< . ' ^ \ -^ .\ ^ ,o^c, -^ ~ S .^Sf^-i^/* -ir.. ^i ^ ,s^ ^ H -n^ -^j^ V A^'^^: .^^ .r -1 . r- ->> o>' s »« ;. ^^ J ■^o. ,-0- %%^ ci-, ,> '^ S^ J ^ |; ^ '".j'%^0^ .^^ ■' ^^^ -' ^'f' 1-^'"^ 'V-^ '^^^ .^^ ^0' ^^^h% <^^V> <^^rC\;|f^ ^^ ^ ,^ ^' V ^hich most desire my presence in Europe now, have said to me, " Hasten on, hasten on, to the great, free, rich, and powerful people of the United States, and bring over its brotherly aid to the cause of your country, so intimately connected with European liberty;" and here I stand to plead the cause' of common human rights before your great Uepublic. Humble as I am, God the Almighty has selected me to represent the cause of humanity before you. My warrant hereto is written in the sympathy and confidence of all who are oppressed, and of all who, as your elder sister the British nation, sympathize with the oppressed. It is written in the hopes and expectations you have entitled the world to entertain, by liberating me out of my prison. But it has pleased the Almighty to make out of my humble self yet another opportunity for a thing which may prove a happy turning-point in the destinies of the world. I bring you a brotherly greeting from the people of Great Britain. I speak not in an official character, imparted by diplomacy, whose secrecy is the curse of the world, but I am the har- binger of the public spirit of the people, which I witnessed pronouncing itself in the most decided manner, openly — that the people of England, united to you with enlightened bro- therly love, as it is united in blood — conscious of your strength as it is conscious of its own, has for ever abandoned every sentiment of irritation and rivalry, and desires the brotherlv alliance of the United States to secure to everv GREETING FROM GREAT BRITAIN. 25 nation the sovereign right to dispose of itself, and to protect that right against encroaching arrogance. It desires to league with you against the league of despots, and with you to stand sponsor at the approaching baptism of European liberty. Now, gentlemen, I have stated my position. I am a straightforward man. I am a republican. I have avowed it openly in monarchical but free England ; and am happy to state that I have lost nothing by this avowal there. I hope I shall not lose here, in republican America, by that frankness, which must be one of the chief qualities of every republican. So I beg leave openly to state the following points : First, that I take it to be duty of honour and principle not to meddle with any party- question of your own domestic affairs. Secondly, T profess my admiration for the glorious principle of union, on which stands the mighty pyramid of your greatness. Taking my ground on this constitutional fact, it is not to a party, but to your united people that I will confidently address my humble requests. Within the limits of your laws I will use every honest exer- tion to gain your effectual sympathy, and your financial material and political aid for my country's freedom and independence, and entreat the realization of the hopes w^hich your generosity has raised. And, therefore, thirdly, I frankly state that my aim is to restore my fatherland to the full enjoyment of her own independence, which has been legitimately declared, and cannot have lost its rightfulness by the violent invasion of foreign Eussian arms. What can be opposed to it ? The frown of Mr. Hulsemann — the anger of that satellite of the Czar, called Erancis- Joseph of Austria! and the immense danger (with which some European and American papers threaten you), lest your minister at Vienna receive his passports, and Mr. Hulsemann leave Washington, should I be received in my official capacity ? Now, as to your Minister at Vienna, how you can reconcile the letting him stay there with your opinion of the cause of Hungary, I do not know ; for the present absolutist atmos- phere of Europe is not very propitious to American principles. But as to Mr. Hulsemann, do not believe that he would be 2 26 HIS PRINCIPLES AND AIMS. SO ready to leave Washington. He has extremely well digested the caustic words which Mr. Webster has adminis- tered to him so gloriously. I know that your public spirit would never allow any responsible depository of the executive power to be regulated in its policy by all the Hulsemanns or all the Francis-Josephs in the world. But it is also my agreeable conviction that the highminded Government of the United States shares warmly the sentiments of the people. It has proved it by executing in a ready and dignified manner the resolution of Congress on behalf of my liberation. It has proved it by calling on the Congress to consider how I shall be received, and even this morning I was honoured by the express order of the Government with an official salute from the batteries of the United States, in a manner in which, according to the military rules, only a high official personage can be greeted. I came not to your glorious shores to enjoy a happy rest — I came not to gather triumphs of personal distinction, but as a humble petitioner, in my country's name, as its freely chosen constitutional leader, to entreat your generous aid. I have no other claims than those which the oppressed prin- ciple of freedom has to the aid of victorious liberty. If you consider these claims not sufficient for your active and effectual sympathy, then let me know at once that the hopes have failed, with which Europe has looked to your great, mighty, and glorious Eepublic — let me know it at once that I may hasten back and say to the oppressed nations, *' Let us fight, forsaken and single-handed, the battle of Leonidas ; let us trust to God, to our right, and to our good sword ; for we have no other help on earth." But if your generous Ee- publican hearts are animated by the high principle of freedom and of the community in human destinies, — if you have the will, as undoubtedly you have the power, to support the cause of freedom against the sacrilegious league of despotism, then give me some days of calm reflection, to become ac- quainted with the ground upon which I stand — let me take kind advice as to my course — let me learn whether any steps have been already taken in favour of that cause which I have the honour to represent ; and then let me have a new oppor- BALTIMORE RESOLUTIONS. 27 tunity to expound before you my humble request in a practical way. I confidently hope, Mr. Mayor, the Corporation and Citizens of the Empire City will grant me a second oppor- tunity. If this be your generous will, then let me take this for a boon of happier days; and let me add, with a sigh of thanksgiving to the Almighty God, that Providence has selected your glorious country to be the pillar of freedom, as it is already the asylum to oppressed humanity. I am told that I shall have the high honour to review your patriotic militia. My heart throbs at the idea of seeing this gallant army enlisted on the side of freedom against despotism. The world would then soon be free, and you the saviours of humanity. Citizens of New-York, it is under your protection that I place the sacred cause of freedom and the independence of Hungary. •IHI*' YI.— EEPLY TO THE BALTIMOEE ADDRESS. [Dec, 10th, 1851.] Mr. Henry P. Brooks, Chairman of the Committee of the Baltimore City Council, came forward, and after congratu- lating Kossuth upon his release from peril, and arrival in America, he presented the following resolutions of the Council written on parchment :— In City Council. Whereas it is understood that Louis Kossuth, the illustrious Hun- garian patriot and exile, is about seeking an asylum upon our shores ; and whereas it is beheved that the city of Baltimore, in common with the whole people of the United States, feel a deep and abiding interest in the cause of freedom wherever it is assailed, and entertain the most sincere regret for the unfortunate condition of Hungary ; and whereas, in the reception of Kossuth, an opportunity is offered of expressing our sympathy for the cause of Hungarian independence — of recording our detestation of the unholy coahtion by which that gallant people have been crushed, and of evincing our admiration of the noble conduct of the Turkish Sultan in refusing to deliver to the despots of Em'ope that illustrious exile and patriot whom it is about to be our privilege and pride to receive, as it befits the chosen people 28 KOSSUTH^S REPLY. of liberty to receive one who has so nobly battled and suffered in that sacred cause : therefore — Ilesolved, By the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, that we look to the arrival of Kossuth upon our shores with mingled feelings of satisfaction and regret — satisfaction that we are enabled to afford a safe asylum to an illustrious patriot — regret that the cause of liberty should give birth to such necessity. JResolved, That we sympathize fully with the Hungarians in their important struggles for Independence, but mindful of that Providence which croT\Tied our own efforts for Hberty with success, trust yet to behold that glorious future which their noble leader so eloquently predicts for his beloved country. Hesolved, That we regard the alUance with Russia and Austria for the purpose of crushing the spirit of liberty in Hungary as a fit accompaniment in the annals of time for the infamous partition of unfortunate Poland by the same tyrannical powers, each alike worthy of the execration of the civilized world. JResolved, That we cordially welcome Kossuth and his exiled com- panions to the full enjoyment of American Hberty and an asylum beyond the reach of European despotism. Resolved^ farther, That a Joint Committee of five from each branch of the City Council be appointed, whose duty it shall be, in conjunction with the Mayor, in the event of their arrival in our city, to tender to them appropriate pubUc tokens of our esteem and admiration for their gallant conduct, as well as of our sympathy for their sufferings and their cause. Committee under the last resolution — First Branch : Henry P. Brooke, John Dukehart, J. Hanson Thomas, David Blanford, John Thomas Morris. Second Branch : Jacob J. Cohen, W. B. Morris, Hugh A. Cooper, James C. Ninde, G-eo. A. Lovering. John H. J. Jerome, Mayor. John S. Beown, President of First Branch. Hugh Bolton, President of Second Branch. City of Baltimore, State of Maryland, United States of America, Oct. 28, A.D. 1851. [After hearing several other complimentary addresses, Kossuth in a few minutes replied. He began with apologies, and then proceeded] : — Permit me to say, that in my opinion the word " glory " should be blotted out from the Dictionary in respect to in- dividuals, and only left for use in respect to nations. What- ever a man can do for his country, even though he should AIM OF THE HUNGARIAN REFORMS. 29 live a long life, and have the strongest faculties, would not be too much : for he ought to use his utmost exertions, and his utmost powers, in return for the gifts he receives. What- ever a man can do on behalf of his country and of humanity, would never be so much as his duty caUs upon him to do, still less so much as to merit the use of the word '* glory " in regard to himself. Once more, I say, that duty belongs to the man, and glory to the nation. When an honest man does his duty to his own country, and becomes a patriot, he acts for all humanity, and does his duty to mankind. You have bestowed great attention upon the cause of Hungary, and the subject is here well understood generally, which is a benefit to me. I declare to you all, that I find more exact knowledge of the Hungarian cause here, than in any other place I have been. Yet I am astonished to see in a report of the proceedings of the United States Senate, that a member rose and said that we were not struggling for the principle of Freedom and of Liberty, but rather for the support of our ancient Charter. This, gentlemen, is a mis- representation of our cause. There is a truth in the assertion that we were struggling for our ancient rights, for the right of self-government is an ancient right. The right of self- government was ours a thousand years ago, and has been guaranteed to us by the coronation oaths of more than thirty of our kings. I say that this right was guaranteed to us, yet it had become a dead letter in the course of time. Before the Eevolution of 1848 we were long struggling to enforce our notorious but often invaded rights ; but the whole people were not interested in them : for although they were consti- tutional rights, they were restricted in ancient times, not to a particular race, but to a particular class, called Nobles. These did not belong to the Magyars alone, but to all the . races that settled in the country, to the Sclaves, to the WaUachians, the Serbs, and to others, whatever their race or their extraction. Yet none but the Nobles were privileged. We saw that for one class only to be interested in these rights was not enough, and we wished to make them a benefit to every man in the country, and to replace the old Constitution by one which should give a common and universal right to all men to vote, without regard to the tongue they speak or 30 AIM or THE HUNGARIAN REFORMS. the Church at which they pray. I need not enter further into the subject than to say, that we established a system of practically universal suffrage, of equality in representation, a just share in taxation for the support of the State, an equality in the benefits of public education, and in all those blessings which are derived from the freedom of a free people. It has been asked by some, why I allowed a treacherous general to ruin our cause. I have always been anxious not to assume any duty for which I might be unsuited. If I had undertaken the practical direction of military operations, and anything went amiss, I feared that my conscience would torture me, as guilty of the fall of my country, as I had not been familiar with military tactics. I therefore entrusted my country's cause, thus far, into other hands ; and I weep for the result. In exile, I have tried to profit by the past and prepare for the future. I believe that the confidence of Hungary in me is not shaken by misfortune nor broken by my calumniators. I have had all in my own hands once ; and if ever I am in the same position again, I will act. I , will not become a Napoleon nor an Alexander, and labour for my own ambition ; but I will labour for freedom and for the moral well-being of man. I do but ask you to enforce your own great constitutional principles, and not permit Eussia to interfere. YII.— HEREDITAEY POLICY OF AMEEICA. \_8peech at the Corporation Dinner New YorJc^ Dec. 11th, 1851.] The Mayor having made an address to Kossuth, closed by proposing the following toast : — " HuNaARY — Betrayed but not subdued. Her call for help is but the echo of our appeal against the tread of the oppressor." Kossuth rose to reply. The enthusiasm with which he was greeted was unparallelled. It shook the building, and the chandeliers and candelabras trembled before it. Every one present rose to his feet, and appeared excited to frenzy. The ladies participated in honouring the Hungarian hero. At length the storm of applause subsided, and then ensued a silence most intense. Every eye was fixed on Kossuth, and HEREDITARY POLICY. 31 when he commenced his speech, the noise caused by the dropping of a pin could be heard throughout the large and capacious room. Kossuth's speech. Sir, — In returning you my most humble thanks for the honour you did me by your toast, and by coupling my name with that cause which is the sacred aim of my life, I am so overwhelmed with emotion by all it has been my strange lot to experience since I am on your glorious shores, that I am unable to find words ; and knowing that all the honour I meet with has the higher meaning of principles, I beg leave at once to fall back on my duties, which are the lasting topics of my reflections, my sorrows, and my hopes. I take the present for a highly important opportunity, which may decide the success or failure of my visit. I must therefore implore your indulgence for a pretty long and plain development of my views concerning that cause which the citizens of New York, and you particularly, gentlemen, honour with generous interest. When I perceive that the sympathy of your people with Hungary is almost universal, and that they pronounce their feelings in its favour with a resolution such as denotes noble and great deeds about to follow ; I might feel inclined to take for granted, at least m princi^ple, that we shall have your generous aid for restoring to our land its sovereign indepen- dence. Nothing but details of negotiation would seem to be left for me, were not my confidence checked, by being told, that, according to many of your most distinguished Statesmen, it is a ruling principle of your public policy never to interfere in European affairs. I highly respect the source of this conviction, gentlemen This source is your religious attachment to the doctrines of those, who bequeathed to you the immortal constitution which, aided by the unparalleled benefits of nature, has raised you, in seventy-five years, from an infant people to a mighty nation. The wisdom of the founders of your great republic you see in its happy results. What would be the conse- quences of departing from that wisdom, you are not sure. 33 POLICY NOT A PRINCIPLE. You therefore instinctively fear to touch, even with improving hands, the dear legacy of those great men. And as to your glorious constitution, all humanity can only wish that you and your posterity may long preserve this religious attach- ment to its fundamental principles, which by no means ex- clude development and progress ; and that every citizen of your great Union, thankfully acknowledging its immense benefits, may never forget to love it more than momentary passion or selfish and immediate interest. May every citizen of your glorious country for ever remember that a partial discomfort of a corner in a large, sure, and comfortable house, may be well amended without breaking the foundation ; and that amongst all possible means of getting rid of that partial discomfort, the worst would be to burn down the house with his own hands. But while I acknowledge the wisdom of your attachment to fundamental doctrines, I beg leave with equal frankness to state, that, in my opinion, there can be scarcely anything more dangerous to the progressive development of a nation, than to mistake for a basis that which is none ; to mistake for a principle that which is but a transitoiy convenience ; to take for substantial that which is but accidental ; or to take for a constitutional doctrine that which is but a momentary exigency of administrative policy. Such a course of action would be like to a healthy man refusing substantial food, because when he was once weak in stomach his physician ordered him a severe diet. Let me suppose, gentlemen, that that doctrine of non-interference was really bequeathed to you by your Washingtons (and that it was not, I will essay to prove afterwards), and let me even suppose that your Wash- ingtons imparted to it such an interpretation, as were equiva- lent to the words of Cain, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " (which supposition would be, of course, a sacrilege ; but I am forced to such suppositions :) I may be entitled to ask, is the dress which suited the child, still suitable to the full grown man ? Would it not be ridiculous to lay the man into the child's cradle, and to sing him to sleep by a lullaby ? In the origin of the United States, you were an infant people, and you had of course, nothing to do but to grow, to grow, and GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 33 to grow. But now you are so far grown that there is no foreign power on earth from which you have anything to fear for your existence or security. In fact, your growth is that of a giant. Of old, your infant frame was composed of thirteen states, and was restricted to the borders of the Atlantic : now, your massive bulk is spread to the gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, and your territory is a continent. Your right hand touches Europe over the waves ; your left reaches across the Pacific to eastern Asia ; and there, between two quarters of the world, there you stand, in proud immen- sity, a world yourselves. Then you were a small people of three millions and and a half ; now you are a mighty nation of twenty-four millions. Thus you have fully entered into the second stadium of national life, in which a nation lives at length not for itself separately, but as a member of the great family of human nations ; having a right to whatever is due from that family towards every one of its full-grown members, but also engaged to every duty which that great family may claim from every one of its full-grown members. A nation may, either from comparative weakness, or by choice and policy, as Japan and China, or by both these motives, as Paraguay under Dr. Trancia, — be induced to live a life secluded from the world, indifferent to the destinies of man- kind, in which it cannot or will not have any share. But then it must be willing to be also excluded from the benefits of progress, civilization and national intercourse, while dis- avowing all care about all other nations in the world. No citizen of the United States has, or ever will have, the wish to see this country degraded to the rotting vegetation of a Paraguay, or the mummy existence of a Japan and China. The feeling of self-dignity, and the expansiveness of that enterprizing spirit which is congenial to freemen, would revolt against the very idea of such a degrading national captivity. But if there were even a will to live such a mummy life, there is no possibility to do so. The very existence of your great country, the principles upon which it is founded, its geo- graphical position, its present scale of civilization, and all its moral and material interests, would lead on your people not only to maintain, but necessarily more and more to develop 2§ 34 MUTUAL DUTIES OF NATIONS. your foreign intercourse. Then, being in so many respects linked to mankind at large, you cannot have the will, nor yet the power, to remain indifferent to the outward world. And if you cannot remain indifferent, you must resolve to throw your weight into that balance in which the fate and condition of man is weighed. You are a power on earth. You must be a power on eatth, and must therefore accept all the conse- quences of this position. You cannot allow that any power in the world should dispose of the fate of that great family of mankind, of which you are so pre-eminent a member : else L you would resign your proud place and your still prouder fl future, and be a power on earth no more. I hope I have sufficiently shown, that should even that doctrine of non-interference have been established by the founders of your republic, that which might have been very proper to your infancy would not now be suitable to your manhood. It is a beautiful word of Montesquieu, that re- publics are to be founded on virtue. And you know that virtue between man and man, as sanctioned by our Christian religion, is but an exercise of that great principle — " Thou shalt do to others as thou desirest others to do to thee." Thus I might rely simply upon your generous republican hearts, and upon the consistency of your principles ; but I beg to add some essential differences in material respects, between your present condition and that of yore. Of your twenty-four millions, more than nineteen are spread over yonder immense territory, the richest of the world, employed in the cultivation of the soil, that honourable occupation, which in every time has proved to be the most inexhaustible and most unfailing source of public welfare and private happi- ness, as also the most unwavering ally of freedom, and the most faithful fosterer of all those upright, noble, generous sentiments which the constant intercourse with every young, every great, every beautiful virtue imparts to man. Now this immense agricultural interest, desiring large markets, at tlie same time affords a solid basis to your manufacturing industry, and in consequence to your immensely developed commerce. All this places such a difference between the republic of Washington and your present grandeur, that VAST COMMERCIAL INTERESTS OF THE U.S. 35 though you may well be attached to your original principles (for the principles of liberty are everlastingly the same), yet not so in respect to the exigencies of your policy. 'For if it is to be regulated by interest, your country has other interests to-day than it had then ; and if ever it is to be re- gulated by the higher consideration of principles, you are strong enough to feel that the time is already come. And I, standing here before you to plead the cause of oppressed humanity, am bold to declare that there may never again come a crisis, at which such an elevation of your policy would prove either more glorious to you, or more beneficial to man : for we in Europe are apparently on the eve of that day, when either the hopes or the fears of oppressed nations will be crushed for a long time. Having stated so far the difference of the situation, I beg leave now to assert that it is an error to suppose that non- interference in foreign matters has been bequeathed to the people of the United States by your great Washington as a doctrine and as a constitutional principle. Firstly, Washing- ton never even recommended to you non-interference in the sense of indifference to the fate of other nations. He only recommended neutrality. And there is a mighty diversity between these two ideas. Neutrality has reference to a state of war between two belligerent powers, and it is this case which Washington contemplated, when he, in his Farewell Address, advised the people of the United States not to enter into entangling alliances. Let quarrelling powers, let quar- relling nations go to war — ^but do you consider your own concerns ; leave foreign powers to quarrel about ambitious topics, or narrow partial interests. Neutrality is a matter of convenience — not of principle. But while neutrality has reference to a state of war between belligerent powers, the principle of non-interference, on the contrary, lays down the sovereign right of nations to arrange their own domestic concerns. Therefore these two ideas of neutrality and non- interference are entirely different, having reference to two entirely different matters. The sovereign right of every nation to rule over itself, to alter its own institutions, to change the form of its own government, is a common public 36 COMMON RIGHTS ARE UNDER COMMON GUARANTEE. law of nations, common to all, and, tJierefore^ 'put under the common guarantee of all. This sovereign right of every nation to dispose of itself, you, the people of the United States, must recognize ; for it is a common law of mankind, in which, because it is such, every nation is equally inte- rested. You must recognize it, secondly, because the very existence of your great republic, as also the independence of every nation, rests upon this ground. If that sovereign right of nations were no common public law of mankind, then your own independence would be no matter of right, but only a matter of fact, which might be subject, for all future time, to all sorts of chances from foreign conspiracy and violence. And where is the citizen of the United States who would not revolt at the idea that this great republic is ' not a righteous nor a lawful existence, but only a mere acci- dent — a mere matter of fact ? If it were so, you were not entitled to invoke the protection of God for your great coun- try ; for the protection of God cannot, without sacrilege, be invoked but in behalf of justice and right. You would have no right to look to the sympathy of mankind for yourselves ; for you would profess an abrogation of the laws of humanity upon which is founded your own independence, your own nationality. Now, gentlemen, if these be principles of common law, of that law which God has given to every nation of humanity — if to organize itself is the common lawful right of every nation ; then the interference with this common law of all humanity, the violent act of hindering, by armed forces, a nation from exercising that sovereign right, must be consi- dered as a violation of that common public law upon which your very existence rests, and which, being a common law of ^ all humanity, is, by God himself, placed under the safeguard of all humanity ; for it is God himself who commands us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves, and to do towards others as we desire others to do towards us. Upon this point you cannot remain indifferent. You may well remain neutral to war between two belligerent nations, but you cannot remain indifferent to the violation of the common law of humanity. That indifference Washington has never taught NEUTRALITY A TEMPORARY POLICY. 37 you. I defy any man to show me, out of the eleven volumes of Washington's writings, a single word to that effect. He could not have recommended this indifference without ceasing to be wise as he was ; for without justice there is no wisdom on earth. He could not have recoipmended it without becoming inconsistent ; for it was this common law of man- kind which your fathers invoked before God and man when they proclaimed your independence. It was he himself, your great Washington, who not only accepted, but again and again asked, foreign aid — foreign help for the support of that common law of mankind in respect to your own in- dependence. Knowledge and instruction are so universally spread amongst the enlightened people of the United States, the history of your country is such a household science at the most lonely hearths of your remotest settlements, that it may be sufficient for me to refer, in that respect, to the instructions and correspondence between Washington and the Minister at Paris — the equally immortal Eranklin — the modest man with the proud epitaph, which tells the world that he wrested the lightning from heaven, and the sceptre from the tyrant's hands. I will go further. Even that doctrine of neutrality which Washington taught and bequeathed to you, he taught not as a constitutional j^r^'^ci^^^ — a lasting regulation for all future time, but only as a matter of temporary 'policy. I refer in that respect to the very words of his Farewell Address. There he states explicitly that ''it is your policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." These are his very words. Policy is the word, and you know that policy is not the science of principle, but of exigencies ; and that principles are, of course, by a free and powerful nation, never to be sacrificed to exigencies. The exigencies pass away like the bubbles of a shower, but the nation is immortal: it must consider the future also, and not only the egotistical dominion of the passing hour : it must be aware that to an immortal nation nothing can be of higher importance than immortal principles. Again, in the same address Washington explicitly says, in reference to his policy of neutrality, that " with him a predominant 38 WASHINGTON WAS WISELY CAUTIOUS. motive has been to gain time to your country to settle and mature its institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is neces- sary to give it the command of its own fortunes." These are highly memorable words, gentlemen. Here I take my ground; and casting a glance of admiration over your glorious land, I confidently ask you, gentlemen, are your institutions settled and matured or are they not ? Are you, or are you not, come to such a degree of strength and con- sistency as to be the masters of your own fortunes ? Oh ! how do I thank God for having given me the glorious view of this country's greatness, which answers this question for me ! Yes ! you have attained that degree of strength and consistency in which your less fortunate brethren may well claim your protecting hand. One word more on Washington's doctrines. In one of his letters, written to Lafayette, he says : — " Let us only have twenty years of peace, and our country will come to such a degree of power and wealth that we shall be able, in a just cause, to defy any power on earth whatsoever.*' " In a just cause !" Now, in the name of eternal truth, and by aU that is dear and sacred to man, since the history of mankind is recorded, there has been no cause more just than the cause of Hungary. Never was there a people, without the slightest reason, more sacrilegiously, more treacherously attacked, or by fouler means than Hungary. Never has crime, cursed ambition, despotism, and violence, united more wickedly to crush freedom, and the very life, than against Hungary. Never was a country more mortally aggrieved than Hungary is. All your sufferings — aU your complaints, which, with so much right, drove your forefathers to take up arms, are but slight grievances in comparison with those immense deep wounds, out of which the heart of Hungary bleeds ! If the cause of our people is not sufficiently just to insure the pro- tection of God, and the support of right-willing men- — then there is no just cause, and no justice on earth. Then the blood of no new Abel wiU moan towards Heaven. The genius of charity. Christian love, and justice wiU mouniingly fly the earth ; a heavy curse will fall upon morality — I MONROE TOOK A STEP FORWARD. 39 oppressed men will despair, and only the Cains of mankind walk proudly with impious brow about the ruins of liberty on earth. Now, allow me briefly to consider how your Foreign Policy has grown and enlarged itself. I will only recall to your memory the message of President Monroe, when he clearly stated that the United States would take up arms to protect the American Colonies of Spain, now free republics, should the Holy (or rather unholy) Alliance make an attempt either to aid Spain to reduce the new American republics to their ancient colonial state, or to compel them to adopt political systems more conformable to the policy and views of that alliance. I entreat you to mark this well, gentlemen. Not only the forced introduction of monarchy, but in general the interference of foreign powers in the contest, was declared sufficient motive for the United States to protect the colonies. Let me remind you that this declaration of President Monroe was not only approved and confirmed by the people of the United States, but that Great Britain it self joined the United States, in the declaration of this decision and this policy. I further recall to your memory the instructions given in 1826 to your Envoys to the Congress of Panama, Eichard Anderson and John Sergeant, where it was clearly stated that the United States would have opposed, with their whole force, the interference of the continental powers in that struggle for independence. It is true, that this declaration to go even to war, to protect the independence of foreign States against foreign interference, was restricted to the continent of America ; for President Monroe declares in his message that the United States can have no concern in European struggles, being distant and separated from Europe by the great Atlantic Ocean. But I would remark that this indifference to European concerns is again a matter, not of principle but of temporary exigency — the motives of which have, by the lapse of time, entirely disappeared — so much that the balance is even turned to the opposite side. President Monroe mentions distance as a motive of the above-stated distinction. Well, since the prodigious deve- lopment of your Pulton's glorious invention, distance is no 40 EUROPE IS NO LONGER DISTANT. longer calculated by miles, but by hours ; and, being so, Europe is of course less distant from you than the greater part of the American continent. But, let even the word dis- tance be taken in a nominal sense. Europe is nearer to you than the greatest part of the American continent — yea I even nearer than perhaps some parts of your own territory. President Monroe's second motive is, that you are separated from Europe hy the Atlantic, Now, at the present time, and in the present condition of navigation, the Atlantic is no separation, but rather a link ; as the means of that commer- cial intercourse which brings the interest of Europe home to you, connecting you with it by every tie of moral as well as material interest. There is immense truth in that which the Erench Legation in the United States expressed to your government in an able note of 27th October past: — ''America is closely con- nected with Europe, being only separated from the latter by a distance scarcely exceeding eight days' journey, by one of the most important of general interests — the interest of com- merce. The nations of America and Europe are at this day so dependent upon one another, that the effects of any event, prosperous or otherwise, happening on one side of the Atlantic, are immediately felt on the other side. The residt of this community of interests, commercial, political, and moral, between Europe and America— -of this frequency and rapidity of intercourse between them, is, that it becomes as difficult to point out the geographical degree where American policy shall terminate, and European policy begin, as it is to trace out the line where American commerce begins and European commerce terminates. Where may be said to begin or terminate the ideas which are in the ascendant in Europe and in America ?" It is chiefly in New York that I feel induced to urge this, because New York is by innumerable ties connected with Europe — more connected than several parts of Europe itself. It is the agricultural interest of this great country which chiefly wants an outlet and a market. Now, it is far more to Europe than to the American continent that you have to look in that respect. On this account you cannot remain CLAY AND WEBSTER PRONOUNCED FOR GREECE. 41 indifferent to the fate of freedom on the European continent : for be sure, gentlemen — and I would say this chiefly to the gentlemen of trade — should absolutism gain ground in Europe; it will, it must, put every possible obstacle in the way of commercial intercourse with republican America : for com- mercial intercourse is the most powerful convoyer of principles; and be sui'e the victory of absolutism on the European continent will in no quarter have more injurious national consequences than against your vast agricultural and commercial interests. Then why not prevent it, while it is still possible to do so with comparatively small sacrifices, rather than abide that fatal catastrophe, and have to mourn the immense sacrifices it would then cost ? Even in political considerations, now-a-days, you have stronger motives to feel interested in the fate of Europe than in the fate of the Central or Southern parts of America. Whatever may happen in the institutions of these parts, you are too powerful to see your own institutions affected by it. But let Europe become absolutistical (as, unless Hungary be restored to its independence, and Italy become free, be sure it will) — aud your children will see those words, which your national government spoke in 1827, fulfilled on a larger scale than they were meant, that ''the absolutism of Europe will not be appeased, until every vestige of human freedom has been obliterated even here." And oh ! do not rely too fondly upon your power. It is great, assuredly. You have not to fear any single power on earth. But look to history. Mighty empires have vanished. Let not th'e enemies of freedom grow too strong. Victorious over Europe, and then united, they would be too strong even for you ! And be sure they hate you most cordially. They consider you as their most dangerous opponent. Absolutism cannot sleep tran- quilly, while the republican principle has such a mighty representative as your country is. Yes, gentlemen, it was the fear of driving the absolutists to fanatical effort, which induced your great Statesmen not to extend to Europe the principle on which they acted towards the New World, and by no means the publicly avowed feeble motives. Every manifestation of your public life in those times shows that 42 FILLMORE PROFESSEES A LIKE PRINCIPLE^ I am right to say so. The European nations were, about 1823, in such a degraded situation, that indeed you must have felt anxious not to come into any political contact with that pestilential atmosphere, when, as Mr. Clay said in 1818, in his speech about the emancipation of South America, *' Paris was transferred to St. Petersburg." But scarcely a year later, the Greek nation came in its contest to an impor- tant crisis, which gave you hope that the spirit of freedom was waking again, and at once you abandoned the principle of political indifference for Europe. You know, your Clays and your Websters spoke, as if really they were speaking for my very cause. You know how your citizens acted in behalf of that struggle for liberty in a part of Europe which is more distant than Hungary; and again when Poland feU, you know what spirit pervaded the United States. I have shown you how Washington's policy has been gradually changed : but one mighty difference I must still commemorate. Your population has, since Monroe's time, nearly doubled, I believe; or at least has increased by millions. And what sort of men are these millions ? Are they only native-born Americans? No European emigrants ? Many are men, who though citizens of the United States are, by the most sacred ties of relationship, attached to the fate of Europe. That is a consideration worthy of reflection with your wisest men, who will, ere long, agree with me, that in your present condition you are at least as much interested in the state of Europe, as twenty-eight years ago your fathers were in the fate of Central and Southern America. And really so it is. The unexampled sympathy for the cause of my country which I have met with in the United States proves that it is so. Your generous interference with the Turkish captivity of the Governor of Hungary, proves that is so. And this pro- gressive development in your foreign policy, is, in fact, no longer a mere instinctive ebullition of public opinion, which is about hereafter to direct your governmental policy ; the opinion of the people is already avowed as the policy of the government. I have a most decisive authority to rely upon in saying so. It is the message of the President of the United States. His Excellency, Millard PiUmore, made a commu- RENOUNCING INDIFFERENCE, 43 nication to Congress, a few days ago, and there I read the paragraph : — " The deep interest which we feel in the spread of liberal principles, and the establishment of free govern- ments, and the sympathy with which we witness every struggle against oppression, forbid that we should he indifferent to a case in which the strong arm of a foreign power is invoked to stifle public sentiment and repress the spirit of freedom in any country." Now, gentlemen, here is the ground which I take for my earnest endeavours to benefit the cause of Hungary. I have only respectfully to ask : Is a principle which the public opinion of the United States so resolutely professes, and which the government of the United States, with the full sentiment of its responsibility, declares to your Congress to be a ruling principle of your national government — is that principle meant to be serious ? Indeed, it would be a most impertinent outrage towards your great people and your national government, to entertain the insulting opinion, that what the people of the United States and its national government profess in such a solemn diplomatic manner could be meant as a mere sporting with the most sacred interests of humanity. God forbid that I should think so. Therefore, I take the principle of your policy as I find it established — and I come in the name of oppressed humanity to claim the unavoidable, practical, consequences of your own freely chosen policy, which you have avowed to the whole world ; to claim the realization of those expectations which you, the sovereign people of the United States, have chosen, of your own accord, to raise in the bosom of my countrymen and of all the oppressed. You will excuse me, gentlemen, for having dwelt so long upon that principle of non-interference with European measures : but I have found it to be the stone of stumbling thrown in my way when I spoke of what I humbly request from the United States. I have been charged as arrogantly attempting to change your existing policy, and since I cannot in one speech exhaust the complex and mighty whole of my mission, I choose on the present opportunity to develop my views about that fundamental principle : and having 44 IS RUSSIA TO OVERTURN LIBERTY? shown, not theoretically, but practically, that it is a mistake to think that you had, at any time, such a principle, and having shown that if you ever entertained such a policy, you have been forced to abandon it — so much, at least, I hope I have achieved. My humble requests to your active sym- pathy may be still opposed by — I know not what other motives ; but the objection, that you must not interfere with European concerns — this objection is disposed of, once and for ever, I hope. It remains now to inquire, whether, since you have professed not to be indifferent to the cause of European freedom — the cause of Hungary is such as to have just claims to your active and effectual assistance and support. It is, gentlemen. To prove this I do not now intend to enter into an expla- nation of the particulars of our struggle, which I had the honour to conduct, as the chosen Chief Magistrate of my native land. It is highly gratifying to me to find that the cause of Hungary is — excepting some ridiculous misrepre- sentations of ill-will — correctly understood here. I will only state now one fact, and that is, that our endeavours for inde- pendence were crushed by the armed interference of a foreign despotic power — the principle of all evil on earth — Eussia. And stating this fact, I will not again intrude upon you with my own views, but recall to your memory the doctrines established by your own statesmen. Firstly — I return to your great Washington. He says, in one of his letters to Lafayette, " My policies are plain and simple ; I think every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it can live most happy ; and that no government ought to interfere with the internal concerns of another." Here I take my ground : — upon a principle of Washington — diprincipley not a mere temporary policy calculated for the first twenty years of your infancy. Eussia has interfered with the internal concerns of Hungary, and by doing so has violated the policy of the United States, established as a lasting prin- ciple by Washington himself. It is a lasting principle. I could appeal in my support to the opinion of every statesman of the United States, of every party, of every time ; but to save time, I pass at once from the first President of the United WEBSTER^S DOCTRINE. 45 States to the last, and recall to your memory this word of the present annual message of his Excellency President Fillmore : — " Let every people choose for itself, and make and alter its political institutions to suit its own condition and convenience." I beg leave also to quote the statement of your present Secre- tary of State, Mr. Webster, who, in his speech on the Greek question, speaks thus : — " The law of nations maintains that in extreme cases resistance is lawful, and that one nation has no right to interfere in the affairs of another." Well, that precisely is the ground upon which we Hungarians stand. But I may perhaps meet the objection (I am sorry to say I have met it already) — "Well, we own that it has been violated by Russia in the case of Hungary, but after all what is Hungary to us ? Let every people take care of itself, what is that to us ?" So some speak : it is the old doctrine of private egotism, " Every one for himself, and God for us all." I will answer the objection again by the words of Mr. Webster, who, in his speech on the Greek question, having professed that the internal sovereignty of every nation is a law of nations — thus goes on, '* But it may be asked ' what is all that to us ?' The question is easily answered. We are one of the nations^ and we as a nation have precisely the same interest in international law as a private individual has in the laws of his country." The principle which your honour- able Secretary of War professes, is a principle of eternal truth. No man can disavow it, no political party can disavow it. Thus happily I am able to address my prayers, not to a party, but to the whole people of the United States, and will go on to do so as long as I have no reason to regard one party as opposed or indifferent to my country's cause. But from certain quarters it may be avowed, '* Well, we acknowledge every nation's sovereign right ; we acknowledge it to be a law of nations that no foreign power interfere in the affairs of another, and we are determined to respect this common law of mankind ; but if others do not respect that law it is not ours to meddle with them." Let me answer by an analysis: — Every nation has the same interest in international law as a private individual has in the laws of his conntry. That is an acknowledged principle wdth your statesmen. What 46 POWER CONSTITUTES DUTY. then is tlie latter relation ? Does it suffice that an individual do not himself violate the law ? Must he not so far as is in his power also prevent others from violating the law ? Suppose you see that a wicked man about to rob — to murder your neighbour, or to burn his house, will you wrap yourself in your own virtuous lawfulness, and say, " I myself neither rob, nor murder, nor bum; but what others do, is not my concern. I am not my brother's keeper. / sympathize with him ; but I am not called on to save him from being robbed, murdered, or burnt." What honest man of the world would answer so? None of you. None of the people of the United States, I am sure. That would be the damned maxim of the Pharisees of old, who thanked God that they were not as others were. Our Saviour was not content himself to avoid trading in the hall of the temple, but he drove out those who were trading there. The duty of enforcing observance to the common law of nations has no other limit than the power to fulfil it. Of course the republic of St. Marino, or the Prince of Morocco, cannot stop the Czar of Eussia in his ambitious annoyance. It was ridiculous when the Prince of Modena refused to recognize the government of Louis Philippe — but to whom much is given, from him will much be expected," says the Lord. Eveiy condition has not only its rights, but also its own duties; and whatever exists as a power on earth, is in duty a part of the executive government of mankind, called to maintain the law of nations. Woe, a thousandfold woe to humanity, should there be no force on earth to maintain the laws of humanity. W^oe to humanity, should those who are as mighty as they are free, not feel interested to maintain the laws of mankind, because they are rightful laws, — but only in so far as some partial money-interests would desire it. Woe to mankind if every despot of the world may dare to trample down the laws of humanity, and no free nation make these laws respected. People of the United States, humanity expects that your glorious republic will prove to the world, that republics are founded on virtue — it expects to see you the guardians of the laws of humanity. I will come to the last possible objection. I maybe told. FRANCE AIDED AMERICA. 47 " You are right in your principles, your cause is just, and you have our sympathy, but, after all, we cannot go to war for your country ; we cannot furnish you armies and fleets ; we cannot fight your battle for you." There is the rub ! Who can exactly tell what would have been the issue of your own struggle for independence (though your country was in a far happier geographical position than we, poor Hungarians), had France given such an answer to your forefathers in 1778 and 178], instead of sending to your aid a fleet of thirty- eight men-of-war, and auxiliary troops, and 24,000 muskets, and a loan of nineteen millions ? And what was far more than all this, did it not show that France resolved with aU its power to espouse the cause of your independence? But, perhaps, I shall be told that France did this, not out of love of freedom, but out of hatred against England. Well, let it be ; but let me then ask, shall the cause of olden times — hatred — be more efficient in the destinies of mankind than love of freedom, principles of justice, and the laws of hu- manity ? And is America in the days of steam navigation more distant from Europe to-day, than France was from America seventy-three years ago ? However, I most solemnly declare that it is not my intention to rely literally upon this example. It is not my wish to entangle the United States in war, or to engage your great people to send out armies and fleets to raise up and restore Hungary. Not at all, gen- tlemen \ I most solemnly declare that I have never entertained such expectations or such hopes ; and here I come to the practical point. The principle of evil in Europe is the enervating spirit of Eussian absolutism. Upon this rests the daring boldness of every petty tyrant to trample upon oppressed nations, and to crush liberty. To this Moloch of ambition has my native land fallen a victim. It is with this that Montelembert threatens the French republicans. It was Eussian intervention in Hungary which governed French intervention in Eome, and gave German tyrants hardihood to crush all the endeavours for freedom and unity in Germany. The despots of the European continent are leagued against the freedom of the world. That is A matter of fact. The second matter of 48 POLICY NEEDS PREDISCUSSION. fact is that the European continent is on the eve of a new revolution. It is not necessary to be initiated in the secret preparations of the European democracy to be aware of that approaching contingency. It is pointed out by the French constitution itself, prescribing a new Presidential election for the next spring. Now, suppose that the ambition of Louis Napoleon, encouraged by Eussian secret aid, awaits this time {wJiicli I scarcely believe), and suppose that there should be a peaceful solution ; such as would content the friends of the Eepublic in Erance ; of course the first act of the new Erench President must be, at least, to recall the Erench troops from Eome. Nobody can doubt that a revolution in Italy will follow. Or if there is no peaceful solution in Erance, but a revolution, then every man knows that whenever the heart of Erance boils up, the pulsation is felt throughout Europe, and oppressed nations once more rise, and Eussia again interferes. Now I humbly ask, with the view of these circumstances before our eyes, can it be convenient to such a great power as this glorious Eepublic, to await the very outbreak, and not until then to discuss and decide on your foreign policy? There may come, as under the last President, at a late hour, agents to see how matters stand in Hungary. Eussian interference and treason achieved what the sacrilegious Hapsburgh dynasty failed to achieve. You know the old words, " While Eome debated, Saguntum fell." So I respectfully press upon you my first entreaty : it is, that your people will in good time express to your central government what course of foreign policy it wishes to be pursued in the case of the approaching events I have mentioned. And I most con- fidently hope that there is only one course possible, consist- ently with the above recorded principles. If you acknowledge that the right of every nation to alter its institutions and government is a law of nations — if you acknowledge the interference of foreign powers in that sovereign right to be a violation of the law of nations, as you really do — if you are forbidden to remain indifferent to this violation of international law (as your President openly professes that you are) — then there is no other course possible than neither to interfere in HIS FIRST REQUEST. 49 that sovereign right of nations, nor to allow any other powers whatever to interfere. But you will perhaps object to me, *' That amounts to going to war." I answer ; no — that amounts to preventing war. What is wanted to that effect ? It is wanted, that, being aware of the precarious condition of Europe, your national government should, as soon as possible, send in- structions to your Minister at London, to declare to the English government that the United States, acknowledging the sovereign right of every nation to dispose of its own domestic concerns, have resolved not to interfere, but also not to let any foreign power whatever interfere with this sove- reign right in order to repress the spirit of freedom in any country. Consequently, to invite the Cabinet of St. James's into this policy, and declare that the United States are resolved to act conjointly with England in that decision, in the approaching crisis of the European continent. Such is my FIRST humble request. If the citizens of the United States, instead of honouring me with the offers of their hospi- tality, would be pleased to pass convenient resolutions, and to ratify them to their national government — if the press would hasten to give its aid, and in consequence the national government instructed its Minister in England accordingly, and by communication to the Congress, as it is w^ont, give publicity to this step, I am entirely sure that you would find the people of Great Britain heartily joining this direction of policy. No power could feel peculiarly offended by it; no existing relation would be broken or injured : and still any future interference of Russia against the restoration of Hun- gary to that independence which was formally declared in 1849 would be prevented, Russian arrogance and preponder- ance would be checked, and the oppressed nations of Eui'ope soon become free. There may be some over-anxious men, who perhaps would say, "But if such a declaration of your government were not respected, and Russia still did interfere, then you would be obliged by this previous declaration, to go to w^ar ; and you don't desire to have a war." That objection seems to me as if somebody were to say, " If the vault of heaven breaks 3 50 UNJUST BLOCKADES. down, what shall we do ? " My answer is, *' But it will not break down." Even so I answer. But your declaration will be respected — Eussia will not interfere — you will have no occasion for war — you will have prevented war. Be sure Eussia w^ould twice, thrice consider, before provoking against itself, besides the roused judgment of nations — (to say no- thing of the legions of republican France) — the English ''Lion" and the star-surrounded "Eagle" of America. Eemember that you, in conjunction with England, once be- fore declared that you would not permit European absolutism to interfere wdth the formerly Spanish colonies of America. Did this declaration bring you to a war? quite the contrary; it prevented Avar. So it would be in our case also. Let me therefore most humbly entreat you, people of the United States, to give such practical direction to your generous sympathy for Hungary, as to arrange meetings and pass such resolutions, in every possible place of this Union, as I took the liberty to mention above. The SECOND measure which I beg leave to mention, has reference to commercial interest. In later times a doctrine has stolen into the code of international law, which is as contrary to the commercial interests of nations as to their independence. The pettiest despot of the world is permitted to exclude your commerce from whatever port he pleases. He has only to arrange a blockade, and your commerce is shut out; or, if captured Yenice, bleeding Lombardy, or my prostrate but resolute Hungary, rises to shake off the Austrian tyrant's yoke (as surely they will), that tyrant believes he has the right, from that very moment, to exclude your commerce from the uprisen nation. Now, this is an absurdity — a tyrannical invention of tyrants violating your interest — your independence. The United States have not always regarded things from the despotic point of view. I find, in a note of Mr. Everett, Minister of the United States in Spain, dated *' Madrid, Jan. 20, 1826," these words : — '' In the war between Spain and the Spanish American colonies, the United States have freely granted to both parties the hospitality of their ports and territory, and have allowed the agents of both to procure within their juris- SECOND REQUEST. 51 diction, in the way of lawful trade, any supplies which suited their convenience." Now, gentlemen, this is the principle which humanity expects, for your own and for mankind's benefit, to see maintained by you, and not yonder fatal course, which permits tyrants to draw from your country every facility for the oppression of their nations, but forbids nations to buy the means of defence. That was not the principle of your Washington. When he speaks of harmony, of friendly intercourse, and of peace, he always takes care to apply his ideas to nations, and not to govermnenU — still less to tyrants who subdue nations by foreign arms. The sacred word Nation, with all its natural rights, should not be blotted out, at least from your political dictionary \ and yet I am sorry to see that the word nation is often replaced by the word Government. Gentlemen, I humbly wish that the public opinion of the people of the United States, conscious of its own rights, should loudly and resolutely declare that the people of the United States will continue its commercial intercourse with any or every nation, be it in revolution against its oppressors or be it not ; and that the people of the United States expect confidently, that its government will provide for the protection of your trade. I feel assured, that your national government, seeing public opinion so pronounced, will judge it convenient to augment your naval forces in the Mediterranean ; and to look for some such station for it as would not force the navy of republican America to make disavowals inconsistent with republican principles or republican dignity, only because King So-and- So, be he even the cursed King of Naples, grants the favour of an anchoring place for the naval forces of your republic. I believe your illustrious country should everywhere freely unfurl the star-spangled banner of liberty, with all its con- genial principles, and not make itself in any respect de- pendent on the glorious smiles of the Kings Eombaste Compagne. The THIRD object of my wishes, gentlemen, is the recog- nition of the independence of Hungary when the critical moment amves. Your own declaration of independence proclaims the right of every nation to assume among the 52 RECOGNITION OF HUNGARY JUST. powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which "the laws of nature and nature's God" entitle them. The political existence of your glorious republic is founded upon this principle, upon this right. Our nation stands upon the same ground : there is a striking resemblance between your cause and that of my country. On the 4th July, 1776, John Adams spoke thus in your Congress, '' Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I am for this declaration." In the beginning we did not go so far as separation from the Austrian Crown, but " there is a divinity which shapes our ends." These noble words were present to my mind on the 14th April, 1849, when I moved the forfeiture of the Crown by the Hapsburgs in the National Assembly of Hungary. Our condition was the same ; and if there be any difference, I venture to say it is in favour of us. Your country, before this declaration, was not a self-consisting independent State. Hungary was. Through the lapse of a thousand years, through every vicissitude of this long period, while nations vanished and empires fell, the self-consisting independence of Hungary was never disputed, but was recognized by all powers of the earth, sanctioned by treaties made with the Hapsburg dynasty, at the era when this dynasty, by the freewill of my nation, which acted as one of two contracting parties, was invested with the kingly crown of Hungary. Even more, this independence of the kingdom was acknowledged to make a part of the international law of Europe, and was guaranteed not only by foreign European governments, such as Great Britain, but also by several of those once constitu- tional states which belonged formerly to the German, and after its dissolution, to the Austrian empire. This independent condition of Hungary is clearly defined in one of our fundamental laws of 1791, in these words : — " Hungary is a free and independent kingdom, having its own self-consistent existence and constitution, and not subject* to any other nation or country in the world." This therefore was our ancient right. We were not dependent on, nor a part of, the Austrian empire, as your country was dependent on * In the original Latin, ohnoxium, "not entangled, or compro- mised, with any other." HUNGARY NO PART OF AUSTRIA. 53 England, It was clearly defined that we were to Austria nothing but good neighbourhood, and the only tie between us and Austria was, that we elected to be our kings the same dynasty which were also the sovereigns of Austria, and occu- pied the same line of hereditary succession as our kings ; but by accepting this, our forefathers, with the consent of the King, again declared, that though Hungaiy accepts the dynasty as our hereditary kings, all the other franchises, rights, and laws of the nation shall remain in full power and intact ; and our countiy shall not be governed like the other dominions of that dynasty, but according to our constitutionally established authorities. We could not belong to " the Austrian Empire," for that empire did not then as yet exist, while Hungary had already existed as a substantive kingdom for many centuries, and for some two hundred and eighty years under the govern- ment of that Hapsburgian dynasty. The Austrian Empire, as you know, was established only in 1806, when the Ehenish confederacy of Napoleon struck the deathblow of the German empire, of which Francis II of Austria, was not hereditary but elected Emperor. That Hungary had belonged to the German empire is a thing which no man in the world ever imagined yet. It is only now that the Hapsburgian tyrant professes an intention to melt Hungary into the German Confederation; but you know this intention to be in so striking opposition to the European public law, that England and Prance solemnly protested against it, so that it is not carried out even to-day. The German empire having died, its late Emperor Francis, also King of Hungary, chose to entitle himself Austrian Emperor, in 1806 ; but even in that fundamental charter he solemnly declared that Hungary and its annexed provinces ai^e not intended to make, and toill not make^ a 'part of the Austrian Empire. Subsequently he entered with this empire into the German Confederation, but Hungary, as well as Lombardy and Venice, not making part of the Austrian empire, still remained separated, and were not received into the confederacy. The laws which we succeeded to carry in 1848, of course altered nothing in that old chartered condition of Hungary. We transformed the peasantry into freeholders, and abolished o4 THE RESPONSIBLE MINISTRY. feudal incumbrances. We replaced tlie political privileges of aristocracy by the common liberty of the whole people ; gave to the people at large representation in the legislature ; transformed our municipalities into democratic corporations ; introduced equality before the law for the whole people in rights and duties, and abolished the immunity of taxation which had been enjoyed by the class called Nolle ; secured equal religious liberty to all, secured liberty of the press and of association, provided for public gratuitous instruction of the whole people of every confession and of whatever tongue. In all this we did no wrong. All these were, as you see, internal reforms which did not at all interfere with our allegiance to the king and were carried lawfully in peaceful legislation icith the king's own smiction. Besides this there was one other thing which was carried. We were formerly governed by a Board of Council, which had the express duty to govern according to sure laws, and be responsible for doing so ; but we found by long experience that a Corporation cannot really be responsible ; and that this was the reason why the abso- lutist tendency of the dynasty succeeded in encroaching upon our liberty. So we replaced the Board of Council by Ministers ; the empty responsibility of a Board by the individual re- sponsibility of men — and the king consented to it. I myself was named by him Minister of the Treasury. That is all. But precisely here was the rub. The dynasty could not bear the idea that we would not give to its ambition the life sweat of our people ; it was not contented with the 1,500,000 dollars which were generously appropriated to it yearly. It dreaded that it would be disabled in future from using our brave army, against our will, to crush the spirit of freedom in the world. Therefore it resorted to the most outrageous con- spiracy, and attacked us by arms, and upon receiving a false report of a great victory this young usurper issued a pro- clamation declaring that Hungary shall not more exist — that its independence, its constitution, its very existence is abolished, and it shall be absorbed, like a farm or fold, into the Austrian Empire. To all this Hungary answered, " Thou shaltnot exist, tyrant, but we will; " and we banished him, HIS THIRD REQUEST. 55 and issued the declaration of the deposition of his dynasty, and of our separate independence. So you see, gentlemen, that there is a veiy great difference between your declaration and ours — it is in our favour. There is another difference ; you declared your independence of the English crown when it was yet very doubtful whether you would be successful. We declared our independence of the Austrian crown only after we, in legitimate defence, were already victorious; when we had actually beaten the pretender, and had thus already proved that we had strength to become an independent power. One thing more : our declaration of independence was not only overwhelmingly voted in our Congress, but every county, every municipality, solemnly declared its consent and adherence to it ; so it be- came sanctioned, not by mere representatives, but by the whole nation positively, and by the fundamental institutions of Hungary. And so it still remains. Nothing has since happened on the part of the nation contrary to this declara- tion. One thing only happened, — a foreign power, Eussia, came with its armed bondsmen, and, aided by treason, has overthrown us for awhile. Now, I put the question before God and humanity to you, free sovereign people of America, can this violation of international law abolish the legitimate character of our declaration of independence ? If not, then here I take my ground, because I am in this very manifesto entrusted with the charge of Governor of my fatherland. I have sworn, before God and my nation, to endeavour to maintain and secure this act of independence. And so may God the Almighty help me as I will — -I will, until my nation is again in the condition to dispose of its government, whicli I confidently trust,-— yea, more, I know, — will be republican. And then I retire to the humble condition of my former private life, equalling, in one thing at least, your Washington, not in merits, but in honesty. That is the only ambition of my life. Amen. Here then is my third humble wish : that the people of the United States would, by all constitutional means of its wonted public life, declare that, acknowledging the legitimacy of our independence, it is anxious to greet Hungary amongst the independent 56 PRIVATE AIDS VALUABLE. powers of the earth, and invites the government of the United States to recognize this independence at the earliest convenient time. That is all. Let me see the principle announced : the rest may well be left to the wisdom of your government, with some confidence in my own respectful discretion also. So much for the people of the United States, in its public and political capacity. Eut if that sympathy which I have the honour to meet with is really intended to become bene- ficial, there is one humble wish more which I entertain : it is a respectful appeal to generous feeling. Gentlemen, I would rather starve than rely, for myself and family, on foreign aid ; but for my country's Freedom, I would not be ashamed to go begging from door to door. I have taken the advice of some kind friends whether it be lawful to express such a humble request, for I feel it an honourable duty neither to offend nor to evade your laws. I am told it is lawful. There are two means to see this my humble wish accom- plished. The first is, by spontaneous subscription ; the second is, by a loan. The latter may require private con- sultation in a narrower circle. As to subscriptions, the idea was brought home to my mind by a plain but very generous letter, which I had the honour to receive, and which I beg to read. It is as follows : — ClN"CINNATI, O., Nov. 14, 1851. M. Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary : — Sir — I have au- thorized the office of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, in New York, to honour your draft on me for one thousand dollars. Respectfully yours, W. SMEAD. I beg leave here publicly to return my most humble thanks to the gentleman, for his ample aid, and the delicate manner in which he offered it ; and it came to my mind, that where one individual is ready to make such sacrifices to my country's cause, there may perhaps be many who would give their small share to it, if they were only apprized that it will be thankfully accepted, however small it may be. And it came to my mind, that millions of drops make an ocean, and the United States number many millions of inhabitants. BANQUET OF THE PRESS. 57 all warmly attached to liberty. A million dollars, paid singly, would be to m.e far more precious than paid in one draft ; for it would practically show the sympathy of the people at large. Would I were so happy as your Washington was, when he also, for your glorious country's sake, in the hours of your need, called to Prance for money. Sir, I have done. I came to your shores an exile : you have poured upon me the triumph of a welcome such as the world has never yet seen. And why ? Because you took me for the representative of that principle of liberty which God has destined to become the common benefit of all humanity. It is glorious to see a free and mighty people so greet the principle of freedom, in the person of one who is persecuted and helpless. Be blessed for it ! Your generous deed will be recorded ; and as millions of Europe's oppressed nations will, even now, raise their thanksgiving to God for this ray of hope, which by this act you have thrown on the dark night of their fate ; even so, through all posterity, oppressed men will look to your memory as to a token of God that there is a hope for freedom on earth, since there is a people like you to feel its worth and to support its cause. ^§g Till.— ON NATIONALITIES. \_8^eech at the Banquet of the Press, New York.'] •At this Banquet Mr. Bryant, the poet, presided, and numerous speeches were delivered, among which was one by the well-known author, Mr. Bancroft, lately ambassador in England. This gentleman closed by saying, that when the illustrious Governor of Hungary uttered the solemn truth, that Europe had no hope but in republican institu- tions — that was a renunciation to the world that the Austrian monarchy was sick and dying, and that vitality remained in the people alone. And as he uttered that truth, not his own race only — not the Magyars only, but every nationality of Hungary, all the fifteen or twenty millions within its limits — all cried out that he was the representative of their 58 MR. convictions — that he was the man of their affections, that he was the utterer of truths on which they relied. Our guest crosses the Atlantic, and he is received ; and what is the great fact that constitutes his reception ? He finds there the military arranged to do him honour. And among those who, on that day, bore arms, were men of every tongue that is spoken between the steppes of Tartary, eastward, towards the Pacific ocean. The great truth that was pronounced on that occasional do not fear to utter it — was, let who will cavil, la solidarite des peuples — the sub- lime truth that all men are brothers — that all nations, too, are brethren, and are responsible for one another. The chairman also spoke eloquently in introducing the third toast, which was briefly, Louis Kossuth. As Mr. Eryant pronounced his name, Kossuth rose, and was received with multifarious demonstrations of enthusiasm. At last he proceeded as follows : — Gentlemen. — I know that in your hands the Inde- pendent Eepublican Press is a weapon to defend truth and justice, a torch lit at the fire of immortality, a spark of which glisters in every man's soul and proves its divine origin : and as the cause of my country is just and true, and wants nothing but light to secure support from every friend of freedom, every noble-minded man, — for this reason I address you with joy, gentlemen. Though it is sorrowful to see how Austrian intrigues, dis- torting plain open history into a tissue of falsehood, find their way even into the American press, I am proud and happy that the immense majority of you, conscious of your noble vocation and instinct with the generosity of freedom, protect our sacred rights against the dark plots of tyranny. Your Independent Press has likewise proved that its free- dom is the most efficient protection even against calumny ; a far better one than restrictive prevention, which condemns the human intellect to eternal minority. I address you, gentlemen, with the greater joy, because through you I have the invaluable benefit of reaching the whole of your great, glorious, and free people. Eighty years ago the immortal Franklin's own press was TRUE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. 59 almost the only one in the colonies : now you have above three thousand newspapers, with a circulation of five millions of copies. I am told that the journals of New York State alone exceed in number those of all the rest of the world outside of your great Union, and that the circulation of the newspapers of this city alone nearly reaches that of the whole empire of Great Britain ! But, what is more, — I boldly declare that, except in the United States, there is scarcely anywhere a practical freedom of the press. Indeed, concerning Norway I am not quite aware. But throughout the European continent you know how the press is fettered. In Prance, under a nominally republican government, all the fruits of victorious revolutions are nipt by the blasting grip of centralized power, — legislative and administrative omnipo- tence. The independence of the Trench press is crushed ; the government cannot bear the free word of public opinion ; and in a republic, the shout " Yive la republique" is become almost a crime. This is a mournful sight, but is an efficient warning against centralization. It is chiefly Great Britain which boasts of a free press ; and assuredly in one sense the freedom is almost unlimited : for I saw placards, with the printer's name, stating that Queen Victoria is no lawful queen, and aU those who rule ought to be hanged ; but men only laughed at the foolish extravagance. Never- theless, I hope the generous people of Great Britain will not be offended when I say that their press is not practically free. Its freedom is not real, for it is not a common benefit to all : it is but a particular benefit, that is, a privilege. Taxation there forbids the use of newspapers to the poor. Absence of taxation enables your journals to be published at one tenth, or even one twentieth, of the English price : hence several of your daily papers reach from thirty to sixty thousand readers, while in England one paper alone is on this scale, — the London 'Times,' which circulates thirty thousand, perhaps. Such being the condition of your press, in addressing you I address a whole people ; nor only so, but a whole intelligent people. The wide diffusion of intelligence among you is in fact proved hy the immense circulation of your journals. It is 60 POPULAR EDUCATION, not solely the cheap price which renders yonr press a common benefit, and not a mere privilege to the richer ; but it is the universality of public instruction. It is glorious to know that in this flourishing young city alone nearly a hundred thousand children receive public education annually. Do you know, gentlemen, w^hat I consider to be your most glorious monument ? if it be, as I have read, that, when your engineers draw geometrical lines to guide your wandering squatters in the solitudes where virgin Nature adores her Lord, they place on every thirty-sixth square of the district marked out to be a township, a modest wooden pole with the glorious mark, Populau Education. This is your proudest monument. In my opinion, not your geographical situation, not your material power, not the bold enterprizing spirit of your people, is the chief guarantee of their future ; but the uni- versality of education : for a whole people, once become intelligent, never can consent not to be free. You will always be willing to be free, and you are great and powerful enough to be as good as your wiU. My humble prayers in my country's cause I address to your entire nation: but you, gentlemen, are the engineers through whom my cause must reach them. It is therefore highly gratifying to me to see, not isolated men, but the povverful complex of the great word PuESS, granting me this important manifestation of generous sentiment. I beg you to consider, that whatever and wherever I speak, is always spoken to the press ; and for all the imperfections of my language let me plead for your indulgence, as one of your professional colleagues : for indeed such I have been. Yes, gentlemen ; I commenced my public career as a journalist. You, under your happy institutions, know not the torment of writing with hands fettered by an Austrian censor. To sit at the desk, with a heart full of the necessity of the moment, a conscience stirred with righteous feeling, a mind animated with convictions and principles, and a whole soul warmed by a patriot's fire ; — to see before your eyes the scissors of the censor ready to lop your ideas, maim your arguments, murder your thoughts, render vain your MISERY OF THE CENSORSHIP. 61 laborious days and sleepless nights ; — ^to know that the people will judge you, not by what you have felt, thought, written, but by what the censor will let you say ; — to perceive that the prohibition has no rule or limit but the arbitrary pleasure of a man who is doomed by profession to be a coward and a fool ; — oh ! his little scissors suspended over one are a worse misery than the sword of Damocles. Oh ! to go on, day by day, in such a work of Sisyphus, believe me, is no small sacrifice of any intelligent man to fatherland and humanity. And this is the present condition of the press, not in Hungary only, but in all countries cursed by Austrian rule. Indeed, our recent reforms gave freedom of the press, not to my fatherland only, but indirectly to Vienna, Prague, Lemberg ; in a word, to the whole empire of Austria : and this must ensure your sympathy to us. Contrariwise, the interference of Eussia has crushed the press on the whole European continent. Freedom of the press is incompatible with the preponderance of Eussia, and with the very existence of the Austrian dynasty, the sworn enemy of every liberal thought. This must engage your generous support to sweep away those tyrants, and to raise liberty where now foul oppression rules. Some time back there appeared in certain New York papers systematic falsehoods, which went so far as to state that we, the Hungarians, had struggled for oppression, while it was the Austrian dynasty which stood up for liberty ! Such effrontery astonishes even one who has seen Eussian treacheries. We may be misrepresented, scorned, jeered at, censured. Our martyrs, whose blood cries for revenge, may be laughed at as fools. Heroes, who will command the veneration of history, may be called Don Quixotes. But that among freemen and professed republicans even the honour of an unfortunate nation, in its most mournful suffer- ing, should not be sacred, — that is indeed a sorrowful page in human history. You cannot expect me to enter into a special refutation of this compound of calumnies. I may reserve it for my pen. But inasmuch as the basis of all the calumnies lies in general ignorance concerning the relation, of the Magyars to other 62 WHAT MAKES A NATION? races of Hungary, permit me to speak on the question of Nationalities, a false theory of which plays so mischievous a part in the destinies of Europe. No word has been more misrepresented than the word Nationality, which is become in the hands of absolutism a dangerous instrument against liberty. Let me ask you, gentlemen : are you, the people of the United States, a nation, or not? Have you a national government, or not ? You answer, yes : and yet you are not all of one blood, nor of one language. Millions of you speak English ; others French, German, Italian, Spanish, Danish, and even several Indian dialects : yet you are a nation. Neither youi' central government, nor those of separate states, nor your municipalities, legislate or ad- minister in every language spoken among you ; yet you have a national government. Now, suppose many of you were stmck with the curse of Babel, and exclaimed, " This union is an oppression ! our laws, our institutions, our state and city governments, are an oppression ! What is union to us ? w^hat are rights ? what avail laws ? what is freedom ? what is geography ? what is community of interests to us ? They are all nothing ; LANGUAGE is everything. Let us divide the Union, divide the states, divide the very cities, divide the whole territory, according to languages. Let the people of every language become a separate state : for every nation has a right to national life, and to us the language, and nothing else, is the nationality. Unless the state is founded upon language, its organization is tyranny." What then would become of your great Union ? W^hat of your constitution, the glorious legacy of your greatest man ? What of those immortal stars on mankind's moral sky ? What would become of your country itself, whence the spirit of freedom soars into light, and rising hope irradiates the future of humanity ? What would become of this grand, mighty complex of your republic, should her integrity ever be rent by the fanatics of language ? Where now she walks among the rising temples of liberty and happiness, she soon would tread, upon ruins, and mourn over human hopes. COMMON SYMPATHIES. 63 But happy art tliou, free nation of America, founded on the only solid basis, — liberty ! a principle steady as the world, eternal as the truth, universal for every climate, for every time, like Providence. Tyrants are not in the midst of you to throw the apple of discord and raise hatred in this national family, — hatred of races, that curse of humanity, that venomous ally of despotism. Glorious it is to see the oppressed of diverse countries, — diverse in language, history, habits, — wandering to these shores, and becoming members of this great nation, regenerated by the principle of common liberty. If language alone makes a nation, then there is no great nation on earth : for there is no country whose population is counted by millions, but speaks more than one language. No ! It is not language only. Community of interests, of rights, of duties, of history, but chiefly community of insti- tutions ; by which a population, varying perhaps in tongue and race, is bound together through daily intercourse in the towns, which are the centres and home of commerce and industry: — besides these, the very mountain-ranges, the system of rivers and streams, — the soil, the dust of which is mingled with the mortal remains of those ancestors who bled on the same field, for the same interests, the common in- heritance of glory and of woe, the community of laws and institutions, common freedom or common oppression: — all this enters into the complex idea of Nationality. That this is instinctively felt by the common sense of the people, nowhere is more manifestly shown than at this very moment in my native land. Hungary was declared by Francis - Joseph of Austria no more to exist as a Nation, no more as a State. It was and is put under martial law. Strangers, aliens to our laws and history as well as to our tongue, rule now, where our fathers lived and our brothers bled. To be a Hungarian is become almost a crime in our own native land. Well : to justify before the world the extinction of Hungaiy, the partition of its territory, and the reincorporating of the dissected limbs into the common body of servitude, the treacherous dynasty was anxious to show that the Hungarians are in a minority in their own land. They hoped that inti- 61 RECENT CENSUS OF HUNGARY. midation and terrorism would induce even the very Magyars to disavow their language and birth. They ordered a census of races to be made. They performed it with the iron rule of martial law; and dealt so arbitrarily that thousands of women and men, who professed to be Magyars, who professed not to know any other language than the Magyar, were, not- withstanding all their protestations, put down as Sclaves, Serbs, Germans, or Wallachians, because their names had not quite a Hungarian sound. And still what was the issue of this malig- nant plot ? That of the twelve millions of inhabitants of Hun- gary proper, the Magyars turned out to be more than eight millions, some two millions more than we know the case really is. The people instinctively felt that the tyrant had the design through the pretext of language to destroy the existence of the complex nation, and it met the. tyrannic plot as if it answered, '-We are, and must be, a nation; and if the tyrant takes lan- guage only for the mark of nationality, then we are all Magyars." And mark well, gentlemen ! this happened, not under my governorship, but under the rule of Austrian martial law. The Cabinet of Yienna became furious ; it thought of a new census, but prudent men told them that a new census would give the whole twelve millions as Magyars ; thus no new census was taken. But on the European continent there unhappily has grown up a school, which bound the idea of nationality to the idea of language only, and joined political pretensions to it. There are some who advocate the theory that existing States must cease, and the territories of the world be divided anew by languages and nations, separated by tongues. You are aware that this idea, if it were not impracticable, would be a curse to humanity — a deathblow to civilization and progress, and throw back mankind by centuries. It would be an eternal source of strife and war: for there is a holy, almost religious tie, by which man's heart is bound to his home, and no man would ever consent to abandon his native land only because his neighbours speak another lan- guage than himself. His heart claims that sacred spot where the ashes of his fathers lie — where his own cradle stood — where he dreamed the happy dreams of youth, and where FANATICS OF LANGUAGE, 65 nature itself bears a mark of his manhood's toil. The idea were worse than the old migration of nations was. Nothing but despotism would rise out of such a fanatical strife of all mankind. And really it is very curious. Nobody of the advocates of this mischievous theory is willing to yield to it for himself — but others he desires to yield to it. Every Frenchman becomes furious when his Alsace is claimed to Germany by the right of language — or the borders of his Pyrenees to Spain — but there are some amongst the very men who feel revolted at this idea, who claim of Germany that it should yield up large territory because one part of the inhabitants speak a different tongue, and would claim from Hungary to divide its territory, which God himself has limited by its range of mountains and the system of streams, as also by all the links of a community of more than a thousand years ; to cut off our right hand, Transjdvania, and to give it up to the neigh- bouring Wallachia, to cut out like Shylock one pound of our very breast — the Banat — and the rich country between the Danube and Theiss — to augment by it Turkish Serbia and so forth. It is the new ambition of conquest, but an easy con- quest, not by arms, but by language. So much I know, at least, that this absurd idea cannot, and will not, be advocated by any man here in the United States ; which did not open its hospitable shores to hiimanity, and greet the flocking millions of emigrants with the right of a citizen, in order that the Union may be cut to pieces, and even your single States divided into new-framed, inde- pendent countries according to languages. And do you know, gentlemen, whence this absurd theory sprang up on the European Continent ? It was the idea of Panslavismus — that is, the idea that the mighty stock of Sclavonic races is called to rule the world, as once the Eo- man did. It was a Eussian plot — it was a dark design to make out of national feelings a tool to Eussian preponderance over the world. Perhaps you are not aware of the liistorical origin of this plot. It was after that most immoral act of tyranny, the third division of Poland, that the chance of fate brought 66 PANSLAVISMUS. the Prince Czartorinsky, to the Court of Catherine of Eussia. He subsequently became minister of Alexander the Czar. It was in this quality that, with the noble aim to benefit his fallen fatherland, he claimed from the young Czar the restora- tion of Poland, suggesting for equivalent the idea of Eussian preponderance over all nations of the old Sclavonic race. I believe his intention was sincere ; I believe he did not mean to overlook those natural borders, which, besides the affinity of language, God himself has drawn between the nations. But he forgot that he might be no longer able to master the spirits which he would raise, and that an undesired fanaticism might force sundry fantastical shapes into his framework, by which the frame itself must burst in pieces. He forgot that Eussian preponderance cannot be propitious to liberty : he forgot that it cannot be favourable even to the development of the Sclave nationality, because Sclavonic nations would by this idea be degraded into mere Eussians, that is, absorbed by despotism. Eussia got hold of the fanciful idea very readily ? May be that young Alexander had in the first moment noble inclinations ; the warm heart of youth is susceptible to noble instincts. It is not common in history to find young princes so premature in tyranny as Francis- Joseph of Austria. But a few years of power were sufficient to extinguish eveiy spark of noble sentiment, if there was one, in Alexander's heart. Upon the throne of the Eomanoffs the man is soon absorbed by the Autocrat. The traditional policy of St. Petersburg is not an atmosphere in which the plant of regeneration can grow, and the fanciful idea became soon a weapon of oppres- sion and of Eussian preponderance — Eussia availed herself of the idea of Panslavism to break Turkey down, and to make an obedient satellite out of Austria. Turkey still withstands her, but Austria has fallen into the snare. Eussia sent out its agents, its moneys, its venomous secret diplomacy ; it whispered to the Sclave nations about hatred against foreign dominion — about independence of religion connected with nationality under its own supremacy ; but chiefly it spoke to them of Panslavism under the protectorate of the Czar. The millions of his large empire also, all oppressed — all in servi- LATIN IN HUNGARY. 67 tude — all a tool to his ambition ; them too he flattered with the idea of becoming rulers of the world, in order that they might not think of liberty : he knew that man's breast can- not maintain in ascendancy two great passions at once. He gave them ambition and excluded the spirit of liberty. This ambition got hold of all the Sclave nations through Europe ; so Panslavism became the source of a movement, not of nationality, but of the dominion of languages. That word " language" replaced every other sentiment, and so it became a curse to the development of liberty. Only one part of the Sclavonic races saw the matter clear, and withstood the current of this dark Eussian plot. These were the Polish Democrats — the only ones who understood that to fight for liberty is to fight for nationality. Therefore they fought in our ranks, and were willing to flock in thou- sands upon thousands to aid us in our struggle ; but we could not arm them, so I would not accept them. We ourselves had a hundredfold more hands ready to fight than arms — and there was nobody in the world to supply us with arms. Now let me see what was the condition of Hungary under these circumstances. Eight hundred and fifty years ago, when the first King of Hungary, St. Stephen, becoming Christian himself, converted the Hungarian nation to Christianity, it was the Eoman Catholic clergy of Germany whom he invited to assist him in his pious work. They did assist him, but the assistance, as happens with human nature, was accompanied by some worldly designs. Hungary ofiPered a wide field to the ambition of foreigners, and they persuaded the King to adopt a curious principle, which he laid down in his last Will and Testament — that it is not good, for the people of a country to be but of one extraction and speak but one tongue. A second rule was, to adopt the language of the Church — Latin — for the language of government, legislature, law and all public pro- ceedings. This is the origin of that fatality, that Democracy did not grow up for centuries in Hungary. The public pro- ceedings being in Latin, the laws given in Latin, public instruction carried on in Latin, the great mass of the people, who where agriculturists, did not partake in any of this ; and 68 the few who in the ranks of the people partook in it, became severed and alienated from the people's interests. This dead Latin language, introduced into the public life of a living nation, was the most mischievous barrier against liberty. The first blow to it was stricken by the Eeformation. The Protestant Church, introducing the national language into the divine services, became a medium to the development of the spirit of liberty, and so our ancient struggles for religious liberty were always connected with the maintenance of politi- cal rights. But still, Latin public life went on down to 1780. At that time, Joseph of Hapsburg, aiming at centra- lization, replaced the Latin by the German tongue. This roused the national spirit of Hungary • and our forefathers seeing that the dead Latin language, excluding the people from the public concerns, cannot be propitious to liberty, and anxious to oppose the design of the Viennese Cabinet to Germanize Hungary, and so melt it iiito the common absolutism of the Austrian dynasty — I say, anxious to oppose this design by a cheerful public life of the people itself, from the year 1790 began to pass laws in the direction that by-and-by, step by step, the Latin language should be replaced in the public proceedings of the Legislature and of the Government by a living language familiar to the people itself. And what was more natural, than that, being in the necessity to choose one language, they choose the Magyar ? the more so, since those who spoke Hungarian were not only more than those who spoke any one of the other languages, but were if not more than, at least equal to, all those who spoke several other languages together. Be so kind to mark w^ell, gentlemen : no other language was oppressed — the Hungarian language was enforced upon nobody. Wherever another language was in use even in public life ; of whatever Church — whatever popular school — whatever community — it was not replaced by the Hungarian language. It was only the dead Latin, which by-and-by became eliminated from the diplomatic public life, and re- placed by the living Hungarian in Hungary. In Hungary, I say. Gentlemen, be pleased to mark : never was this measure extended into the municipal life of NOT SCLAVONIC. 69 Croatia and Sclavonia, which, though belonging for 800 years to Hungary, still were not Hungary, but a race with distinct local institutions. The Croatians and Sclavonians themselves repeatedly urged us in the common parliament to afford them opportunity to learn the Hungarian language, that, having the right, they might also enjoy the benefit, of being employed in the govern-^ ment offices of our common Hungary. This opportunity was afforded to them, but nobody was forced to make use of it ; while neither with their own municipal and public life, nor with the domestic, social, religious life, of any other people in Hungary itself, did the Hungarian language ever interfere. It replaced only the Latin language, which no people spoke, and which was contrary to liberty, because it excluded the millions from public life. Willing to give freedom to the people, we expelled that Latin tongue ; which was an obstacle to its future. We did what every other nation in the old world has done, clearing by it the way to the universal liberty. Your country is happy even in that respect. Being a young nation, you did not find the Latin tongue in your way when you established this Eepublic ; so you did not want a law to eject it from your public life. You have a living language, which is spoken in your Congress, in your State Legislatures, and by which your Government rules. It is not the native language of your whole people — and yet no man in the Union takes it for an oppression that legislature and government is not carried on in every language spoken in the United States. And one thing I have to mention yet. This replacing of the Latin language by the Hungarian was not a work of our recent measures, it was done before, step by step, from 1791. When we carried in 1848 our democratic reforms, and gave political, social, civil, and full religious freedom to the whole people, we extended our cares to the equal protection of every tongue and race, affording to aU equal right to aid out of the public funds, for the moral, religious, and scientific develop- ment in churches and in schools. Nay, we extended this even to political affairs, sanctioning the free use of every 70 SELF-GOVERNMENT IS FREEDOM. tongue, in the municipalities and communal corporations, as well as in the administration of justice. The promulgation of the laws in every tongue, the right to petition and to claim justice in each man's tongue, the duty of the government to answer in the same, all this was granted, and thus far more was done in that respect also, than any other nation ever accorded to the claims of tongues ; by far more than the United States ever did, though there is no country in the world where so many different languages are spoken as here. It is therefore the most calumnious misrepresentation to say that the Hungarians struggled for the dominion of their ' own race. No ; we struggled for civil, political, social, and religious freedom, common to all, against Austrian despotism. We struggled for the great principle of self-government against centralization ; because centralization is absolutism ; and is inconsistent with constitutional rights. Austria has given the very proof of it. The House of Austria had never the intention to grant constitutional life to the nations of Europe. I will prove that on another occasion. But the friends of the Hapsburgs say, it has granted a constitution — in March, 1849. Well, where is that Constitu- tion now ? It was not only never executed, but it was, three months ago, formally withdrawn. Even the word Ministry is blotted out from the dictionary of the Austrian govern- ment ! Schwarzenberg is again House, Court, and State Chancellor, as Metternich was ; only Metternich ruled not with the iron rule of martial law over the whole empire of xiustria as Schwarzenberg does. Metternich encroached upon the constitutional rights of Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, and Slavonia, Schwarzenberg has abolished them, and young Erancis- Joseph has melted all the nations together into common bondage, where the promised equality of nationalities is carried out most literally, to be sure, for they are all equally oppressed, and all are equally ruled by absolutist principles and by the German language. And why was that iUusory constitution withdrawn? Because it was a lie from the beginning; an impossibility. It was founded on the principle of centralization. It centralized thirteen different nations, which had had no political history in common, except to SOLE HOPE OF ITALY, 71 have groaned under Austrian rule. Under such circum- stances to have a common life was an absurdity augmented by deceit. I cannot exhaust this vast topic in one speech. We want Eepublican institutions, so founded on self-government every- where, that the people themselves may be sovereign every- where. This is the cause, for which I humbly request your protecting aid. It is the cause of oppressed Europe. It is the cause of Germany, bleeding under some thirty petty tyrants who lean on that league of despots, the basis of which is Petersburg. It is the cause of fair, but unfortunate Italy, which in so many respects is now dear to our heart. We have a common enemy ; so we are brothers in arms for freedom and independence. I know how Italy is situated ; and I dare confidently to declare, there is no hope for Italy, but in that great republican party, at the head of which Mazzini stands. It has nothing to do with communistical schemes, or the French doctrines of Socialism : but it wills, that Italy be free and republican. Whither else could Italy look for freedom and independence, if not to that party which Mazzini leads ? To the King of Naples perhaps ? Let me be silent about that execrated man. Or to the dynasty of Sardinia and Piedmont ? This professes to be constitutional ; yet it captures those poor Hungarian soldiers who seek an asylum in Piedmont, — captures, and delivers them to Austria to be shot : and they are shot, increasing the number of those 3742 martyrs whom Eadetzky murdered on the scaifold during three short years. The House of Savoy is become the bloodhound of Austria against fugitive Hun- garians. Gentlemen, the generous sympathy of public opinion here (God be blessed !) is strongly aroused to the wrongs and sufferings of Hungary. I look to your aid to keep that sympathy alive, — to urge the formation of societies to collect funds and support a loan, — to move in favour of the pro- positions, which I had the honour to express at the Corporation Banquet. Consider not the weakness of my address, but only the strength of my cause ; and following the generous impulse of your republican hearts, accord to it the protec- 72 MR. DANA^S SPEECH. tive aid of the free independent Press. Then T may yet see fulfilled the noble \Yords of your Chairman's poetry : — Truth crush' d to earth shall rise again ; The eternal years of Grod are hers ; But error, wounded writhes in pain, And dies among .... (let me add, Sir,) . , ^oith all her worshippers. In the course of the same evening, one of the toasts drunk was, " To tlie Political Exiles of Europe," to which Michael Doheny, Esq., an Irish exile, first responded, in a speech full of animosity against England. After him Mr. Dana, made the following speech, which may be a useful comment on that of Kossuth. My friend, who has taken his seat, spoke in his own right as a political exile from Ireland, .a country than which none has more deeply suflFcred from the woes of foreign domination. I speak here by no such title. And yet if any man may without presumption claim to speak in behalf of the political exiles and rebels against tyranny, of several nations, of all nations indeed, it is an American. Eor he is not only himself the heir of a nation of rebels, but his whole lineage is cosmopolitan, and he may boast that he is akin to all the races of Europe. We have no exclusive origin, thank God ! In the veins of our country there flows the blood of a thou* sand tribes, just as our language is made up of a thousand idioms. We hear a good deal from certain quarters about the greatness of races, the practical energy of this race, the artistic genius of the other, and the great intellectual qualities of another. America disproves all these dogmas, and estab- lishes in their stead the higher principle that all races are capable of a noble development under noble institutions. Give freedom to the Celt, the Slavon, or the Italian, or what- ever other people ; give them freedom and independence -, establish among them the great principle of local self-govern- ment, and the earth does not more surely revolve in its orbit than they will in due time ripen into all the excellence and all the dignity of humanity. Men make and control institu- tions, but institutions in their turn make men. And if a people under Providence are endowed with institutions that ALL EMIGRATION IS POLITICAL. 73 have given free play and healthy growth to the most useful and admirable powers of man, it is not for that people to boast of its race as better than other races, and thank God, like the Pharisee, that it is not as other men. No, it is for that people to see the cause of its good fortune in its institu- tions, and to remenaber that it has responsibilities, and that it owes a helping hand to others that honestly struggle for such benefits. Especially is this the case with the American people, made up as they are from all races, and absorbing yearly as they do so much of the best blood of all. America has thriven and grown strong upon the misfortunes of Europe. Our toast specially refers to the political exiles of Europe, but the truth is, that all the exiles of that continent are political. Every shipload of emigrants that seeks our shores has been banished by political causes ; for had the institutions of their country been such as to secure to them freedom and the prosperity of freedom, do you think they would have forsaken their homes and the homes of their fathers to seek new homes beyond the ocean ? We owe then to Europe a debt for all this population and power that it has flung upon our shores, and how else can we pay it except by doing what we can to help the European nations to gain their freedom and form institutions under which there will be no political exiles ? For one I go for paying that debt, accord- ing to our means and opportunities. I saw the other day in the streets a large body of Europeans of various nations, marching along with a red flag. In Paris, or Eome, or Vienna, such a procession would have been impossible, or if it could have got into the streets, it would have been assailed by the soldiery, and its members either shot down or flung into prison. Yet in New York they went peacefully on their way, made their demonstration in all freedom, and no trouble or harm came of it. Very many of those men were political exiles. And why ? Not because they were bad men, for here in New York nothing could be more quiet and appro- priate than their behaviour. But they prove, that from wdiat- ever country there are political exiles, there the institutions are bad. I know we are in the habit of hearing about Bed Eepublicans and Socialists as men who are dangerous on 4. 74 MILITARY ORGANIZATION account of their opinions, and who have deserved to be banished from France, from Germany, from Italy. I will not now say anything about those opinions, but this I do say, that a country where all opinions and every opinion cannot be held and freely discussed, has a bad system of government and bad institutions. It is not the men nor their opinions that stand condemned, but the government and institutions. Therefore it is that we must sympathize with such exiles, without regard to their opinions, and pray earnestly and labour earnestly for the elevation of all countries to freedom. IX.— ON MILITAEY INSTITUTIONS. \_8peecJi to the New YorJc Militia^ December lQth.'\ The First Division, consisting of four brigades, was pre- sented to Kossuth in the Castle Garden. Major-General Sandford then proceeded to address Kossuth as follows : — Governor Kossuth : — It is with no ordinary feeling of gratification that I have this opportunity of addressing you, in the name and on behalf of the citizen soldiers of the city of New York. With an unbounded admiration of your devo- tion to the great cause of constitutional liberty, and of that indomitable firmness with which you have persevered under all circumstances in sustaining it, they were most happy to testify, upon your arrival in our city, their sense of your services in that cause which they are organized to sustain, and now they are again assembled to greet you with a heart- felt welcome, and to listen to the voice of one whom they have learned to respect, to love, and to venerate. The body of men now presented to you, about five thousand in number, represents the First Division of New York State Militia. The division enrols about fifty thousand men in this city and upon Staten Island, and the law of our State only imposes upon the general body the duty of appearing armed and equipped once in each year, at an annual parade appointed for that purpose. But out of this large number the law provides for the organization of those who are OF NEW YORK. 75 willing and desirous to acquire that degree of military science, to fit them, upon any sudden emergency of domestic insurrection or of foreign aggression, to sustain the laws and support the institutions of our country. They uniform and equip themselves at their own expense, and they serve without pay, satisfied with the consciousness that they are discharging a duty to their country, and qualifying them- selves to sustain the honour of our flag and the freedom won by our fathers. They represent fairly all classes of our citi- zens. Our hard-working and ingenious mechanic — our enter- prising and energetic merchant — our intelligent professional men — our grocers, butchers, bakers, and cartmen, are all to be found in our ranks, exhibiting in public spirit, energy, and intelligence a body of men not to be surpassed, even in this country of active enterprize and widely diffused intelli- gence. It is amongst such men, devoted to such a service, that, you may feel well assured, the intelligence of the noble struggle of the Hungarian people for their rights and liberties was received with the deepest feeling, and the progress of your contest watched with the most earnest solicitude. They exulted in your victories as the triumph of freedom over oppression and despotism — they saw in your almost superhuman energies and dauntless courage the hearts of a people determined to be free. They rejoiced that a great nation, with kindred principles and institutions, was esta- blished as an independent republic amidst the despotisms of Europe. But, alas ! all their hopes and anticipations were blasted. Such an example amidst the down-trodden subjects of the arbitrary governments of Europe, was viewed with alarm by their despotic rulers, and the enslaved hordes of the imperial Eussian were hurled upon the free sons of Hungary. Even with such mighty odds, we should not have despaired for Hungary, had she been afforded but one year of peaceful preparation to complete her organization and develop her resources. Her gallant sons upon her own soil, and battling for their homes, their altars, and their inde- pendence, would have been unconquerable. But treason and despotism combined, triumphed over freedom. Then com- menced a scene of horrors and cruelty, such as despots only 76 AMERICA MUST AID and the minions of despots can perpetrate. * * * Hun- garian liberty may be cast down, but cannot be destroyed. The sacred flame bums unquenched in the hearts of the people, and will again burst forth, a glorious light to enlighten the nation — but a consuming fire to their oppres- sors. But when ? and how shall this be accomplished ? Sir, we believe and feel with you that this will be accomplished whenever the free people of America, uniting with those kindred nations of Europe which sustain and shall secure free institutions, will support and insist upon that great moral principle of international law which you have recently so eloquently and ably expounded — that one nation should not interfere with the domestic concerns of another. Esta- blish this great and just principle, and Hungary would again assume her station among the nations of the earth — free and independent. Establish this great principle, and Germany and Italy would also soon be free. Sir, we believe in this great principle ; we believe it to be a principle of justice and humanity; we believe it to be the inalienable right of every people to establish such forms of government as are best adapted to their condition, and as they may deem best calculated to ensure their own rights, liberties, and pur- suit of happiness. And we believe that this great principle of international law should be the basis of the intercourse of nations, and that we have no more right to make free with the focms of government of other nations, than with their forms 01 religion. But this principle being conceded and established, how is it to be enforced ? How are the despotic dynasties of Europe to be prevented from lending their com- bined energies to crush every germ of freedom amongst those who, if left to themselves, would, like Hungary, be free and independent. Solely by the method which you have so ably developed. Solely by inducing those nations which are strong enough to maintain the principles of international law — to unite in their support, and by such union, effectually guarantee the peace of the world. To effect this most de- sirable object, you have adopted the true method. You would operate upon the public opinion, and public opinion operating upon free government, creates and establishes EUROPEAN FREEDOM. 77 public and international law. But when we see this great principle of non-intervention violated — when we see a free and united people crushed and trampled upon by foreign despots, because they have dared to proclaim and establish equal rights and privileges as the basis of their own institu- tutions, must we look tamely on and see the life-blood of freedom crushed out by the iron heel of barbaric despotism, and hear the deathgroans of the brave and free without daring to express our feelings or to extend the hand of sympathy and comfort to the suffering sons of liberty? No! in the name of outraged justice and humanity, no ! We will openly, warmly, and freely express our sympathy in the cause of freedom, and our approbation of the devotion, the endurance, and the gallantry of her sons. We will, by all constitutional modes, endeavour to sustain those principles, which will terminate this outrage upon the sacred laws of justice and humanity. We will further aid this cause by contributing our share to the contributions offered by our people to enable you to advance the establishment of those principles so important to the emancipation of your beloved Hungary, and so essential to the preservation of civil and religious liberty. And now upon this interesting occasion, I hail the presence of this noble company of faithful and devoted sons of Hungary, your companions in exile and in prison, and present them to this division ; men, who, like our fathers, pledged their sacred honours " to sustain the inde- pendence of their country." [Here there was an outburst of cheering, and Col. Berczenszy and the other Hungarians, companions in arms of Kossuth, all rose, and were again greeted with another burst of enthusiastic cheering.] We receive them as friends and brothers, and as martyrs in the same holy cause of constitutional liberty in which our fathers fought and bled, and suffered, and triumphed ; and in which, we trust and believe, you will also live to triumph and rejoice, in the bosom of your own, your native land. Loud applause followed the conclusion of this address. Kossuth then rose and said — General and Gentlemen, — I accept with the highest gratitude, the honour to meet the first division of the New 78 GARIBALDI^S ADDRESS. York State Militia, who having, in their capacity of citizen soldiers, honoured me on my arrival by their participation in the generous welcome which I met with, have also, by the military honour bestowed on me, so much contributed to impart to this great demonstration that public character which cannot fail to prove highly beneficial to the cause wliich I hold up before the free people of this mighty republic, and which I dare confidently to state is the great question of freedom and independence to the European continent. I entreat you, gentlemen, not to expect any elaborate speech from me, because really I am unprepared to make one. You are citizen soldiers, a glorious title, to which I have the am- bition of aspiring ; so, I hope you will kindl}' excuse me, if I endeavour to speak to you as soldiers. Do you know, gentlemen, what is the finest speech I ever heard or read ? It is the address of Garibaldi to his Roman soldiers in tlie last war, when he told them : — '' Soldiers, what I have to offer you is fatigue, danger, straggling, and death — the chill of the cold night, the open air, and the burning sun — no lodgings, no munitions, no provisions — but forced marches, dangerous watchposts, and continual struggling with bayonets against batteries. Let those who love freedom and their country, follow me." That is the most glorious speech I ever heard in my life. But, of course, that is no speech for to-day. I will speak so, when I again meet the soldiers of Hungary, to fight once more the battle of freedom and independence. [After various compliments to General Sandford on the appearance of his soldiers, and the good order of the republic, Kossuth continued as follows :] I thank you for the explana- tion of the organization and discipline of this gallant division. Europe has many things to learn from America. It has to learn the value of free institutions — the expansive power of freedom — the practical value of local self-government, as opposed to centralization. Eut one of the most important lessons you give to Europe, is in the organization of the militia of the United States. You have the best organized army in the world, and yet you have scarcely a standing army at all. That is a necessary thing for Europe to learn from America — that great standing armies must cease. But they STANDING ARMIES MUST CEASE. 79 can cease, only then^ when the nations are free ; for great standing armies are not national institutions, they are the instruments of dynastic violence or foreign despotism. The existence of tyranny imposes on Europe great standing armies. When the nations once become free, they will not want them, because they will not war with each other. Freedom will become a friendly link among nations. But as far as they may want them, your example shows that a popular militia, like yours, is the mightiest national Defence. Thirty-seven years ago a great battle was fought at New Orleans, which showed what a defence your country has in its militia. Nay more, your history proves that this institution affords the most powerful means of Offensive war, should war become indispensable. I am aware, gentlemen, that your war with Mexico was chiefly carried on by volunteers. I know what a distinguished part the volunteers of New York took in that war. And who were these volunteers? Who were those from New York city, and of other regiments ? They were of your militia, the source of that military spirit which is the glory of your country, and its safety when needed in time of war or social disorder. I learned all this from the United States, and it was my firm intention to carry out this militia organization in Hungary. My idea was and still is to do so, and I will endeavour, with the help of God, to carry it out. My idea is, there are duties towards one native land com- mon to every citizen, and public instruction and education must have such a direction as to enable every citizen to per- form them. One of these duties is to defend it in time of danger, to take up arms for its freedom and independence and security. My idea is to lay such a foundation for public instruction in the schools, that every boy in Hungary shall be educated in military skill, so much as is necessary for the defence of his native land, and those who feel inclined to adopt the profession of arms, might complete their education in higher public schools and universities, as is the case in the professions of the bar, and physic, and the pulpit. But I would have no distinction among the citizens. To defend our country is a common duty, and every one must know how 80 A WHOLE NATION IS A MILITIA. to perform it. Taking the basis of your organization as an example for Hungary, Hungary would have at least one mil- lion of men ready to defend it against the oppression of any power whatever. That the militia of Hungary, thus deve- loped, would be the most solid guardian of my country's freedom and independence, we have shown in our past strug- gles. The glorious deeds which the unnamed heroes of the people achieved, proves what with previous preparation they could do in defence of their native land. Often they have gone into battle without knowing how to fire or cock a musket ; but they took batteries by their bayonets, and they achieved glorious deeds like those that are classed among the deeds of immortality. We have not either wish or inclination for conquest. We are content with our native land, if it be independent and free. For the maintenance of that independence and freedom, we established by law the institution of the National Guard. It is like your militia. I consider the organization to be like a porcupine, which moves on its own road quietly, but when attacked or when danger approaches, stretches forth its thorns. May God Almighty grant that I may soon see developed in my native land, the great institution of a National Guard ! The power of Hungary, thus established, is a basis indis- pensable to the freedom of Europe. I will prove this in a few words. The enemy of European freedom is Eussia. Now, can Hungary be a barrier to secure Europe against this power of Eussia ? I answer : yes. You are a nation of twenty-four millions, and you have an organized militia of some three millions; Hungary is a nation of fifteen millions, and at least can have one million of brave citizen soldiers. I hope this may be regarded, then, as a positive proof of what I say about the ability of Hungary to resist the power of despotism, and defend Europe against Eussian encroachments. Another thing is, the weakness of Eussia herself; for she is not so strong as people generally believe. It has taken her whole power to put down Hungary, and all she can raise consists of 750,000 men. Then you must consider that the Eussian territory is of immense extent, and that its population is oppressed ; tranquillity and the order of the grave, — not the POWER OF HUNGARY AGAINST RUSSIA. 81 order of contentment, — is kept, in Eussia itself, only by the armed soldiery of the Czar. Now, it is not much when I say that 250,000 men are indispensable to keep tranquillity in the interior of that empire ; 100,000 men are necessary to guard its frontiers extending from Siberia to Turkey; 100,000 to keep down the heroic spirit of oppressed Poland. Take all this together, and you will see that Eussia scarcely can, at the utmost, employ 300,000 men in a foreign war, and, really, it had not more engaged, as history will prove, in the greatest struggle it made for existence — it could not bring- more into the field. The million of citizen soldiers would not require to be so brave as they are, to be a match for those 300,000 men; and, therefore, the first result of restored independence in Hungary would be — should the Czar once more have the arrogant intention to put his foot upon man- kind's neck, as he blasphemously boasted he had the autho- rity of God to do — the repression of his power by Hungary. Not only would it be repressed, but Hungary could assault him in a~quarter where she would find powerful allies. His financial embarrassments are very great, for you know that even in the brief war in Hungary he was necessitated to raise a loan in England. We should have for our allies the op- pressed people, and our steps would be marked by the liberation of all who are now enslaved. First among our allies would be the Polish nation, which is not restricted to the Poland of the maps, but extends through the wide pro- vinces of Gallicia, Lithuania, &c. These are proofs that the might of Eussia is not so immense that it should intimidate a nation fighting in a just cause. With Hungary once free, Eussia would never dare to threaten European liberty again. But if Eussia is so weak as I have shown her to be, whv. you may say, do I ask your support and aid against her interference ? Because Eussia is only thirty hours' distance from Hungary, and one of her large armies stands prepared to move at any time against the liberties of our people, before ^ we could have time to develop our resources. This is the motive why 1 ask, in the name of my country, the great and beneficial support of the United States to check and prevent Eussian interference in Hungary, so that we may have tme 4§ 82 HUNGARY NEEDS ONLY PREPARATION. to erect it into an insurmountable barrier and impregnable fortress against the despotism of the Czar. This, I say, is the reason why I claim aid from the United States, and_ask ^tjto assume its rightful executive in ihe police of nations. That is the only glory which is wanting to the lustre of your glorious stars/ The militia of the United States having been the assertors of the independence and liberties of this country and the guardians of its security, have now scarcely any other calling ; and I confidently hope, that being your condition, you will not deny your generous support to the great principle of non-interference, in the next struggle which Hungary will make for freedom and independence, which even now is felt in the air, and is pointed out by the ^ finger of God himself. My second earnest wish and hope is, that the people will see that their commerce with other people, whether in revolution or not, shall be secured. It is not so much my interest as it is your right ; and I hope I the militia of the United States will ever be ready to protect jl oppressed humanity. My tliii'd humble claim is, that this great republic shall recognize the legitimate independence of Hungary. The militia of this country fought and bled for that principle upon your own soil ; so, by the glory of your predecessors — by all the blessings which have flowed from your struggle, which make your glory and happiness — you v/ill feel inclined to support this my humble claim for the recognition of the legitimate independence of my fatherland. I thank you for the generous sympathy, and for the reception and welcome of my companions, the devoted sons of Plungary, who were ready to sacrifice life and fortune to the independence of their native land. There are several among them who were already soldiers before our struggle, and they employed their military skill in the service of their country. But there were others who were not soldiers, yet whose patriotism led them to embrace the cause of their native land, and they proved to be brave and efficient sup- porters of the freedom for which they fought. Thanking you for the sympathy you have expressed for them, I promise you, gentlemen, that they will prove themselves worthy of it. I will point out to them the most dangerous FRENCH CENTRALIZATION. 83 places, and I know they will acquit themselves honourably and bravely. As to myself, I have here a sword on my side given to me by an American citizen. This being a gift from a citizen of the United States, I take it as a token of encouragement to go on in that way by which, with the blessing of Almighty God, I shall yet be enabled again to see my fatherland independent and free. I swear here before you, that this American sword in my hand shall be always faithful in the cause of freedom — that it shall be ever foremost in the battle — and that it shall never be polluted by ambition or cowardice. ► ^ g l e I * ' X.—CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL FOE DEMOCEACY AND PEACE. \_Rejply to the Address of the Democrats of Tarn/many Sall^ New TorJc, Dec, 17th.'] Mr. Sickles, who made the address, closed by stating that he contributed to the cause of Hungary '' a golden dollar, fresh from the free mines of the Pacific;" adding that he trusted millions would follow, and that the ''Almighty Dollar," if still the proverb of a money-making people, w^ould become a symbol of its noblest instinjcts and truest ambition. Kossuth, in reply, after warm thanks, declined the personal praises bestowed on him, and sketched the series of events by which the Austrian tyranny had converted him from insig- nificance into a man of importance. He then proceeded to comment on France,* as follows : — I hope that the great French nation will soon succeed to establish a true republic. But I have come to the conviction, that for freedom tHere is no duration in Centralization, which is a legacy of ambitious men. To l)e conquerors, power must be centralized; but to be a free nation, self- government must reign in families, villages, cities, counties, states. As power now is lodged in France, the government has in its hand an army of half a million of men, under that iron discipline which is needed in a standing army. It has ^ The news of the coujp^ d^ etat had not yet reached liim. 8i JUSTICE MUST PRECEDE PEACE. under its control a budget of more than a thousand million francs. It can dispose of every public office in France ; it has a civil army of more than 500,000 men: the mayor of the least village derives his appointment from the government- All the police, all the ge7is d' urines, are in its hands. Now, gentlemen, is it not clear that — with such authority and force, — not to become dangerous to liberty, every President needs to be a Washington. And AVashingtons are not so thickly # strewn around. Woe to the country, whose institutions are I such, that their freedom depends on the personal character of one man. Be he the best man in the world, he will not overcome the essential repugnance of his position to freedom. When France abandons this centralization, and carries out her own principles of " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," by local self-government, she will be the great basis of European republics. As to sovereignty of the people, I take it that the right to cast a vote for the election of a President once in four years does not exhaust the sovereign rights of a nation. A people deciding about its own matters, must be everywhere master of its own fate, in village communes as much as in electing its chief officer. You have spoken about certain persons who will have " peace at any price." Of course you feel that permanent peace cannot be had at any less price, than that which buys justice ; nor can there be justice, where is no freedom. Under oppres- sion is neither contentment nor tranquillity. There are some ., who prefer being oppressed to the dangers of shaking off op- \ pression ; but I am sure there are millions who fear death less than enslavement. Peace therefore will not exist, though all your Rothschilds and Barings help the despots. To withhold materia] aid from the oppressed will not avert the war, but by depriving the leaders of the means of concert will simply make the struggle more lingering : a result surely not desired by friends of peace. But, sir, I thank you for your dollar. The ocean is com- [ posed of drops. The greatest results are achieved, not by I individuals, but by the humble industry of mankind, inces- ' santly bringing man nearer to the aim providentially destined i for him. Not all the Eothschilds together can wield such PROTESTANT STRUGGLES OF HUNGARY. 85 sums as poor people can ; for the poor count by millions. Those dollars of the people have another great value. One million of them given by a million of men gives hope to the popular cause : it gives the sympathy and support of a mil- lion men. I bless God for that word of yours, that the one dollar should be followed by many ; for then your example would not only in a financial respect be a great benefit, but afford a foundation for that freedom which the j\lmighty designs for the nations. Here is a great glory for your country to aim at. It is glorious to stand at the top of the pyramid of humanity ; more glorious to become yourselves the pillar on which the welfare of human nature rests. For this, mankind looks to your country with hope and con- ' fidence. XI.— HUNGATIY AND AUSTEIA IN EELiaiOUS CONTEAST. [^Address in the Flymouth Church at BrooMyn, Dec. 18^^, 1851.] The Eev. H. W. Beecher having assured Kossuth of the deep and religious interest long felt and expressed towards him within those very walls ; Kossuth replied, declaring that he felt himself always in the power of God, and believed Christianity and freedom to be but one cause. He went on to add : The cause of Hungary is strongly connected with the principle of religious liberty on earth. In the first war of the sixteenth century a battle was fought by the Moslems in Hungary, by which the power of our nation was almost overthrown. At that time the monarchy was elective. A Hungarian, who was Governor of Transylvania, was chosen king, but another party elected Ferdinand of Austria to be King of Hungary. A long struggle ensued, in which the Princes of Transylvania called in Turkish aid against the House of Austria. In the hour of necessity, the House of Austria complied with the wishes of my nation, whenever my country had taken up arms ; but no sooner was the sword laid down, than 86 CATHOLICS OF HUNGARY. this dynasty always neglected to perform its promises. In the midst of the last century, under Maria Theresa, those who did not belong to the Catholic faith were almost excluded from all offices. Joseph succeeded, who was a tolerant man ; but scarcely was he in his grave, when the Emperor Francis renewed persecution, and it was only in 1848, that religious liberty was established to every creed. When the House of Austria took arms against the laws of 1848, they took arms against religious liberty. In our Parliament, it was Roman Catholics who stood in the van of battle for religious liberty : but when I say this, I must state it without drawing any commentary from it. It was reserved to our revolution to sliow the development of the glorious cause of freedom. When my country imposed on me the duty to govern the land, I was ready to show the confidence I had in religious freedom. I chose a Catholic Minister to be Minister of Education in Hungary, and he fully justified the confidence I reposed in him. He has shown that our Constitution is founded upon equality ; that it regards all men as citizens, and makes no distinction of profession. It is only under free institutions that a clergy- man can remain a clergyman with burning heart towards his own duties, and yet, when called to perform the duties of a citizen, be no longer a clergyman but a citizen. Could the Church of Eome have appreciated this principle, and have acted upon it, my friend Mazzini were not now necessary for the freedom of Italy. But as Eome did not appreciate it, the temporal power of the Pope will probably fall at the next revolution. My principles are, that the Church shall not meddle with politics, and Government will not meddle with religion. In every society there are political and civil concerns on one side, and on the other social concerns ; for the first, civil authority must be established — in political and civil respects every one has to acknowledge the power of its jurisdiction. Eut, in respect to social interests, it is quite the contrary. Eeligion is not an institution — it is a matter of conscience. For the support of these principles I ask your generous aid. You know that whenever the House of Austria attains AUSTRIA AND RUSSIA INTOLERANT. 87 to any strength, its first step is to break down religious liberty. And Austria is helped by Eussia, which is even still less propitious to these principles; you remember the insolence or hardship to which in E,ussia those people are subject who do not belong to the Greek Church; at the present time the poor Jews are subjected to great indignities, and compelled, if not to shave off their hair, to cut it in a parti- cular manner, so as to distinguish them from members of the Greek Church. But Hungary, by the providence of God, is destined to become once more the vanguard of civi- lization, and of religious liberty for the whole of the European Continent against the encroachments of Eussian despotism, as it has already been the barrier of Christianity against Islamism. Kossuth then proceeded to explain, that any moneys con« tributed by the generosity of the American public would not be employed as a warlike fund, for which it would be utterly insignificant ; but solely as a means of enabling the oppressed to concert their measures. After this he canvassed the three props of Austria, and pointed out the weakness of them all ; viz. its loans, — its army, — and Eussia. Its loans run fast to a bankruptcy. Its army is composed of nations which hate it. Under the Austrian government, the Tyrol perhaps alone has escaped bombardments, scaffolds, and jails filled with patriots. The armies are raised by forcible con- scriptions, and contain some hundred thousand Hungarians who recently fought and conquered Austria, whom Austria now keeps in drill to serve against her when the time comes. As to the third prop — Eussia, — possibly for some days yet in the future it may support Austria ; but not in a long war : Austria can never stand in a long war. I am told (said Kossuth) that some who call themselves '' men of peace " cry out for jjeace at any price. But is the present condition peace? Is the scaffold peace? — that! scaffold, on which in Lombardy during the " peaceful " years ! the blood of 3742 patriots has been shed. "When the prisons | of Austria are filled with patriots, is that peace ? or is the I discontent of all the nations peace ? I do not believe that f the Lord Created the world for such a kind of peace as tKat, — | 88 TESTIMONY TO KOSSUTH to be a prison, — to be a volcano, boiling up and ready to break out. No : but with justice and liberty there will be contentment, and, with contentment, peace — lasting peace, consistent peace : while from the tyrants of the world there is oppression, and with oppression the breaking forth of war XII.— PUBLIC PIEACY OF RUSSIA. {Reply to tJie Address of the Bar of Neiv York, Dec. 19th, 1851.] A reception and a banquet to Kossuth having been pre- pared by the Bar at Tripler Hall, ex-justice Jones introduced him with a short speech ; after which Judge Sandford, in the name of the whole Bar, read an ample address, of which the following is the principal part : — Governor Kossuth. — The Bar of New York, having participated with their fellow-citizens in extending to you that cordial and enthusiastic welcome which greeted your landing upon the shores of America, have solicited the oppor- tunity to express to you, as a member of the legal profession, their respect for your great talents and eminent attainments, and their admiration for the ardour and enthusiasm with which you have devoted all your powers and energies to the sacred cause of the emancipation of your native land. Wherever freedom has needed an advocate, wherever law has required a supporter, wherever tyranny and oppression have provoked resistance, and men have been found for the occa- sion, it is the proud honour of our common profession to have presented from our ranks some prominent individual who has generously and boldly engaged in the service ; and Hungary has furnished to the world one of the most striking in the brilliant series of illustrious examples. As early as the year 1840, the public history of Hungary had made us acquainted with the distinguished part which a Mr. Kossuth, an attorney, as he was then described, had performed in sustaining the laws of his country. Mr. Kossuth, the Attorney of that day, has since matured into the Counsellor, FROM THE BAR OF NEW YORK. 89 Statesman, Patriot, Governor, and now stands before us the Exile, more distinguished for his firmness and undaunted courage in his last reverse than for his exaltation by the free choice of his countrymen. After the years of your imprison- ment and painful anxiety had worn away, and the illegal measure of your arrest had been publicly acknowledged, we found you restored to your personal liberty, and again ardently engaged in the great cause of your country's freedom. At the meeting of the Diet of Hungary, which was held in November, 1847, and before the flame of revolution had illuminated Europe, we found a series of acts resolved upon by that body, which declared an equality of civil rights and of public burdens among all classes, denominations, and races in Hungary and its provinces, perfect toleration for every form of religion, an extension of the elective franchise, universal freedom in the sale of landed property, liberty to strangers to settle in the country, the emancipation of the Jews, the sum of eight millions set apart to encourage manufactures and construct roads, and the nobles of Hungary, by a voluntary act, abolishing the old tenure of the lands, thereby constituting the producing classes to be absolute owners of nearly one half of the cultivated territory in the kingdom. This great advance made by your country in a system of benign and ameliorating legislation, was checked by occurrences which are too fresh in your recollection to require a recapitulation. We welcome you among us ; we tender you our admiration for your efforts ; our sympathy for your sufferings ; our cordial wishes that your persevering labours may be successful in restoring your country to her place among nations, and her people to the enjoyment of those blessings of civil and religious liberty, to which, by their intelligence and bravery, and by the laws of nature and of nature's God, they are justly entitled. Our professional pursuits have led us to the study of the system of jurispru- dence which has been matured by the wisdom and experience of ages, but which has been recognized by all eminent jurists to be founded upon the defined principles of Christianity. Erom that great source of law we have learned, that as mem- bers of the family of mankind, our duties are not bounded by 90 LAW EMBRACES THE EARTH. the territorial limits of the government which protects us, nor circumscribed as to time or space. We have framed a constitution of government, and under it have adopted a system of laws which we are bound to execute and obey. The stability and efficiency of our own government are de- pendent upon the intelligence, virtue, and moderation of our people. It has been justly remarked by one of our most distinguished jurists, that '' in a republic, every citizen is himself in some measure entrusted with the public safety, and acts an important part for its weal or woe." Trained as we have been in these principles of self-government, appreciating all the blessings which a bounteous Creator has so profusely showered upon us, and desirous to see the principles of civil and religious liberty extended to other nations, we rejoice at eveiy uprising of their oppressed people ; we sympathize with their struggles, and within the limits of our public laws and public policy, we aid them in their efforts. If through weakness or treachery they fail, we grieve at their misfortunes. In you, sir, we behold a i personification of that gi'eat principle which forms the corner !, stone of our own revered Constitution — the right of self- I government. Darkened as has been the horizon of suffering Hungary, in you, sir, still burns that living fire of freedom, j which we trust will yet light up her firmament, and shed its (lustrous flame over her wasted lands. "The unnamed demi-gods" whose blood has moistened her battle-fields, the martyrs whose lives have been freely offered up on the scaffold and beneath the axe, the living exiles now scattered through distant lands, have not suffered, are not suffering in vain. Governments were created for the benefit of the many, and not of the few. A day, an hour of retribution will yet come ; the Almighty promise will not be forgotten — " Vengeance is mine — I will repay it, saith the Lord." Kossuth thereupon replied : — Gentlemen, — Highly as I value the opportunity to meet the gentlemen of the Bar, I should have felt very much embarrassed to have to answer the address of that corporation before such a numerous and distinguished assembly, had not JURISPRUDENCE IS PROGRESSIVE. 91 you, sir, relieved my well-founded anxiety by justly antici- pating and appreciating my difficulties. Let me hope, that herein you were the interpreter of this distinguished assembly's indulgence. Gentlemen of the Bar, you have the noble task to be the first interpreters of the law ; to make it subservient to justice ; to maintain its eternal principles against encroachment ; and to restore those principles to life, whenever they become obliterated by misunderstanding or by violence. My opinion is, that Law must keep pace in its development with institu- tions and intelligence, and until these are perfect, law is and must be with them in continual progress. Justice is im- . mortal, eternal, and immutable, like God himself ; and the 1 development of law is only then a progress, when it is directed I towards those principles which, like Him, are eternal ; and | whenever prejudice or error succeeds in establishing in i customary law any doctrine contrary to eternal justice, it is one of your noblest duties, gentlemen, — having no written Code to fetter justice within the bonds of error and prejudice, — it is one of your noblest duties to apply Principles, — to show that an unjust custom is a corrupt practice, an abuse ; and by showing this, to originate that change, or rather development in the unwritten, customary law, which is necessary to make it protect justice, instead of opposing and violating it. If this be your noble vocation in respect to the Private laws of your country, let me entreat you, gentlemen, to extend it to that Public law which, regulating the mutual duties of nations towards each other, rules the destinies of humanity. You know that in that eternal code of " nature and of nature's God," which your forefathers invoked when they raised the colonies of England to the rank of a free nation, there are no pettifogging subtleties, but only ever- lasting principles : everlasting, like those by which the world is ruled. You know that when artificial cunning of ambitious | oppressors succeeds to pervert those principles, and when j passive indifference or thoughtlessness submits to it, as weakness must submit : it is the noble destiny — let me say, duty — of enlightened nations, alike powerful as free, to 92 OPPRESSION IS NOW ASCENDANT. restore those eternal principles to practical validity, so that justice, light, and truth may sway, where injustice, oppression, and error have prevailed. Eaise high the torch of truth ; cast its beams on the dark field of arbitrary prejudice ; become the champions of principles, and your people will be the regenerators of International law. It will. A tempestuous life has somewhat sharpened my eye, and had it even not done so, still I would dare to say, I know how to read your people's heart. It is conscious of your country's power ; it is jealous of its own dignity ; it knows that it is able to restore the law of nations to the principles of justice and right ; and knowing its ability, its will shall not be lacking. Let the cause of Hungary become the opportunity for the restoration of true and just inter- national law. Mankind is come to the eleventh hour in its destinies. One hour of delay more, and its fate may be sealed, and nothing left to the generous inclinations of your people — so tender-hearted, so noble, and so kind — but to mourn over murdered nations, its beloved brethren in humanity. I have but to make a few remarks about two objections, which I am told I shall have to contend with. The first is, that it is a leading principle of the United States not to interfere with European nations. I may perhaps assume that you have been pleased to acquaint yourselves with what I have elsewhere said on that argument ; — viz. that the United States had never entertained or confessed such a principle, or at any rate had abandoned it, and had been forced to do so : which indicates it to have been only a temporary policy. I stated the mighty difference between neutrality and non-interference ; so I will only briefly remark that a like difference exists between alliance and interference. Every independent power has the right to form alliances, but is not under duty to do so : it may remain neutral, if it please. Neither alliances nor neutrality are matters of principle, but simply of policy. They may hurt interest, but do not violate law ; whereas with interference the con- trary is the case. Interference with the sovereign right of ! nations to resist oppression, or to alter tiieir institutions and WHO ARE PIRATES? 93 government, is a violation of the law of nations and of God ' ■ therefore non-interference is a duty common to every power / and every nation, and is placed under the safeguard of every I power, of every nation. He who violates that law is like a J pirate : every power on earth has the duty to chase him down as a curse to human nature. There is not a man in the United States but would avow that a pirate must be chased^ down; and no man more readily than the gentlemen ofj trade. A gentleman who came yesterday to honour me with the invitation of Cincinnati, that rising wonder of the West, — with eloquence which speaks volumes in one word, desig- nated as 'piracy the interference of foreign violence with the domestic concerns of a nation. There is such a moving power in a word of truth ! That word has relieved me of many long speeches. I no longer need to discuss the principle of your foreign policy : there can be no doubt about what is lawful, what is a duty, against piracy. Your naval forces are, and must be, instructed to put down piracy wherever they meet it, on whatever geographic lines, whether in European or in American waters. You sent your Com- modore Decatur for that purpose to the Mediterranean, who told the Dey of Algiers, that " if he claims powder, he will have it with the balls ;" and no man in the Uniied States imagined this to oppose your received policy. Nobody then objected that it is the ruling principle of the United States not to meddle with European or African concerns ; rather, if your government had neglected so to do, I am sure the gentlemen of trade would have been foremost to complain. Now, in the name of all which is pleasing to God and sacred to man, if all are ready thus to unite in the outcry against a rover, who, at the danger of his own life, boards some frail ship, murders some poor sailors, or takes a few bales of cotton — is there no hope to see a similar universal outcry against those great pirates who board, not some small cutters, but the beloved home of nations ? who murder, not some few sailors, but whole peoples ? who shed blood, not by drops, but by torrents ? who rob, not some hundred weight of merchandize, but the freedom, independence, welfare, and the very existence of nations? Oh God and Father of 94 JUSTICE IS INTEREST. human kind ! spare — oh spare that degradation to thy children ; that in their destinies some bales of cotton should more weigh than those great moralities. Alas ! what a pitiful sight ! A miserable pickpocket, a drunken highway robber, chased by the whole human race to the gallows : and those who pickpocket the life-sweat of nations, rob them of their welfare, of their liberty, and murder them by thousands — these high-handed criminals proudly raise their brow, trample upon mankind, and degrade its laws before their high reverential name, and term themselves " most sacred majesties." But may God be blessed, there is hope for human nature ; for there is a powerful, free, mighty people here on the virgin soil of America, ready to protect the laws of man and of Heaven against the execrated pirates and their associates. But again I am told, " The United States, as a power, are not indifferent ; we sj/mpathize deeply with those who are oppressed ; we will respect the laws of nations ; but we have no interest to make them respected by others towards others." Interest ! and always interest ! Oh, how cupidity has suc- ceeded to misrepresent the word ? Is there any interest which could outweigh the interest of justice and of right ? Interest ! But I answer by the very words of one of the most distinguished members of your profession, gentlemen, the present Honourable Secretary of State : — " The United States, as a nation, have precisely the same interest (yes, interest is his word) in international law as a private indi- vidual has in the laws of his country." He was a member of the bar who advanced that principle of eternal justice against the mere fact of policy ; and now that he is in the position to carry out the principle which he has advanced, I confidently trust he will be as good as his word,* and that his honourable colleagues, the gentlemen of the bar, will remember their calling to maintain the permanent principles of justice against the encroachments of accidental policy. But I may be answered — " If we (the United States) avow that we will not endure the interference of Eussia in ^ See the extracts from Mr, Webster's Speech at the Washington Banquet. CAUTION OF RUSSIA. 95 Hungary (for that is the practical meaning, I will not deny), and if Eussia should not respect our declaration ; then we might have to go to war." Well, I am not the man to decline the consequences of my principles. I will not steal into your sympathy by evasion. Yes, gentlemen, I confess, sliould Eussia not respect such a declaration of your country, then you are forced to go to war, or else be degraded before mankind. But, gentlemen, you must not shrink back from the mere word war ; you must consider what is the probability of its occurrence. I have already stated publicly my certain knowledge how vulnerable Eussia is ; how weak she is in- ternally. But the best clue to you as to what will be her future conduct, if you act decisively, will be gained by examining the extreme caution and timidity with which, in the late events, she felt her way, before she interposed by force. The last French Ee volution broke out in February, 1848. The Czar hates republics, — name and thing ; but he did not interfere against the France of Lamartine, any more than against the France of Louis Philippe in 1830. Why not? He dared not. But he resorted to his natural and his most dangerous weapon, secret diplomacy/. He sent male and female intriguers to Paris, and succeeded in turning the revolution into a mock republic. But from the pulsations of the great French heart every tyrant had trembled. The German nation took its destiny into its own hands, and proposed to itself to become one, in Frankfort. The throne in Berlin quaked ; the Austrian emperor fled from his palace, a few weeks after he had with his own hands waved the flag of freedom out of his window. In Vienna an Austrian Parliament met. A constitution was devised for Polish Gallicia, linked by blood, history, and natm^e, to the Poland domineered over by the Czar ; while on its western frontier another Polish province, Posen, was wrapt in revolutionary flames. You can imagine how the Czar raged, how he wished to unite all mankind in one head, so that he might cut it off with a single blow ; and still he nowhere interfered. Why not ? Again I say, he was prudently afraid. However, the French republic became very innocent to him — almost 96 RUSSIA IN TRANSYLVANIA. an ally in some respects, really an ally in others, as in the case of unfortunate Eome. The gentlemen at Frankfort proved also to be very innocent. The hopes of Germany failed — the people were shot down in Vienna, Prague, Lemberg,— the Austrian mock Parliament was sent from Vienna to Kremsen, and from Kremsen home, Only Hungary stood firm, steady, victorious — the Czar had nothing more to fear from all revolutionary Europe — nothing from Germany — nothing from Prance. He had no fear from the United States, since he knew that your government then was not willing to meddle with European affairs : so he had free hands in Hungary. But one thing still he did not know, and that was— what will England and what will Turkey say, if he interferes ? — and that consideration alone was sufficient to check him. So anxious was he to feel the pulse of England and of Turkey, that he sent first a small army — some ten thousand men — to help the Austrians in Transylvania ; and sent them in such a manner as to have, in case of need, for excuse, that he was called to do so, not hy Austria oiily, hut hy that part of the people also, which, deceived by foul delusion, stood by Austria I Oh, it was an infernal plot ! We beat down and drove out his 1 0,000 men, together with all the Austrians — but the Czar had won his game. He was hereby assured that he would have no foreign power to oppose him when he dared to violate the law of nations by an armed interference in Hungary. So he interfered with all his might. It is a torture even to remember, how like a dream vanished all our hopes that there is yet justice on earth. When I saw my nation, as a handful of brave men, forsaken to fight alone that immense battle for humanity ; when I saw Eiissian diplomacy stealing, like secret poison, into our ranks, introducing treason into them ; — but let me not look back : it is all in vain ; the past is past. Forward is my word, and forward 1 will go ; for I know that there is yet a God in heaven, and there is a people like you on earth, and there is a power of decided will here also in this bleeding heart. It is my motto still, that ''there is no difficulty to him who wills." But so much is a fact, so much is sure. HOW EUROPE MAY BE SAVED. 97 that the Czar did not dare to interfere until Tie was assured that he tooiild meet no foreign power to oppose him. Show him, free people of America — show him in a manly declara- tion, that he will meet your force if he dares once more to trample on the laws of nations — accompany this declaration wdth an augmentation of your Mediterranean fleets, and be sure he will not stir. You will have no war, and Austria falls almost without a battle, like a house without founda- tion, raised upon the sand ; Hungary — my poor Hungary — will be free, and Europe's oppressed continent able to arrange its domestic concerns. Even without my appeal to your sympathy, you have the source in your own generous hearts. This meeting is a substantial proof of it. Eeceive my thanks. I have done, gentlemen ; I am worn out. I must reserve for another occasion what I would say further, were I able. I know that w^ien I speak in this glorious country, there is the mighty engine of the press which enables me to address the whole people. Let me now say that the ground on ! which the hopes of my native land rest, is the principle of | justice, right, and law. To the maintenance of these you '; have devoted your lives, gentlemen of the Bar. I leave them under your professional care, and I trust they will find many advocates among you. Xni.— CLAIMS OF HUNaAEY ON THE FEMALE SEX. [^Speech to the Ladies of New York.'] The Eev. Dr. Tyng having spoken in the name of the Ladies of New York, and concluded with the words : ''And now, sir, the ladies whom I have the honour to represent, knowing your history, and fully aware of its vast importance, desire themselves to be the audience, and to hear the voice of Kossuth, and the claims of Hungary." Kossuth replied as follows : — I w^ould I were able to answer that call. I would I were able suitably to fill the place which your kindness has assigned 5 98 WOMEN, THE MUSIC OF LIFE. to me. You were pleased to say that Austria was blind to let me escape. Be assured that it was not the merit of Austria. She would have been very glad to bury me alive, but the Sultan of Turkey took courage, and notwithstanding all the remonstrances of Austria, I am free. Ladies, worn out as I am^ still I am very glad that the ladies of New York condescend to listen to my farewell. When in the midst of a busy day, the watchful care of a guardian angel throws some flowers of joy in the thorny way of man, he gathers them up with thanks : a cheerful thrill quivers through his heart, like the melody of an ^olian harp ; but the earnest duties of life soon claim his attention and his cares. The melodious thrill dies away, and on he must go ; on he goes, joyless, cheerless, and cold, every fibre of his heart bent to the earnest duties of the day. But when the hard work of the day is done, and the stress of mind for a moment subsides, then the heart again claims its right, and the tender fingers of our memory gather up again the violets of joy which the guardian angel threw in our way, and we look at them with delight; while we cherish them as the favourite gifts of life — we are as glad as the child on Christmas eve. These are the happiest moments of man's life. But when we are not noisy, not eloquent, we are silent, almost mute, like nature in a midsummer's night, reposing from the burning heat of the day. Ladies, that is my con- dition now. It is a hard day's work which I have had to do here. I am delivering my farewell address ; and every com- passionate smile, every warm grasp of the hand, every token of kindness which I have received (and I have received so many), every flower of consolation which the ladies of New York have thrown on my thorny way rushes with double force to my memory. I feel happy in this memory — there is a solemn tranquillity about my mind ; but in such a moment I would rather be silent than speak. You know, ladies, that it is not the deepest feelings which are the loudest. And besides, I have to say farewell to New York ! This is a sorrowful word. What immense hopes are linked in my memory with its name 1 — hopes of resurrection for my father- land — hopes of liberation for the European continent ! Will HUNGARY CHIVALROUS TO WOMEN. 99 the expectations which the mighty outburst of New York's heart foreshadowed, be realized ? or will the ray of cousola- tion pass away like an electric flash ? Oh, could I cast one single glance into the book of futurity ! No, God forgive me this impious wish. It is He who hid the future from man, and what he does is well done. It were not good for man to know his destiny. The sense of duty would falter or be un- strung, if we were assured of the failure or success of our aims. It is because we do not know the future, that we retain our energy of duty. So on will I go in my work, with the full energy of my humble abilities, without despair, but with hope. It is Eastern blood which runs in my veins. If I have somewhat of Eastern fatalism, it is the fatalism of a Christian who trusts with unwavering faith in the boundless goodness of a Divine Providence. But among all these different feel- ings and thoughts that come upon me in the hour of my fare- well, one thing is almost indispensable to me, and that is, the assurance that the sympathy I have met with here will not pass away like the cheers which a warbling girl receives on the stage — that it will be preserved as a principle, and that when the emotion subsides, the calmness of reflection will but strengthen it. This consolation I wanted, and this consola- tion I have, because, ladies, I place it in your hands. I bestow on your motherly and sisterly cares, the hopes of Europe's oppressed nations, — the hopes of civil, political, social, and religious liberty. Oh, let me entreat you, with the brief and stammering words of a warm heart, overwhelmed with emotions and with sorrowful cares — let me entreat you, ladies, to be watchful of the sympathy of your people, like the mother over the cradle of her beloved child. It is worthy of your watchful care, because it is the cradle of regenerated humanity. Especially in regard to my poor fatherland, I have par- ticular claims on the fairer and better half of humanity, which you are. The fird of these claims is, that there is not perhaps on the face of the earth a nation, which in its insti- tutions has shown more chivalric regard for ladies than the Hungarian. It is a praiseworthy trait of the Oriental 100 TWO WOMEN^ THE SOURCE character. You know that it was the Moorish race in Spain, who were the founders of the chivalric era in Europe, so full of personal virtue, so full of noble deeds, so devoted to the ser- vice of ladies, to heroism, and to the protection of the oppressed. You are told that the ladies of the East are degraded to less almost than a human condition, being secluded from all social life, and pent up within the harem's walls. And so it is. But you must not judge the East by the measure of European civilization. They have their own civilization, quite different from ours in views, inclinations, affections, and thoughts. We in Hungary have gained from the "West the advantages of civilization for our women, but we have preserved for them the regard and reverence of our Oriental character. Nay, more than that, we carried these views into our institutions and into our laws. With us, the widow remains the head of the family, as the father was. As long as she lives, she is the mistress of the property of her deceased husband. The chivalrous spirit of the nation sup- poses slie will provide, with motherly care, for the wants of her children ; and she remains in possession so long as she bears her deceased husband's name. Under the old constitu- tion of Hungary (which we reformed upon a democratic basis — it having been aristocratic) the widow of a lord had the right to send her representative to the parliament, and in the county elections of public functionaries widows had a right to vote alike with the men. Perhaps this chivalric cha- racter of my nation, so full of regard toward the fair sex, may somewhat commend my mission to the ladies of America. Our second particular claim is, that the source of all the misfortune which now weighs so heavily upon my bleeding fatherland, is in two ladies — Catharine of Eussia, and Sophia of Hapsburg, the ambitious mother of this second Nero, Erancis-Joseph. You know that one hundred and fifty years ago, Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, the bravest of the brave, foreseeing the growth of Eussia, and fearing that it would oppress and overwhelm civilization, ventured with a handful of men to attack its rising power. After immortal deeds, and almost fabulous victories, one loss made him a refugee upon Turkish soil, like myself. But, happier than myself, he sue- lOi ceeded in persuading Turkey of the necessity of eliecking Eussia in her overweening ambition, and curtailing her growth. On went Mehemet Balzordji with his Turks, and met Peter the Czar, and pent him up in a corner, where there was no possibility of escape. There Mehemet held him with iron grasp till hunger came to his aid. Nature claimed her rights, and in a council of war it was decided to surrender to Mehemet. Then Catharine who was present in the camp, appeared in person before the Grand Vizier to sue for mercy. She was fair, and she was rich with jewels of nameless value. She went to the Grand Vizier's tent. She came back without her jewels, but she brought mercy, and Eussia was saved. From that celebrated day dates the downfall of Turkey, and the growth of Russia. Out of this source flowed the stream of Eussian preponderance over the European continent. The de- pression of liberty, and the nameless sufferings of Poland and of my poor native land, are the dreadful fruits of Catharine's success on that day, cursed in the records of the human race. The second lady who wiU. be cursed through all posterity in her memory, is Sophia, the mother of the present usurper of Hungary — she who had the ambitious dream to raise the power of a child upon the ruins of liberty, and on the neck of prostrate nations. It was her ambition — the evil genius of the house of Hapsburg in the present day — which brought desolation upon us. I need only mention one fact to charac- terize what kind of a heart was in that woman. On the anni- versary of the day of Arad, where our martyrs bled, she came to the court with a bracelet of rubies set in so many roses as was the number of heads of the brave Hungarians who fell there, declaring that she joyfully exhibited it to the company as a memento which she wears on her very arm, to cherish in eternal memory the pleasure she derived from the killing of those heroes at Arad. This very fact may give you a true knowledge of the character of that woman, and this is the second claim to the ladies' sympathy for oppressed humanity and for my poor fatherland. Our third particular claim is the behaviour of our ladies during the last war. It is no arbitrary praise — it is a fact, — that, in the struggle for our rights and freedom, we had 10.2 BEHAVIOUR OF HUNGARIAN WOMEN. no more powerful auxiliaries, and no more faithful executors of the will of the nation, than the women of Hungary. You know that in ancient Eome, after the battle of Cannae, which was won by Hannibal, the Senate called on the people spon- taneously to sacrifice all their wealth on the altar of their fatherland. Eveiy jewel, every ornament was brought forth, but still the tribune judged it necessary to pass a law pro- hibiting the ladies of Eome to wear more than half an ounce of gold, or particoloured splendid dresses. Now, we wanted in Hungary no such law. The women of Hungary brought all that they had. You would have been astonished to see how, in the most wealthy houses of Hungary, if you were invited to dinner, you would be forced to eat soup with iron spoons. When the wounded and the sick — and many of them we had, because we fought hard — when the wounded and the sick were not so well provided as it would have been our duty and our pleasure to do, I ordered the respective public functionaries to take care of them. But the poor wounded went on suffering, and the proper officers were but slow in providing for them. When I saw this, one single word was spoken to the ladies of Hungary, and in a short time there was provision made for hundreds of thousands of sick. And I never met a single mother who would have withheld her son from sharing in the battle ; but I have met many who ordered and com- manded their children to fight for their fatherland. I saw many and many brides who urged on the bridegrooms to delay their day of happiness till they should come back victorious from the battles of their fatherland. Thus acted the ladies of Hungary. A country deserves to live; a country deserves to have a future, when the women, as much as the men, love and cherish it. But I have a stronger motive than all these to claim your protecting sympathy for my country's cause. It is her nameless woe, nameless sufferings. In the name of that ocean of bloody tears which the impious hand of the tyrant wrung from the eyes of the childless mothers, of the brides who beheld the executioner's sword between them and their wedding day — in the name of all these mothers, wives. SUFFERINGS OF HUNGARY. 103 brides, daughters, and sisters, who, by thousands of thousands^ weep over the graves of Magyars so dear to their hearts, — who weep the bloody tears of a patriot (as they all are) over the face of their beloved native land — in the name of all those torturing stripes with which the flogging hand of Austrian tyrants dared to outrage human nature in the womankind of my native land — in the name of that daily curse against Austria with which even the prayers of our women are mixed — in the name of the nameless sufferings of my own dear wife [here the whole audience rose and cheered vehemently] — the faithful companion of my life, — of her, who for months and for months was hunted by my country's tyrants, with no hope, no support, no protection but at the humble threshold of the hard-working people, as noble and generous as they are poor — in the name of my poor little children, who when so young as to be scarcely conscious of life, had already to learn what an Austrian prison is — in the name of all this, and what is still worse, in the name of liberty trodden down, I claim, ladies of New York, your protecting sympathy for my country's cause. Nobody can do more for it than you. The heart of man is as soft wax in your tender hands. Mould it, ladies ; mould it into the form of generous compassion for my country's wrongs, inspire it with the noble feelings of your own hearts, inspire it with the consciousness of your country's power, dignity, and might. You are the framers of man's character. Whatever be the fate of man, one stamp he always bears on his brow — that which the mother's hand impressed upon the soul of the child. The smile of your lips can make a hero out of the coward, and a generous man out of the egotist ; one word from you inspires the youth to noble resolutions ; the lustre of your eyes is the fairest reward for the toils of life. You can kindle energy even in the breast of broken age, that once more it may blaze up in a noble generous deed before it dies. All this power you have. Use it, ladies, in behalf of your country's glory, and for the benefit of oppressed humanity, and when you meet a cold calculator, who thinks by arithmetic when he is called to feel the wrongs of oppressed nations, convert him, ladies. Your 104 POWER OF WOMEN, smiles are commands, and the truth which pours forth instinctively from your hearts, is mightier than the logic articulated by any scholar. The Peri excluded from Paradise, brought many generous gifts to heaven in order to regain it. She brought the dying sigh of a patriot ; the kiss of a faithful girl imprinted upon the lips of her bridegroom, when they were distorted by the venom of the plague. She brought many other fair gifts; but the doors of Paradise opened before her only when she brought with her the first prayer of a man converted to charity and brotherly love for his oppressed brethren and humanity. Eemember the power which you have, and Avhich I have endeavoured to point out in a few brief words. Eemember this, and form associations ; establish ladies' committees to raise substantial aid for Hungary. Now I have done. One word only remains to be said — a word of deep sorrow, the word, '' Parewell, New York ! " New York ! that word will for ever make every string of my heart thrill. I am like a wan- dering bird. I am worse than a wandering bird. He may return to his summer home, I have no home on earth ! Here I felt almost at home. But " Forward " is my call, and I must part. I part with the hope that the sympathy which I have met here in a short transitory home will bring me yet back to my own beloved home, so that my ashes may yet mix with the dust of my native soil. Ladies^ remember Hungary, and — farewell ! Xiy.— EESULTS OF THE OYEETHEOW OF THE FEENCH EEPUBLIC. [^S^eech at the Citizens^ Banquet, FMladelphia, Dee, 2Qth,'] Mr. Dallas, the Chairman, made an eloquent address, advocating the cause of Hungary against Eussia, and avowing the duty of America to give warlike aid. This speech was the more remarkable, as coming immediately after the arrival of the news of Louis Napoleon's usurpation. The mind of the public was naturally so full of the event, that Kossuth WHO ARE APOSTLES OF COMMUNISM? 105 could not avoid to discuss it; but the topic is so thread- bare to the English, that it will suffice here to preserve a few sentiments. In the opening, Kossuth complained of forged letters and forged cheques sent to annoy him, and anonymous letters of false accusation circulated against him. Proceeding from this to public topics, and the certainty of a new convulsion in Europe, he said, that it might prove in the future highly dangerous to the moneyed interests, if the world be per- suaded that the holders of great disposable wealth use it to aid despotism, and that the possession of it checks the generous propensity to forward the triumph of freedom. If the world be confirmed in this persuasion, the results will be painfully felt by those gentlemen, whose treasures are always open for the despots to crush liberty with. Such money-lenders have excited boundless hatred in all that section of Europe, which has had to suffer from their ready financial aid to despotism. 1 (said Kossuth) am no Socialist, no Communist ; and if I get the means to act efficiently, I shall SO act that the inevitable resolution may not subvert the rights of property : but so much I confidently declare — that to the spreading of Communist doctrines in certain quarters of Europe nobody has so much contributed as those European capitalists, who by incessantly aiding the despots with their money have inspired many of the oppressed with the belief that financial wealth is dangerous to the freedom of the world. Eothschild is the most efficient apostle of Communism. In regard to Louis Bonaparte's temporary success, Kossuth argued, that it would secure, when Erance makes her next move for freedom, two results beneficial to liberty : First, that in future, the French republicans would abandon their delusive and disastrous Centralization. We have shown (said he) in Hungary, that for a nation to be invincible, its life must not be bound up with its metropolis. Hence- forward, in European aspirations, centralization is replaced by federative harmony. I thank Louis Napoleon for it. Your principles of local self-government, gentlemen, were hitherto professed on the continent of Europe chiefly by us 5 § 106 THE U.S., NOT FRANCE, HENCEFORTH Hungarians : now tliey will conquer the world, — a new victory for humanity. Had the old French republic stood, it would have perpetuated the curse of great standing ar^mies, which are instiniments of ambition and a wasting pestilence. Again ; the blow struck by Louis Napoleon has forced his nation into the common destiny of Europe. It has forbidden France ever in future to play a separate game, and think to keep her own liberty, without effectively espousing the cause of foreign liberty. What is the sum of all this ? First, that there is nothing in the news from France to alter any judgments which you might previously have formed, or cause you any suspense. Secondly, it only more than ever claims from you an im- mediately decisive conduct. The success of freedom now depends entirely on what policy the United States of America will adopt. Well ! gentlemen. It may be that the United States have no reply to the hopes of the world. You will then see a mournful tear in the eye of humanity, and its breast heaving with sighs. We presume, you are so powerful that you can afford not to care about the treading down of the law of nations and the funeral of European freedom. You are so glorious at home, that you can afford to lose the glory (at so rare a crisis !) of saving liberty and justice on earth. Y"et in your own hour of trial you asked and received military and naval aid from France. Your President has informed the world, that you are not willing to allow " the strong arm of a foreign power to suppress the spirit of freedom in any country." If after this you tell me that you are afraid of Russia, and are too weak to help us, — and would rather be on good terms with the Czar, than rejoice in the liberty and independence of Hungary, Italy, Germany, France, — dreadful as it would be, I would wipe away my tear, and say to my brethren, "Let us pray, and let us go to the Lord's Last Supper, and thence to battle and to death." I would then leave you, gentlemen, with a dying farewell, and with a prayer that the sun of freedom may never drop below the horizon of your happy land. I am in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, the city ARE THE MODEL REPUBLIC. 107 of William Penn, whose likeness I saw this day in a histoiy of your city, with this motto under it : '* Si vis pacem, para helium' — (prepare for war if thou wilt have peace) — a weighty memento, gentlemen, to the name of William Penn. And I am in that city which is the cradle of your inde- pendence — where, in the hour of your need, the appeal was proclaimed to the Law of Nature's God, and that appeal for help from Europe, which was granted to you. I stood in Independence Hall, whence the spirit of freedom lisps eternal words of history to the secret recesses of your hearts. Man may well be silent where from such a place history so speaks. So my task is done — with me the pain, with you the decision — and, let me add the prophetic words of the poet, '' the moral of the strain." Kossuth took his seat amid the three times three of the audience. XY.— INTEEEST OF AMEEICA IN HUNGAEIAN LIBEETY. [Baltimorey Dec, 27th.'] On the 27th December Kossuth reached Baltimore, and was met by an immense concourse of citizens and a long line of military, who escorted him to his quarters with much en- thusiastic demonstration. In the evening he addressed the citizens in the Hall of the Maryland Institute, which was densely crowded, great numbers standing outside the building, when unable to get admittance. After an apologetic introduction, Kossuth proceeded to say:— Gentlemen ! It is gratifying to me to receive this spon- taneous welcome. I was already grateful, during my stay in New York, to receive the expression of your sentiments, and your generous resolutions. They become the more beneficial to me, because I am on my way and very near to Washington City, where the elected of your national confidence stand in their proud position, as conservators of those lofty interests, 108 ISOLATION FROM CHRISTENDOM. which bind your thirty-one stars of Sovereign States into one mighty constellation of Freedom, Power, and Right ; where the Congress and Government of this vast Republic watch over the common weal of your united country, and hereby make you a Power on earth, a fullgrown member of that great Family of Nations, which, having One Father in heaven, are brethren, and should act as brethren. P Among the interests entrusted by you to the Congress and Government, jowx foreign policy is nearly the most important. This, in a great and powerful nation, can have no other basis than Eternal Law and Christian Morality. Even your pecu- liar interests are, in my belief, best served, when your foreign policy rests, not on transitory considerations, but on everlast- ing principles. Even in private life "no man can entirely cut himself ofp from others. A man willing to attempt it would be an exile in his own country, an exile in his own city, an exile in his family. Just so with nations, which in the larger family of man are individual members. If a nation seclude itself, it is an exile in the midst of humanity. No man, ladies and gentlemen, is independent of his fellow- man : no nation, however powerful, is independent of other nations. Put the richest, the strongest man for a single week w^hoUy apart from family, city, country, and he will quickly learn his essential weakness. In a nation, the con- sequence of total isolation is not felt as soon, but it wiU at length be felt as surely. The hours of nations are counted by years; yet the secluded nation, self-exiled from man- kind, dwindles away. Woe to the people, whose citizens care only for their own present, and not for the future of their country! the future, in which they have to live im- mortally by children and children's children, with whose glory and happiness and power they ought now to sym- pathize. Men or nations secluded are like the silk-worm, which secretes itself in a self-woven case, and at length creeps out to die. So will it at length be with the nation which is wrapped up in self. It is one of your glories, that some portions of your united republic are farther from other portions than Hungary is from Baltimore : mere distance is therefore no reason why IMPOSSIBLE TO AMERICA. 109 you should be unconcerned about our fate. You are not too far for commercial intercourse with the most distant coasts of Europe ; and especially since the invention of one of your citizens has been brought to higher perfection, the ocean rather unites you to us, than separates you. Would you have the advantages of the connection, without the duties which spring out of it? Disregard of duty sooner or later kills advantage. I need not remind you w^hat a link of nature, blood, language, science, industry, religion, civiliza- tion, exists between you and us, and binds us ever tighter. You cannot help feeling at home our condition in Europe. Our peace or war, our civilization or barbarism, our freedom or oppression, our wealth or starvation, progress or retro- gression, must act upon you, just as your condition reacts upon us. The link between the destinies of Christendom cannot be cut asunder. In fact, there never yet was a time when Europe more demanded that you should have some policy towards it ; and indifference is none at all. At this moment it is under universal oppression of social, political^ and religious liberty, — the three treasures which make your glory and happiness. This oppression is ordered by Eussia, and executed by her satellites. The elected President of France has impiously stabbed the constitution, to make him- self Emperor. The Austrian Ministry has openly declared that the absolutist powers will maintain him. Thus the impulse of revolution has been given ; its vibration will be felt throughout Europe and in my fatherland. Never will you have an opportunity more glorious for you, and more favourable to mankind, for adopting a real policy founded upon principles. The people of Hungary have abundant motives to risk life for freedom and independence. Once we had a nationality ; now we have none. Once we had a constitution ; — by the blessing of God we succeeded to transform it three years ago from an aristocratic to a democratic one; — now Hungary has no constitution at all. Eor a thousand years we were a free people ; we are now so no longer. Like a flock of sheep, we are appropriated,/not by the Austrian empire, not by the nation, but by a despotic ambitious family. We had freedom 110 MOTIVES FOR INSURRECTION. of the press. Not nineteen years ago, I began the struggle, and endured three years imprisonment for it ; but we won that great right of mankind — free expression of thought. Now there is no press at all in Hungary ; there is only the hangman and martial law. We established equal protection for every religion; now there is equal oppression for all. The Protestant Church had its own self- government for its churches and schools, won by victorious arms and secured by a hundred laws ; now the laws are torn down, and the freedom of church and school is gone. The Catholic Church had control of its own estates ; now, day by day, the nearly bankrupt Austrian government is overgrowing that property by the poisonous weeds of a new loan, on which it vegetates, a curse to every nation on the continent. Such is the con- dition of the Catholic church, concerning which I — a Pro^ testant, not only by birth, but also by conviction — declare, that during a whole life-time, when Hungary was struggling for religious liberty, that Church contended in the foremost rank for the rights of us Protestants. So much do we value the freedom of conscience, that the very thought was re- pugnant to us all, that there should be unequal rights of citizenship between Protestants and Catholics and professors of the Faith of Moses. Zeal for religious freedom will kindle Magyars to struggle, as long as there is blood in our veins. As during three centuries, so the late war was for religious independence as well as civil ; indeed, still earlier, we were the barrier of Christendom against the invading Mahommedan. We succeeded lately in freeing the agriculture of Hungary, and transforming peasants into freeholders; now the Austrian dynasty is stealthily bringing back feudal rights. In freeing the peasants, we provided for indemnification of landlords ; Austria taxes the peasants very heavily, and does not (for she cannot) indemnify the landlords; because her violence and wastefulness does not know how to turn our public estates to account. She favours a few landlords only, who are faithful tools of her oppression. During our struggle, we issued paper-money, — it was called the Kossuth-bank- note ; Austria disavowed it, and commanded its surrender, yet twenty millions are firmly held by the people, as valuable SHALL EUROPE BE COSSACK? Ill after a new revolution. Before we fell under the stroke of Eussian interference, the taxation permitted by our Parlia- ment was only four and a half millions of dollars ; Austria now imposes sixty. Our people burn their tobacco-seed and cut down their vines, rather than endure her tax. Such are the motives which Austria gives to Hungary not to make a new revolution ! There is not a single interest which she has not mortally wounded. The mind, the heart, dignity, conscience, self-esteem, hatred, love, revenge, besides every material interest of every class, is engaged to the struggle. The oppression of Hungary has ratified the oppression of all our continent. Since she has fallen, Italy has been completely "crushed, the moderate freedom of Germany has been put down by Austria with the support of Eussia; lastly, the usurpation of Louis Napoleon has been made possible. Without the restoration of Hungary Europe cannot be freed from Eussian thraldom; under which nationalities are erased, no freedom is possible, all religions are subjected to like slavery. Gentlemen! the Emperor Napoleon spoke a prophetic word, when he said that in fifty years all Europe would be either republican or Cossack. Hungary once free, Europe is republican; Hungary per- manently crushed, all Europe is Cossack. And what does Hungary need for freedom ? Not that other nations should fight our proper battle against our immediate oppressor. We have hearts loving freedom and ready to shed their blood for it ; we have armies fully equal to Austria, we want only " FAIR PLAY." Let the United States feel itself to be as it "^ is, a Power on earth, bound to aid in the police of the nations, and in the name of violated right let it say to the Eussian intruder, "Keep back, hands off, let the brave Magyars fight their own battle, elsewQ must take their part." For centuries, perhaps, you will have no more glorious opportunity than now. Hitherto, the word Glory has been connected with conquest and oppression. Take the New Glory for yours, by assuring to all nations exemption from the conspiracy of tyrants. That is what I first humbly request and hope. ~ " ^j [Kossuth proceeded, as in former speeches, to explain his 112 AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS. other requests, viz. secondly^ free commerce with America, whether Hungary was in war with Austria or not ; thirdly, that when the suitable moment arrived, the Government should recognize the legitimate character of the Declaration of Independence made by Hungary in May, 1849. He added] : — These requests I have very often explained since I have had the honour to be in the United States. I explained them yesterday in Philadelphia — the cradle of your Declara- tion of Independence. There I was answered, not only by the unanimous adoption of these resolutions on the part of the city of Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, but also by the people of Philadelphia, at a great and important meeting. Nor was that enough. I received more in Phila- delphia. I was told that, besides the granting of these my humble requests, whenever war breaks out for Hungary's freedom and independence I shall find brave hearts and stout arms among the twenty-four millions of the people of the United States ready to go over to Europe and fight side by side in the great battle for the freedom and independence of the European continent. I was told that it was not possible, when the battle for mankind's liberty is fought, for the sword of Washington to rest in its scabbard. That sword, which struck the first blow here on this continent for the republican freedom of this great country, must be present there, where the last stroke for all humanity will be given. Now, gentle- men, I will not abuse your kind indulgence and patience, which you have bestowed in your crowded situation. I wiU only say, that should this be the generous will of the people of the United States, in the name of the honour of my nation I can give the assurance that the Hungarians will be found worthy to fight side by side with you for civil and political freedom on the European continent, and to take care, with the sword of Washington, that no hair of that lock which I received as a present in Philadelphia, and which I promised to attach to that very standard which I will bear to decide the victory against despotism — that no hair of that lock shall fall into the hands of tyrants. And now may the ladies who have honoured me with their presence graciously allow me to HARRISBURG RESOLUTIONS. 113 express to them my most humble thanks and one humble prayer. The destinies of mankind — the future of humanity — repose in the hands of womanhood. The mark which the mother imprints upon the brow of the child remains for his whole life. Ladies of the United States, when the wandering exile passes away from your presence, take to your kind care the great cause of the liberty of the world with the tenderness with which a mother takes care of her child ; and when you take care of this great cause, the sympathy of the people of the United States will not vanish like the passing emotion of the heart, but will become substantial, active, and eifectual. The speaker then took his seat, with three times three from the audience. Judge Legrand followed, and proposed the Harrisburg re- solutions, which were adopted. They are as annexed : — Eesolved, — That the citizens of Harrisburg, the seat of government of Pennsylvania, in town meeting assembled, hereby approve and endorse the three propositions promul- gated by Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, in his great speech before the Mayor and authorities of the city of New York, viz. : — "First. Thatfeeling interested in the maintenance of the laws of nations, acknowledging the sovereign right of every people to dispose of its own domestic concerns to be one of the laws, and the interference with this sovereign right to be a violation of these laws of nations, the people of the United States — resolved to respect and to make respected these public laws — declares the Eussian past intervention in Hungary to be a violation of these laws, which, if reiterated, would be a new violation, and would not be regarded indiiferently by the people of the United States. *' Second. That the people of the United States are resolved to maintain its right of commercial intercourse with the nations of Europe, whether they be in a state of revolution against their government or not ; and that, with the view of approaching scenes on the continent of Europe, the people invite the government to take appropriate measures for the protection of the trade of the people with the Mediterranean. 114 TOASTS AND RESOLUTIONS '' Third, That the people of the United States should declare their opinion in respect to the question of the Inde- pendence of Hungary, and urge the government to act accord- ingly." Eesolved, That the people of Hungary are, and ought to remain a free and independent nation ; that Louis Kossuth is their lawful govenor, and that the Hungarian people should not be prevented from exercising the rights of freemen by the tyranny of Austria and Eussia. Eesolved, That we extend to Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, and the Hungarian nation, that has made such a noble stand in the cause of freedom, that sympathy, aid, and support, which freemen alone know how to grant. Eesolved, That a committee of fifteen, including the officers of this meeting, be appointed to repair to Philadelphia, and invite the Governor of Hungaiy to visit the capital of Penn- sylvania at such times as may suit his convenience. XYI.~NOYELTIES IN AMERICAN REPUBLICANISM. jrr [Washington Banquet, Jan. ith, 1852.] 7 ' The Banquet given by a large number of the Members of the two Houses of Congress to Kossuth took place at the National Hotel, in Washington City. The number present was about two hundred and fifty. The Hon. Wm. E. King, of Alabama, President of the Senate, presided. On his right sat Louis Kossuth, and on his left the Hon. Daniel Webster, Secretary of State. On the right of Kossuth at the same table, sat the Hon. Linn Boyd, Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives. Besides other distinguished guests who responded to toasts, are named Hon. Thomas Corwin, Secre* tary of the Treasury, and Hon. Alex. H. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior. A few minutes after eight o'clock, a large number of ladies were admitted, and the President of the Senate requested gentlemen to fill their glasses for the first toast, which was, " The President of the United States." AT THE WASHINGTON BANQUET. 115 To this, Mr. Webster responded. The President then announced the second toast : " The Judiciaet op the United States : The expounder of the Constitution and the bulwark of Jiberty, regulated by law.'* Judge Wayne, of the Supreme Court of the United States, replied, and after alluding to *' The distinguished stranger " who was then among them, said : I give you, gentlemen, as a sentiment : " Constitutional liberty to all the nations of the earth, supported by Christian faith and the morahty of the Bible." The toast was received with enthusiastic applause. The third toast was, — " The Navy oe the United States : The home squadron every- where. Its glory was illustrated, when its flag in a foreign sea gave liberty and protection to the Hungarian Chief." Mr. Stanton, of Tennessee, in his reply, said : — But recently, Mr. President, a new significance has been given to this flag. Heretofore, the navy has been the symbol of OTir power and the emblem of our Liberty, but now it speaks of humanity and of a noble sympathy for the oppressed of aU nations. The home squadron everyiohere, to give protection to the brave and to those who may have fallen in the cause of freedom ! Your acquiescence in that sentiment indicates the profound sympathy of the people of the United States for the people of Hungary, manifested in the person of their great chief; and I can conceive of no duty that would be more acceptable to the gallant officers of the navy of the United States except one, and that is, to strike a blow for liberty/ themselves in a just cause, approved by our Government. The fourth toast was, — "The Aemy oe the United States. In saluting the illus- trious Exile with magnanimous courtesy, as high as it could pay to any Power on earth, it has added grace to the glory of its history." General Shields, Senator for Illinois, Chairman of the Com- mittee of Military Affairs in the Senate, being loudly called for, replied in the necessary absence of General Scott, the chief of the army ; and after an appropriate acknowledgment of the toast, added : In paying this very high honor to our illustrious guest — this noble Himgarian — let me observe that that army which has been 116 CONTRASTS OF THE OLD ROMAN toasted to-night spoke for his reception by the voice of their cannon ; and the cannon that spoke there spoke the voice of twenty-five millions of people. Su% that salute which the American cannon gave the Hungarian exile had a deep meaning in it. It was not a salute to the mere man Louis Kossuth, but it was a salute in favour of the great principle wliich he represents — the principle which he advocates, the principle of nationaHty and of human hberty. Sir, I was born in a land which has sufiered as an oppressed nation. I am now a citizen of a land wliich would have sufiered from the same power, had it not been for the bravery, gallantry, and good fortune of the men of that time. Sir, as an Irishman by birth, and an American by adoption, I would feel myself a traitor to both countries if I did not sustain down-trodden nationalities everywhere — in Hungary, in Poland, in Germany, in Italy — everywhere where man is trodden down and oppressed. And, sir, I say again, that that army which maintained itself in three wars against one of the greatest and most powerful nations of the world, will, if the trying time should come again, maintain that same flag (the stars and stripes) and the same triumph, and the same victories in the cause of hberty. [Great applause.] The president of the evening then, after a cordial speech, proposed the fifth toast : " HuNGAET, represented in the person of our honoured Guest, having proved herself worthy to be free by the virtues and valour of her sons, the law of nations and the dictates of justice alike demand that she shall have fau' play in her struggle for independence." This toast was received with immense applause, which lasted several minutes. Kossuth then rose and spoke as follows : . y Sir : As once Cineas the Epirote stood among the Sena- tors of Eome, who, with a word of self-conscious majesty, arrested kings in their ambitious march— thus, full of admi- ration and of reverence, I stand amongst you, legislators of the new Capitol, that glorious hall of your people's collective majesty. The Capitol of old yet stands, but the spirit has departed from it, and is come over to yours, purified by the air of liberty. The old stands, a mournful monument of the fragility of human things : yours as a sanctuary of eternal right. The old beamed with the red lustre of conquest, now darkened by the gloom of oppression ; yours is bright with freedom. The old absorbed the world into its own centralized glory ; yours protects your own nation from being absorbed, TO THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 117 even by itself. The old was awful with unrestricted power ; yours is glorious by having restricted it. At the view of the old, nations trembled ; at the view of yours, humanity hopes. To the old, misfortune was introduced with fettered hands to kneel at triumphant conquerors' feet : to yours the triumph of introduction is granted to unfortunate exiles who are invited to the honour of a seat. And where Kings and Csesars never will be hailed for their power and wealth, there the persecuted chief of a downtrodden nation is welcomed as your great Eepublic's guest, precisely because he is persecuted, helpless, and poor. In the old, the terrible vce victis ! was the rule : in yours, protection to the oppressed, malediction to ambitious oppressors, and consolation to a vanquished just cause. And while from the old a conquered world was ruled, you in yours provide for the common federative interests of a territory larger than that old conquered Avorld. There sat men boasting that their will was sovereign of the earth ; here sit men whose glory is to acknowledge '' the laws of nature and of nature's God," and to do what their sovereign, the People, wills. .^ Sir, there is history in these contrasts. History of past ages and history of future centuries may be often recorded in small facts. The particulars to which the passion of living mendings, as if human fingers could arrest the wheel of Des- tiny, these particulars die away ; it is the issue which makes history, and that issue is always coherent with its causes. There is a necessity of consequences wherever the necessity of position exists. Principles are the alpha: they must finish with omega, and they will. Thus history may be often told in a few words. - «~i Before the heroic struggle of Greece had yet engaged your country's sympathy for the fate of freedom, in Europe then so far distant and now so near, Chateaubriand happened to be in Athens, and he heard from a minaret raised upon the Propyleeum's ruins a Turkish, priest in the Arabic language announcing the lapse of hours to the Christians of Minerva's town. What immense history there was in the small fact of a Turkish Imaum crying out, ''Pray, pray ! the hour is run- ning fast, and the judgment draws near." 118 HISTORY CONDENSED IN INDIVIDUALISMS. Sir, there is equally a history of future ages written in the honour bestowed by you on my humble self. The first Governor of Independent Hungary, driven from his native land by Eussian violence ; an exile on Turkish soil, protected by a Mahommedan Sultan from the blood-thirst of Christian tyrants ; cast back a prisoner to far Asia by diplomacy ; was at length rescued from his Asiatic prison, when America crossed the Atlantic, charged with the hopes of Europe's oppressed nations. He pleads, as a poor exile, before the people of this great Republic, his country's wrongs and its intimate connection with the fate of the European continent, and, in the boldness of a just cause, claims that the principles of the Christian religion be raised to a law of nations. To see that not only is the boldness of the poor exile forgiven, but that he is consoled by the sympathy of millions, en- couraged by individuals, associations, meetings, cities, and States ; supported by effective aid and greeted by Congress and by Government as the nation^s guest ; honoured, out of generosity, with that honour which only one man before him received (a man who had deserved them from your gratitude), with honours such as no potentate ever can receive, and this banquet here, and the toast which I have to thank you for : — oh ! indeed, sir, there is a history of future ages in all these facts ! They will go down to posterity as the proper con- sequences of great principles. Sii', though I have a noble pride in my principles, and the inspiration of a just cause, still I have also the consciousness of my personal insignificance. Never will I forget what is due from me to the Sovereign Source of my public capacity. This I owe to my nation's dignity ; and therefore, respectfully thanking this highly distinguished assembly in my country's name, I have the boldness to say that Hungary well deserves your sympathy; that Hungary has a claim to protection, because it has a claim to justice. But as to myself, I am well aware that in all these honours I have no personal share. Nay, I know that even that which might seem to be personal in your toast, is only an acknowledgment of a historical fact, very instructively connected with a principle valuable and dear to every republican heart in the United States of America. As HUNGARIANS NEVER DYNASTICAL. 119 to ambition, I indeed never was able to understand how any- body can love ambition more than liberty. But I am glad to state a historical fact, as a principal demonstration of that influence which institutions exercise upon the character of nations. We Hungarians are very fond of the principle of municipal self-government, and we have a natural horror against centralization. That fond attachment to municipal self- government, without which there is no provincial freedom possible, is a fundamental feature of our national character J We brought it with us from far Asia a thousand years ago, and we preserved it throughout the vicissitudes of ten cen- turies. No nation has perhaps so much struggled and^ suffered for the civilized Christian world as we. We do not complain of this lot. It may be heavy, but it is not in- glorious. Where the cradle of our Saviour stood, and where His divine doctrine was founded, there now another faith rules : the whole of Europe's armed pilgrimage could not avert this fate from that sacred spot, nor stop the rushing waves of Islamism from absorbing the Christian empire of Const antine. We stopped those rushing waves. The breast of my nation proved a breakwater to them. We guarded Christendom, that Luthers and Calvins might f reform it. It was a dangerous time, and its dangers often"*" placed the confidence of all my nation into one man's hand. But there was not a single instance in our history where a man honoured by his people's confidence deceived them for his own ambition. The man out of whom Eussian diplomacy succeeded in making a murderer of his nation's hopes, gained some factories when victories were the chief necessity of the moment, and at the head of an army, circumstances gave him the ability to ruin his country ; but he never had the people's confidence. So even he is no contradiction to the historical truth, that no Hungarian whom his nation honoured with its confidence was ever seduced by ambition to become dangerous to his country's liberty. That is a remarkable fact, and yet it is not accidental ; it springs from the proper influence of institutions upon the national character. Our nation, through all its histoiy, was educated in the school of local self- 120 CENTRALIZATION DYNA*STICAL. government; and in sncli a country, grasping ambition having no field, has no place in man's ^character. The truth of this doctrine becomes yet more illustrated by a quite contrary historical fact in France. Whatever have been the changes of government in that great country — and many they have been, to be sure — we have seen a Convention, a Directorate, Consuls, and one Consul, and an Emperor, and the Eestoration, and the Citizen King, and the Eepublic ; through all these different experiments centralization was the keynote of the institutions of France — power always cen- tralized; omnipotence always vested somewhere. And, re- markable indeed, France has never yet raised one single man to the seat of power, who has not sacrificed his country's free- dom to his personal ambition ! It is sorrowful indeed, but it is natural. It is in the garden of centralization that the venomous plant of ambition thrives. I dare confidently affirm, that in your great country there exists not a single man through whose brains has ever passed the thought, that he would wish to raise the seat of his ambition upon the ruins of your country's liberty, if he could. Such a wish is impossible in the United States. ' Institutions react upon the character of nations. He who sows wind will reap storm. History is the revelation of Providence. The Almighty rules by eternal laws not only the material but also the moral world ; and as every law is a principle, so every principle is a law. Men as well as nations are endowed with free-will to choose a principle, but, that . once chosen, the consequences must be accepted. p With self-government is freedom, and with freedom is ' justice and patriotism. With centralization is ambition, and with ambition dwells despotism. Happy your great country, sir, for being so warmly attached to that great principle of self-government. Upon this foundation your fathers raised a home to freedom more glorious than the world has ever seen. Upon this foundation you have developed it to a living wonder of the world. Happy your great country, sir ! that it was selected by the blessing of the Lord to prove the glorious practicability of a federative union of many sovereign States, all preserving their State-rights and their self-govern- FEDERALISM TRIUMPHANT, 121 ment, and yet united in one — every star beaming with its own lustre, but all together one constellation on mankind's canopy. Upon this foundation your free country has grown to al prodigious power in a surprizingly brief period, a power which attracts by its fundamental principle. You have con- quered by it more in seventy-five years than Eome by arms in centuries. Your principles will conquer the world. By the glorious example of your freedom, welfare, and security, mankind is about to become conscious of its aim. The lesson you give to humanity will not be lost. The respect for State-rights in the Federal Government of America, and in its several States, will become an instructive example for universal toleration, forbearance, and justice to the future States and Eepublics of Europe. Upon this basis those mischievous questions of language-nationalities will be got rid of, which cunning despotism has raised in Europe to murder liberty. Smaller States will find security in the prin- ciple of federative union, while they will preserve their national freedom by the principle of sovereign self-government ; and while larger States, abdicating the principle of centralization, will cease to be a blood-field to unscrupulous usurpation and a tool to the ambition of wicked men, municipal institutions will ensure the development of local elements ; freedom, for- merly an abstract political theory, will be brought to eyerj municipal hearth; and out of the welfare and contentment of all parts will flow happiness, peace, and security for the whole. _J That is my confident hope. Then will the fluctuations of Germany's fate at once subside. It will become the heart of Europe, not by melting North Germany into a Southern frame, or the South into a Northern; not by absorbing historical peculiarities into a centralized omnipotence; not by mixing all in one State, but by federating several sovereign States into a Union like yours. Upon a similar basis will take place the national regenera- tion of Sclavonic States, and not upon the sacrilegious idea of Panslavism, which means the omnipotence of the Czar. Upon a similar basis shall we see fair Italy independent and free. Not unity, but union will and must become the watch- word of national members, hitherto torn rudely asunder by 6 122 NEED OF ^^FAIR PLAY/^ provincial rivalries, out of which a crowd of despots and common servitude arose. In truth it will be a noble joy to your great Eepublic to feel that the moral influence of your glorious example has worked this happy development in mankind's destiny; nor have I the slightest doubt of the efficacy of that example. But there is one thing indispensable to it, without which there is no hope for this happy issue. It is, that the op- pressed nations of Europe become the masters of their future, free to regulate their own domestic concerns. And to this nothing is wanted but to have that "fair play" to all, /or all, which you, sir, in your toast, were pleased to pronounce as a right of my nation, alike sanctioned by the law of nations as by the dictates of eternal justice. Without this "fair play" there is no hope for Europe — no hope of seeing your prin- ciples spread. Yours is a happy country, gentlemen. You had more than fair play. You had active and effectual aid from Europe in your struggle for independence, which, once achieved, you used so wisely as to become a prodigy of freedom and welfare, and a lesson of life to nations. But we in Europe — we, unhappily, have no such fair play. With us, against every pulsation of liberty all despots are united in a common league ; and you may be sure that despots will never yield to the moral influence of your great example. They hate the very existence of this example. It is the sorrow of their thoughts, and the incubus of their dreams. To stop its moral influence abroad, and to check its spread at home, is what they wish, instead of yielding to its influence. We shall have no fair play. The Cossack already rules, by Louis Napoleon's usurpation, to the very borders of the Atlantic Ocean. One of your great statesmen— now, to my deep sorrow, bound to the sick bed of far advanced age * — (alas ! that I am deprived of the advice which his wisdom could have imparted to me) — your great statesman told the world thirty years ago that Paris was transferred to St. Petersburg. What would he now say, when St. Petersburg * Henry Clay, since deceased. FAILURE OF EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS. 123 is transferred to Paris, and Europe is but an appendage to Eussia ? Alas ! Europe can no longer secure to Europe fair play. England only remains ; but even England casts a sorrowful glance over the waves. Still, we will stand our ground, " sink or swim, live or die." You know the word ; it is your own. We will follow it ; it will be a bloody path to tread. Despots have conspired against the world. Terror spreads over Europe, and persecutes by way of anticipation. From Paris to Pesth there is a gloomy silence, like the silence of nature before the terrors of a hurricane. It is a sensible silence, disturbed only by the thousandfold rattling of muskets by which Napoleon prepares to crush the people who gave him a home when he was an exile, and by the groans of new martyrs in Sicily, Milan, Yienna, and Pesth. . The very sympathy which I met in England, and was expected to meet here, throws my sisters into the dungeons of Austria. Well, God's will be done ! The heart may break, but duty will be done. We will stand our place, though to us in Europe there be no " fair play." But so much I hope, that no just man on earth can charge me with unbecoming arrogance, when here, on this soil of freedom, I kneel down and raise my prayer to God : "Almighty Father of Humanity, will thy merciful arm not raise up a power on earth to protect the law of nations when there are so many to violate it ?" It is a prayer, and nothing else. What would remain to the oppressed if they were not even permitted to pray ? The rest is in the hand of God. Sir, I most fervently thank you for the acknowledgment that my country has proved worthy to be free. Yes, gentle- men, I feel proud at my nation's character, heroism, love of freedom and vitality ; and I bow with reverential awe before the decree of Providence which has placed my country into a position such that, without its restoration to independence, there is no possibility for freedom and independence of nations on the European continent. Even what now in France is coming to pass proves the truth of this. Every disappointed hope with which Europe looked towards France is a degree more added to the importance of Hungary to the world. 124 BLINDNESS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. Upon our plains were fought the decisive battles for Christen- dom ; there will be fought the decisive battle for the Inde- pendence of nations, for State rights, for international law, and for democratic liberty. We will live free, or die like men ; but should my people be doomed to die, it will be the first whose death will not be recorded as suicide, but as a martyrdom for the world, and future ages will mourn over the sad fate of the Magyar race, doomed to perish, not because we deserved it, but because in the nineteenth century there was nobody to protect "the laws of nature and of nature's God." But I look to the future with confidence and with hope. Manifold adversities could not fail to impress some mark of sorrow upon my heart, which is at least a guard against sanguine illusions. But I have a steady faith in principles. Once in my life indeed I was deplorably deceived in my anticipations, from supposing principle to exist in quarters where it did not. I did not count on generosity or chivalrous goodness from the governments of England and France, but I gave them credit for selfish and instinctive prudence. I supposed them to value Parliamentary Government, and to have foresight enough to know the alarming dangej?s to which they would be exposed, if they allowed the armed interference of Eussia to overturn historical, limited, representative insti- tutions. But France and England both proved to be blind, and deceived me. It was a horrible mistake, and has issued in a horrible result. The present condition of Europe, which ought to have been foreseen by those governments, exculpates me for having erred through expecting them to see their own interests. Well, there is a providence in every fact. With- out this mistake the principles of American republicanism would for a long time yet not have found a fertile soil on that continent, where it was considered wisdom to belong to the French school. Now matters stand thus : that either the continent of Europe has no future at all, or this future is American republicanism. And who can believe that two hundred millions of that continent, which is the mother of such a civilization, are not to have any future at all ? Such a doubt would be almost blasphemy against Providence. But there is a Providence indeed — a just, a bountiful Providence, THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 125 and in it I trust, with all the piety of my religion. I dare to say my very self was an instrument of it. Even my being here, when four months ago I was yet a prisoner of the league of European despots in far Asia, and the sympathy which your glorious people honours me with, and the high benefit of the welcome of your Congress, and the honour to be your guest, to be the guest of your great Eepublic — I, a poor exile — is there not a very intelligible manifestation of Providence in it ? — the more, when I remember that the name of your guest is by the furious rage of the Austrian tyrant, nailed to the gallows. I confidently trust that the nations of Europe have a future. I am aware that this future is vehemently resisted by the bayonets of absolutism ; but I know that though bayonets may give a defence j they afford no seat to a Prince. I trust in the future of my native land, because I know that it is worthy to have one, and that it is necessary to the destinies of humanity. I trust to the principles of republicanism ; and, whatever be my personal fate, so much T know, that my country will preserve to you and your glorious land an ever- lasting gratitude. A toast in honour of Mr. Webster, the Secretary of State, having then been proposed, that gentleman responded in an ample speech, of which the following is an extract : — Gentlemen, I do not propose, at this hour of the night, to entertain you by any general disquisition upon the value of human freedom, upon the inalienable rights of man, or upon any general topics of that kind ; but I wish to say a few words upon the precise question, as I understand it, that exists before the civilized world, between Hungary and the Austrian Government, and I may arrange the thoughts to which I desire to give utterance under two or three general heads. And in the first place I say, that wherever there is in the Christian and civilized world a nationality of character — wherever there exists a nation of sufficient knowledge and wealth and population to constitute a Government, then a National Government is a necessary and proper result of nationality of character. We may talk of it as we please, but there is nothing that satisfies the human being in an 126 MR. WEBSTER ON NATIONALITY enlightened age, unless he is governed by his own countrymen and the institutions of his own Government. No matter how easy be the yoke of a foreign Power, no matter how lightly it sits upon the shoulders, if it is not imposed by the voice of his own nation and of his own country, he wiU not, he cannot, and he means not to be happy under its burden. There is not a civilized and intelligent man on earth that enjoys entire satisfaction in his condition, if he does not live under the government of his own nation — his own country, whose volitions and sentiments and sympathies are like his own. Hence he cannot say " This is not my country; it is the country of another Power ; it is a country belonging to somebody else." Therefore, I say that wherever there is a nation of sufficient intelligence and numbers and wealth to maintain a government, distinguished in its character and its history and its institutions, that nation cannot be happy but under a government of its own choice. Then, sir, the next question is, whether Hungaiy, as she exists in our ideas, as we see her, and as we know her, is distinct in her nationality, is competent in her population, is also competent in her knowledge and devotion to correct sentiment, is competent in her national capacity for liberty and independence to obtain a government that shall be Hungarian out and out ? Upon that subject, gentlemen, I have no manner of doubt. Let us look a little at the position in which this matter stands. What is Hungary ? Hungary is about the size of Great Britain, and compre- hends nearly half of the territory of Austria. [According to one authority its population is 14 millions and a half.] It is stated by another authority that the population of Hungary is nearly 14,000,000; that of England (in 1841) nearly 15,000,000; that of Prussia about 16,000,000. Thus it is evident that, in point of power, so far as power depends upon population, Hungary possesses as much power as England proper, or even as the kingdom of Prussia. Well, then, there is population enough — there are people enough. Who, then, are they ? They are distinct from the nations that surround them. They are distinct from the Austrians on the west, and the Turks on the east ; and I will AND HUNGARIAN LIBERTIES. 127 say in the next place that they are an enlightened nation. They have their history ; they have their traditions ; they are attached to their own institutions — institutions which have existed for more than a thousand years. Gentlemen, it is remarkable that, on the western coasts of Europe, political light exists. There is a sun in the political firmament, and that sun sheds his light on those who are able to enjoy it. But in eastern Europe, generally speaking, and on the confines between eastern Europe and Asia, there is no political sun in the heavens. It is all an arctic zone of political life. The luminary, that enlightens the world in general, seldom rises there above the horizon. The light which they possess is at best crepuscular, a kind of twilight, and they are under the necessity of groping about to catch, as they may, any stray gleams of the light of day. Gentle- men, the country of which your guest to-night is a native is a remarkable exception. She has shown through her whole history, for many hundreds of years, an attachment to the principles of civil liberty, and of law and of order, and obe- dience to the constitution which the will of the great majority have established. That is the fact; and it ought to be known wherever the question of the practicability of Hunga- rian liberty and independence are discussed. It ought to be known that Hungary stands out from it above her neighbours in all that respects free institutions, constitutional govern- ment, and a hereditary love of liberty. Gentlemen, my sentiments in regard to this effort made by Hungary are here sufiiciently well expressed. In a memorial addressed to Lord John Eussell and Lord Palmerston, said to have been written by Lord Fitzwilliam, and signed by him and several other Peers and members of Parliament, the following language is used, the object of the memorial being to ask the mediation of England in favour of Hungary : " While so many of the nations of Europe have engaged in revo- lutionary movements, and have embarked in schemes of doubtful policy and still more doubtful success, it is gratifying to the under- signed to be able to assure your lordships that the Hungarians demand nothing but the recognition of ancient rights and the stabihty and integrity of their ancient constitution. To your lord- ships it cannot be unknovrn that that constitution bears a striking famLly-resemblance to that of our own country." 128 FOREIGN AND VIOLENT RULE Gentlemen, I have said that a National Government, where there is a distinct nationality, is essential to human happiness. I have said that in my opinion, Hungary is thus capable of human happiness. I have said that she possesses that distinct nationality, that power of population, and that of wealth, which entitles her to have a Government of her own ; and I have now to add what I am sure will not sound well upon the Upper Danube ; and that is, that, in my humble judgment, the imposition of a foreign yoke upon a people capable of self- government, while it oppresses and depresses that people, adds nothing to the strength of those who impose that yoke. In my opinion, Austria would be a better and' a stronger Government to-morrow if she confined the limits of her power to hereditary and German dominions. Especially if she saw in Hungary a strong, sensible, independent neighbouring nation ; because I think that the cost of keeping Hungary quiet is not repaid by any benefit derived from Hungarian levies or tributes. And then again, good neighbourhood, and the goodwill and generous sympathies of mankind, and the generosity of character that ought to pervade the minds of Governments as well as those of individuals, is vastly more promoted by living in a state of friendship and amity with those who differ from us in modes of government, than by any attempt to consolidate power in the hands of one over all the rest. Gentlemen, the progress of things is unquestionably onward. It is onward with respect to Hungary. It is onward every- where. Public opinion, in my estimation at least, is making great progress. It will penetrate aU resources ; it will come more or less to animate all minds ; and in respect to that country, for which our sympathies to-night have been so strongly invoked, I cannot but say that I think the people of Hungary are an enlightened, industrious, sober, well-inclined community ; and I wish only to add, that I do not now enter into any discussion of the form of government which may be proper for Hungary. Of course, aU of you, like myself, would be glad to see her, when she becomes independent, embrace that system of government which is most acceptable to ourselves. We shall rejoice to see our American model WEAKENS ITS HOLDERS. 129 upon the Lower Danube, and on the mountains of Hungary. But that is not the first step. It is not that which will be our first prayer for Hungary. That first prayer shall be, that Hungary may become independent of all foreign power, that her destinies may be entrusted to her own hands, and to her own discretion. / I do not profess to understand the social relations and connections of races, and of twenty other things that may affect the public institutions of Hungary. All I say is, that Hungary can regulate these matters for herself in- finitely better than they can be regulated for her by Austria, and therefore I limit my aspirations for Hungaiy, for the present, to that single and simple point Hungarian inde- pendence : — " Hungarian independence ; Hungarian control of her own des- tinies ; and Hungary as a distinct nationality among the nations of Europe." The toast was received with enthusiastic applause. The President then announced the next toast — " The rights of states are only valuable when subject to the free control of those to whom they appertain, and utterly worthless if to be determined by the sword of foreign interference." Mr. Douglas of Illinois, one of the Candidates for the Presidency, in responding, spoke at length, and denounced the injustice and folly of England. In the close he said : — He regarded the intervention of Russia in the affairs of Hungary as a palpable violation of the laws of nations, that would authorize the United States to interfere. If Russia, or Austria, or any other power, should interfere again, then he would determine whether or not we should act, his action depending upon the circumstances as they should then be presented. In the mean time however he would proclaim the principle of the laws of nations : he would instruct our ministers abroad to protest the moment there was the first symptom of the violation of these laws. He would show to Europe that we had as much right to sympathize in a system of government similar to our own, as they had in similar circumstances. In his opinion, Hungary was better adapted for a liberal movement than any other nation in Europe. In conclusion, Mr. Douglas begged leave to offer the fol- lowing sentiment : — " HuxaARY : When she shall make her next struggle for Ubertv, 6 § 130 GENERAL CASS ON HUNGARY. may the friends of freedom tliroughout the worid proclaim to the ears of all European despots, Hands off, a clear field and a fair fight, and God will protect the right." The toast was received with the greatest applause. Colonel Florence submitted the following sentiment : — " The American Minister to France, whose intervention defeated the quintuple treaty." General Cass replied in a veiy energetic speech, in which he stated that he was approaching the age of three score years and ten. Turning to Kossuth, he said : — Leader of your counti*y's revolution — asserter of the rights of man — martyr of the principles of national independence — welcome to our shores ! Sir, the ocean, more merciful than the wrath of tyrants, has brought you to a country of freedom and of safety. That was a proud day for you, but it was a prouder day for us, when you left the shores of old Hellespont and put your foot upon an American deck. Protected by American cannon, with the stars of our country floa' ing over you, you could defy the world in arms ! And, sir, here in the land of Washington, it is not a barren welcome that I desire to give you ; but much further than that I am willing to go. I am willing to lay down the great principles of national rights, and adhere to them. The sun of heaven never shone on such a government as this. And shall we sit blindfolded, with our arms crossed, and say to tyranny, " Prevail in every other region of the world?" [Cries of "No, no!"] I thank you for the response. Every independent nation under Heaven has a right to estabhsh just such a government as it pleases. And if the oppressed of any nation wish to thi'ow off their shackles, they have the right, without the interference of any other ; and, with the first and greatest of our Presidents — the father of his country — I trust we are prepared to say, that " we sympathize with every oppressed nation which unfurls the banner of freedom." And I am wilhng, as a member of Congress, to pass a declaration to-morrow, in the name of the American people, maintaining that sentiment. A toast was then proposed : " Turkey : Her noble hospitality extended to a fallen patriot, even at the risk of war, proves her to be worthy of the respect and friend- ship of liberal nations." Kossuth replied as follows :— Sir, I feel very thankful for having the opportunity to express in this place my everlasting gratitude to the Sultan of Turkey KOSSUTH ON THE TURKISH SULTAN. 131 and to his noble people. I am not a man to flatter any one. Before God, nations, and principles I bow — before none else. But I bow with warm and proud gratitude, before the memory of the generous conduct I met ih Turkey. And I entreat your kind permission to state some facts, which perhaps may contribute something to a better knowledge of that country, because I am confident that, when it is once better known, more attention will be bestowed on its future. Firstly, as to myself. When I was in that country, and Eussia and Austria, in the full pride of their victory, were imposing their will upon the Sultan, and claiming the surrender of me and my associates, it is true that a grand divan was held at Constantinople, and not very favourable opinions were pronounced by a certain party opposed to the existing govern- ment in Turkey, whereby the Sublime Porte itself was led to believe that there was no help for us poor exiles, but to aban- don our faith and become Mohammedans, in order that Turkey might be able to protect us. I thereupon made a declaration, which I believe I was bound in honesty to make. But I owe it to the honour of the Sultan to say openly, that even before I had declared that I would rather die than accept this condition — before that declaration was conveyed to Con- stantinople, and before any one there could have got know- ledge that I had appealed to the public opinion of England in relation thereto — before all this was known at Constanti- nople, when the decision of that great divan was announced to the Sultan to be unfavourable to the exiles, he out of the generosity of his own heart, without knowing what we were willing to accept or not to accept, declared : " They are upon the soil ; they have trusted to my honour, to my justice — to my religion — and they shall not be deceived. Eather will I accept war than deliver them up." That is entirely his merit. But notwithstanding these high obligations which I feel towards Turkey, I never will try to engage public sympathy and attention towards a country — towards a power — upon the basis of one fact. But there are many considerations in reference to Turkey which merit the full attention of the United States of America. When, we make a comparison between the Turkish Govern- 132 RELIGION^ MUNICIPALITIES^ ment and that of Austria and Russia in respect to religious liberty, the scale turns entirely in favour of Turkey. There is not only toleration for all religions, but the government does not mix with their