The October Diploma was a constitution of the Austrian Empire adopted by Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph on October 20, 1860. The Diploma attempted to increase the power of the conservative nobles by giving them more power over their own lands through a program of aristocratic federalism. This policy was a failure almost from the start, and Franz Josef was forced to make further concessions in the February Patent of 1861. Even so, Historians have argued that the October Diploma began the "constitutional" period of the empire.
Famous quotes containing the words october and/or diploma:
“The autumnal change of our woods has not yet made a deep impression on our own literature yet. October has hardly tinged our poetry.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue.”
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