leanings than the Old Czechs. In the diet, however, the Czechs
remained united in a single body. The Young Czechs opposed the policy of
passive resistance which the Old Czechs pursued for fully sixteen years,
that is up to 1879. The Young Czechs clearly saw that it enabled Vienna to
rule without the Czechs and against them. The Czechs, of course, still
reckoned upon the break-up of Austria, although, as we shall see later on,
they failed entirely to profit from Austria's difficulties in that period.
In 1865 Rieger openly warned Austria:

"Those who direct the destinies of Austria should remember that
institutions based on injustice and violence have no duration. If you