However, owing to this endless struggle which the Serbs of Hungary were waging, they developed their activity and energy. The land was rich, particularly Bačka, and that province held the town of Novi Sad, which was not only prosperous but the home of learning. When Serbia was not in a position to devote herself to intellectual or to literary life, she was assisted always by the Serbs of Novi Sad. And thus in other parts of southern Hungary the Serb, by his continual efforts against other people, such as the industrious German, made to flower those aptitudes within himself which under Turkish domination had perforce been lying dormant.... It is no unusual thing in the Banat to find a Serbian farmer who is five or six times a millionaire in francs. And if, like a hearty one whom I found having lunch without a collar, they have no children, then they are even more anxious to build schools and churches and to support anything Serbian. This gentleman, who lived in his native place, had presented it with a very fine school, and then had gone there himself, to learn how to read and write.... The Serbs of southern Hungary took a most active part in the events of 1848. When they saw that a conflict with the Magyars was inevitable, owing to the new Hungarian Constitution which created an enormous and free Hungary, but only free for the Magyars--a State founded on a mixture of democratic and feudal principles, reserving always the chief places for the magnates, lay and ecclesiastic, while rejecting the idea of universal suffrage--then the Serbs of southern Hungary assembled at Karlovci at the beginning of May and conferred upon Archbishop Rajacsich the title of Patriarch, at the same time electing Colonel Stephen Čuplikac the voivoda or chief of the Serbian Voivodina, which was to comprise Syrmia, Baranja, Bačka and a part of the Banat. BUT THE CROATS STRIVE FOR POLITICAL LIBERTIES The Croats, whose last traces of independence had been wiped out by the Magyars, rallied round Colonel Joseph Jellačić. In the resounding and statesmanlike phrases of his proclamation on March 11, Jellačić had declared that a grand purpose was before them. "It is to attain," said he, "the renascence of our people! Alone I can do nothing, if among the sons of one same mother there is not peace and understanding and fraternity." "We are," exclaimed Gaj at a sitting of the Diet--"we are one nation! There are no more Serbs nor Croats!" One has been too apt to consider that the Croats armed themselves merely in defence of their own wrongs; their leaders anyhow looked far beyond.