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SELECT SPEECHES OF KOSSUTH.

Condensed and abridged, with Kossuth's express sanction,

by Francis W. Newman.

PREFACE TO KOSSUTH'S SPEECHES.

Nothing appears in history similar to the enthusiasm roused by Kossuth in nations foreign to him, except perhaps the kindling for the First Crusade by the voice of Peter the Hermit. Then bishops, princes, and people alike understood the danger which overshadowed Europe from the Mohammedan powers; and by soundly directed, though fanatical instinct, all Christendom rushed eastward, till the chivalry of the Seljuk Turks was crippled on the fields of Palestine. Now also the multitudes of Europe, uncorrupted by ambition, envy, or filthy lucre, forebode the deadly struggle impending over us all from the conspiracy of crowned heads. Seeing the apathy of their own rulers, and knowing, perhaps by dim report, the deeds of Kossuth, they look to him as the Great Prophet and Leader, by whom Policy is at length to be moulded into Justice; and are ready to catch his inspiration before he has uttered a word. Kossuth undoubtedly is a mighty Orator; but no one is better aware than he, that the cogency of his arguments is due to the atrocity of our common enemies, and the enthusiasm which he kindles to the preparations of the people's heart.

His orations are a tropical forest, full of strength and majesty, tangled in luxuriance, a wilderness of self-repetition. Utterly unsuited to form a book without immense abridgment, they contain materials adapted equally for immediate political service and for permanence as a work of wisdom and of genius. To prepare them for the press is an arduous and responsible duty: the best excuse which I can give for having assumed it, is, that it has been to me a labour of love. My task I have felt to be that of a judicious reporter, who cuts short what is of temporary interest, condenses what is too amplified for his limits and for written style, severely prunes down the repetitions which are inevitable where numerous[*] audiences are addressed by the same man on the same subject, yet amid all these necessary liberties retains not only the true sentiments and arguments of the speaker, but his forms of thought and all that is characteristic of his genius. Such an operation, rightly performed, may, like a diminishing mirror, concentrate the brilliancy of diffuse orations, and assist their efficacy on minds which would faint under the effort of grasping the original.

[Footnote *: The number of speeches, great and small, spoken in his
American half-year, is reckoned to be above 500.]

It is true, the exuberance of Kossuth is often too Asiatic for English taste, and that excision of words, which needful abridgment suggests, will often seem to us a gain. Moreover, remembering that he is a foreigner, and though marvellous in his mastery of our language, still naturally often unable to seize the word, or select the construction which he desired, I have not thought I should show honour to him by retaining anything verbally unskilful. To a certain cautious extent, I account myself to be a translator, as well as a reporter, and in undertaking so delicate a duty, I am happy to announce that I have received Kossuth's written approval and thanks. Mere quaintness of expression I have by no means desired entirely to remove, where it involved nothing grotesque, obscure, or monotonous. In several passages where I imperfectly understood the thought, I have had the advantage of Kossuth's personal explanations, which have enabled me to clear up the defective report, or real obscurities of his words.

Nevertheless I have to confess my conviction, that nothing can wholly compensate for the want of systematic revision by the author himself; which his great occupations have made impossible. The mistakes in the reports of the speeches are sometimes rather subtle, and have not roused my suspicion. Of this I have been, made disagreeably sensible, by several errata communicated to me by Kossuth in the first great speech at New York, here marked as No. VII. (which have been corrected in this edition.)

Nearly all the points on which attempts have been made to misrepresent in England the cause of Hungary are cleared up in these speeches. On two subjects only does it seem needful here to make any remark: first, on the Republicanism of Kossuth; secondly, on the Hungarian levies against Italy in the year 1848.

1. Kossuth is attacked by his countrymen on opposite grounds: Szemerè despises him for not becoming a republican early enough, Count Casimir Bathyanyi reproves him for becoming a republican at all. The facts are these. Kossuth, like all English statesmen, was a historical royalist, not a doctrinaire. When the existing reign had become treacherous and lawless, he was willing to change the line of succession, and make the Archduke Stephen king. When the dynasty had become universally detested and actually expelled, he approved most heartily[*] the deposition of the Hapsburgs; but still held himself in suspense as to the future of the constitution. By his influence instructions were sent to his representative in England, which were equivalent to soliciting a dynasty from the British government. Meanwhile Szemerè, his Home Secretary, took on himself to avow in the Diet that the government was REPUBLICAN, and no voice of protest was raised in either house. Indeed, Mr. Vucovics, who was Minister of Justice under Kossuth, states (see Appendix I.) that the government and both houses responded unanimously to the republican avowal, and that the government removed the symbol of the Crown from the public arms and seal. The press of all shades assented. After this, it was clear (I presume) to Kossuth, or at least it soon became so, that all sympathy with royal power was gone out of the nation's heart. Hungarians may settle that amongst themselves: but as for Englishmen,—when for seven or eight months together the English ministry and English peerage would not stir, or speak, or whisper, to save constitutional royalty and ancient peerage for Hungary and for Europe while it was yet possible; with what face, with what decency, can Englishmen censure Kossuth for despairing of a cause, which was abandoned to ruin by ourselves, the greatest power interested to maintain it,—which the monarchs have waded through blood and perjury to destroy,-and which the millions of Hungary will not (in his belief) peril life and fortune to restore?

[Footnote *: How unanimous was the whole country, is clear by the facts stated. How spontaneous was the movement, and free from all government intrigue, see in Appendix I. This is entirely confirmed by our envoy, Mr. Blackwell: Blue Book, March—Ap. 1848.]

2. The ministry of Louis Bathyanyi and Kossuth have been attacked on opposite grounds,—because they did, and because they did not, attempt to subdue the Italians by force of arms. The facts are rather complicated, but deserve here to be stated concisely.

When the ministry was appointed, there were already Hungarians in Italy with Radetzki, and Austrian soldiers in Hungary. The Viennese ministry promised to exchange them, as fast as could be done without encountering great expense or dislocating the regiments and making them inefficient. With this promise the Hungarian ministry was forced to content itself at the time. At a later period, when it discovered that the Austrian commanders in Hungary had secret orders not to fight against the Serbian marauders, and that the Austrian troops could not be trusted, the Hungarian ministry desired to get back their men from Italy for their own defence; which desire proved ineffectual, yet has been severely blamed by some of our monarchists. But meanwhile the Viennese ministry, as early as June, 1848, endeavoured to buy of the Hungarian ministry an increased grant of troops against Italy, by conceding a most energetic "King's Speech" against the Serbs, with which the Archduke Palatine was to open, and did open, the Diet on July 2d. A part of this speech is quoted in Appendix II., and indeed it is a loathsome exhibition of Austrian treachery. The Hungarian ministry were pressed by the arguments, that since Austria was attacked in Italy by the King of Sardinia, the war was not merely against the Lombards; and that the Pragmatic Sanction bound Hungary to defend the empire if assailed from without. This led them to acknowledge the principle, that they were bound to assist, if able; but they replied that Hungary itself must first be secured against marauders, and no troops could be spared until the Serbs were subdued. At the same time orders were sent to Radetzki from Vienna to offer independence to the Lombards, and constitutional nationality under the Austrian crown to the Venetians: hence the Hungarian ministry for a time fancied that they would not be fighting against the Italians, as they expected the terms to be accepted by them. When it was farther represented that the Italians had rejected them,—(for Radetzki, acting probably by secret orders, suppressed the despatches, and never offered independence to Lombardy, though the Austrian ministers made diplomatic capital of their liberality,)—then the Hungarian ministry began to think the Italians unreasonable; yet they did not go beyond their abstract principle, that Hungary ought to grant troops for Austrian defence in Italy, provided, 1st, that rebellion in Hungary itself were repressed; 2d, that the troops should not act against the Italians, unless the Italians had rejected the offer of national liberties and a constitution coordinate to those of Hungary, under the Austrian crown.

The protocol on this subject was drawn on July 5th; the public speech of Kossuth concerning it was not until July 22d; and in this short interval the treachery of the dynasty had been so displayed, that Kossuth could no longer speak in the same tone as a few weeks earlier. For a fuller development of this, I refer the reader to Appendix III. The real object of the Austrian ministry, was, to ruin the popularity of Bathyanyi and Kossuth, if they could induce them to sacrifice Italian freedom; or else, to accuse them to all the European diplomatists as conspirators against the integrity of the Austrian empire, if they refused to oppress the liberties of Italy.

Finally, the reader has even here proof enough how false is the statement which has been current in English newspapers, that Kossuth's visit to America was "a failure." This was an attempt to practise on our prevalent disgraceful tendency to judge of a cause by its success. However, the end is not yet seen: America has still to act decisively, if she would win the lasting glory which we have despised, of rescuing Law and Right from lawless force, and establishing the future of Europe.

CONTENTS.

1. Secrecy of Diplomacy
London, Oct. 30th, 1851.

2. Monarchy and Republicanism
Copenhagen House, London, Nov. 3d.

3. Communism and the Sibylline Books
Manchester, Nov. 12th.

4. Legitimacy of Hungarian Independence
Staten Island, Dec. 5th, 1851.
Declaration of Independence by the Hungarian Nation

5. Statement of Principles and Aims
New York, Dec. 6th.

6. Reply to the Baltimore Address
Dec. 10th.

7. Hereditary Policy of America
New York, to the Corporation, Dec. 11th.

8. On Nationalities
New York, to the Press.

9. On Military Institutions
New York, to the Militia, Dec. 16th.

10. Conditions essential for Democracy and Peace
New York, Tammany Hall, Dec. 17th.

11. Hungary and Austria in Religious Contrast
In a Brooklyn Church, New York, Dec. 18th.

12. Public Piracy of Russia
New York, to the Bar, Dec. 19th.

13. Claims of Hungary on the Female Sex
New York, to the Ladies, Dec. 21st.

14. Results of the Overthrow of the French Republic
Philadelphia, Dec. 26th.

15. Interest of America in Hungarian liberty
Baltimore, Dec. 27th.

16. Novelties in American Republicanism
Washington, Legislative Banquet, Jan. 15th, 1852.

17. On the Merits of Turkey

18. Aspects of America toward England
Washington, Jan. 8th, day of battle of New Orleans.

19. Meaning of Recognizing Hungarian Independence
Washington, last speech.

20. Contrast of the American to the Hungarian Crisis
Annapolis, Maryland, Jan. 13th, to the Senate.

21. Thanks for his great Success
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Jan. 14th, to the Legislature.

22. On the present Weakness of Despotism
Harrisburg, Legislative Banquet.

23. Agencies of Russian Ascendancy and Supremacy
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Jan. 26th.

24. Reply to the Pittsburg Clergy
Jan. 26th.

25. Hungarian Loan
Cleveland, Ohio, Feb. 3d.
Address to Kossuth from the State Committee of Ohio

26. Panegyric of Ohio
Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 5th.

27. Democracy the Spirit of the Age
Columbus, Feb. 6th, to the Legislature.

28. The Miseries and the Strength of Hungary
Columbus, Feb. 7th.

29. Ohio and France Contrasted as Republics
Cincinnati, Ohio.

30. War a Providential Necessity against Oppression
Cincinnati.

31. On Washington's Policy
Cincinnati, Washington's Birthday, Feb. 24th.

32. Kossuth's Credentials
Cincinnati, Feb. 25th.

33. Harmony of the Executive and of the People in America
Indianapolis, at the State House, Feb 27th.

34. Importance of Foreign Policy and of strengthening England
Louisville, March 6th, at the Court House.

35. Catholicism versus Jesuitism
St. Louis, Missouri.

36. The Ides of March
St. Louis, March 15th.

37. History of Kossuth's Liberation
Jackson, Mississippi, April 1st, address to the Governor.

38. Pronouncement of the South
Mobile, Alabama, April 3d.

39. Kossuth's Defence against certain Mean Imputations
Jersey City, April 20th.

40. The Brotherhood of Nations
Newark, New Jersey, April 22d.

41. The History and Heart of Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts, April 25th.

42. Panegyric of Massachusetts
Faneuil Hall, Boston, April 29th.

43. Self-Government of Hungary
Faneuil Hall, Legislative Banquet. April 30th.

44. Russia the Antagonist of the U. S.
Salem, May 6th.

45. The Martyrs of the American Revolution
Lexington, May 11th.

46. Condition of Europe
Faneuil Hall, Boston, May 14th.

47. Pronouncement of all the States
Albany, May 20th.

48. Sound and Unsound Commerce
Buffalo, May 27th.

49. Russia and the Balance of Power
Syracuse, June 4th.

50. Retrospect and Prospect
Utica, June 9th.

51. The Triple Bond
New York, June 22d.

52. The Future of Nations
New York.

APPENDICES

KOSSUTH'S SPEECHES.

[The speeches of Kossuth in England, though masterly in themselves, are in great measure superseded by those which he delivered in America, where the same subjects were treated at far greater length, and viewed from many different aspects. From the speeches in England I here present only three topics, in a rather fragmentary form.]

I.—SECRECY OF DIPLOMACY.

[First Extract: from Kossuth's Speech at the Guildhall, London, Oct. 30th, 1851.]

The time draws near, when a radical change must take place for the whole world in the management of diplomacy. Its basis has been secrecy: therein is the triumph of absolutism, and the misfortune of a free people. This has won its way not in England only, but throughout the whole world, even where not a penny of the national property can be disposed of without public consent. It surely is dangerous to the interests of the country and to constitutional liberty, to allow such a secrecy, that the people not only should not know how its interests are being dealt with, but that after the crisis is passed, the minister should inform them: "The dinner has been prepared,—and eaten; and the people has nothing to do, but digest the consequences." What is the principle of all evil in Europe? The encroaching spirit of Russia.—And by what power has Russia become so mighty? By its arms?—No: the arms of Russia are below those of many Powers. It has become almost omnipotent,—at least very dangerous to liberty,—by diplomatic intrigues. Now against the secret intrigues of diplomacy there is no surer safeguard, or more powerful counteraction, than public discussion. This must be opposed to intrigues, and intrigues are then of no weight in the destinies of humanity.

* * * * *

[Second Extract from a Short Speech in London, May 25th, 1858.]

I must ask leave to make a remark on the system pursued by your Government in their Foreign relations. You consider yourselves a constitutional nation: I fear that in some respects you are not so. There is a Latin proverb [current in Hungary], Nil de nobis sine nobis,—"nothing that concerns us, without us." This in many things you make your maxim. You say that none of your money shall be spent without your knowledge and approval; and in your internal affairs you carry this out; but I think that the secrecy in which the transactions of your diplomacy are involved is hardly constitutional. Of that most important portion of your affairs which concerns your country in its relations with the rest of Europe, what knowledge have you? If any interpellation is made about any affair not yet concluded, my Lord the Secretary of the Foreign Office will reply that he cannot give any answer, for the negotiations are still pending. A little later he will be able to answer, that as all is now concluded, all comment will be superfluous.

One little fact I will just mention. By the last treaty with Denmark, to which you became a party, the crown of that kingdom was so settled that only three lives stand between it and the Czar of Russia. Three lives! but a fragile barrier, when high political aims are concerned. It is therefore an allowed fact, that the country which commands entrance to the Baltic, and which, in the hands of an unfriendly power, would effectually exclude your commerce from that sea, may pass into the hands of Russia, whose pretensions in the south of Europe you take so much pains to check. This your government have done quietly. How many are there of your people that know and approve it? I hope you will not be offended, if I say, that I cannot understand how yours can be called in this respect a constitutional country.

* * * * *

II.—MONARCHY AND REPUBLICANISM.

[From Kossuth's Speech at Copenhagen House, Nov. 3d, 1851.]

In my opinion, the form of Government may be different in different countries, according to their circumstances, their wishes, their wants. England loves her Queen, and has full motive to do so. England feels great, glorious and free, and has full reason to feel so. But the fact of England being a monarchy cannot be sufficient reason for her to hate and discredit republican forms of government in other countries differing in circumstances, in wishes, and in wants. On the other side, to the United States of America, which under republican government are likewise great, glorious, and free, their republicanism gives no sufficient reason to hate and discredit monarchical government in England. It entirely belongs to the right of every nation to dispose of its domestic concerns. Therefore I claim for my own country also, that England, seeing from our past that our cause is just, should profess the sovereign right of every nation to dispose of itself, and should allow no power whatever to interfere with our domestic matters. Since I thus regard the internal affairs of every nation to be its own separate concern, I did not think it became me here in England to speak about the future organization of our country.

But my behavior has not been everywhere appreciated as I hoped. I have met in certain quarters the remark that I "am slippery, and evade the question." Now on the point of sincerity I am particularly susceptible. I have the sentiment of being a straightforward man, and I would not be charged with having stolen into the sympathies of England without displaying my true colours. Therefore I must clearly state, that in our past struggle it was NOT we who made a revolution. We began peacefully and legislatively to transform the monarchico-aristocratical constitution of Hungary into a monarchico-democratical constitution. We preserved our municipal institutions, as our most valuable treasure; but to them, as well as to the legislative power, we gave, as basis, the common liberty of the people, instead of the class-privileges of old. Moreover, in place of the old Board of Council,—which, being a corporate body, was of course a mockery in regard to that responsibility of the Executive, which was our chartered right on paper,—we established the real and personal responsibility of ministers. In this, we merely[*] upheld what was due to us by constitution, by treaties, by the coronation-oath of every king,—the right to be "governed as a self-consistent, independent country, by our native institutions, according to our own laws." This and all our other reforms we effected peacefully by careful legislation, which the King sanctioned and swore to maintain.

[Footnote *: Many Englishmen have unjustly accused the Hungarians as having by the laws of March, 1848, effected a SEPARATION of Hungary from Austria. Even if this were true, it could not justify the cause of the Hapsburgs. The dynasty yielded, under the pressure of circumstances (as alone will dynasties ever yield), while Hungary did but petition legally, and was in fact unarmed. The dynasty swore to the new laws; and then conspired with Croatians, Serbians, and Russians to overthrow the laws by marauding and force of arms. In fact, if in January, 1849, Austria would have negotiated, instead of arresting all Hungarian ambassadors, Hungary would have consented to modify the laws of March: but the Austrians had already in October ordered the overthrow of the whole Hungarian constitution, and had no wish to do anything by legal methods.

At the same time, the original objection is fundamentally false. No separation of the two countries was effected by the laws of March, 1848; for no legal union ever existed. Only the crowns were united, not the countries. Kossuth rightly compares the union to that which was between England and Hanover. At any time in the past, Hungary might have made peace with a power with which Austria was at war, if the Kings had not falsified their oath by not assembling the Diet: for the Diet always had the lawful right of War and Peace. Any mode whatsoever of enforcing the Coronation oath, might, according to this logic, be condemned as a "separating" of Austria and Hungary.]

Nevertheless, this very dynasty, in the most perjurious manner, attacked these laws, this freedom, this constitution, by arms. We defended ourselves by arms victoriously. When upon this the perjurious dynasty called in the Russian armies to beat us down, we of course declared the Hapsburgs to be no longer our sovereigns. We avowed ourselves to be a free and independent nation, but fixed as yet no definite form of government,—neither monarchical nor republican. These are plain facts. Hungary is not now under lawful government, but is being trampled down by a foreign intruder who is not King of Hungary, being neither acknowledged by the nation, nor sanctioned by law. Hungary is, in a word, in a state of WAR against the Hapsburg dynasty, a war of legitimate defence, by which alone it can ever regain independence and freedom. By such war alone has any nation ever won its freedom from oppressors; as you see in Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, France, Sweden, Norway, Greece, the United States, and England itself.

I can state it, as known to me, with the certainty of matter of fact, that Hungary will never accept the Hapsburgs as legitimate sovereigns in the future, nor ever enter into any new moral relations with that perjurious family. Nor only so; but their perjury has so entirely plucked out of my nation's heart all faith in monarchy and all attachment to it, that there is no power on earth to knit the broken tie again: and therefore Hungary wishes and wills to be a free and independent republic,—a republic founded on the rule of law, securing social order, guaranteeing person, property, the moral development as well as material welfare of the people,—in a word, a republic like that of the United States, founded on institutions inherited from England itself. This is the conviction of my people, which I share in the very heart of my heart.

* * * * *

III.—COMMUNISM AND THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS.

[From Kossuth's Second Speech at Manchester, Nov. 12th, 1851.]

I can understand Communism, but not Socialism. I have read many books on the subject, I have consulted many doctors; but they differ so much that I never could understand what they really mean. However, the only sense which I can see in socialism, is inconsistent with social order and the security of property.

Now since France has three times in sixty years failed to obtain practical results from Political revolutions, all Europe is apt to press forward into new Social doctrine to regulate the future. Believing then, that,—not from my merit, but from the state of my country,—I may be able somewhat to influence the course of the next European revolution, I think it right plainly to declare beforehand my allegiance to the great principle of security for personal property. Nevertheless, to give success to my endeavours in this direction, the rational expectations of the nations of Europe must speedily be fulfilled; else neither I, nor more important men, can avail to stay revolutionary movement. The danger of the case may be illustrated by the ancient story of the Sibylline books.

Take Hungary as an instance. Three years ago we should have been extremely well contented with the laws as made by our parliament in 1848, which laws did not break the tie between us and the house of Hapsburg. But then Austria assailed us with arms, and it became impossible for us to go on with that constitution; indeed she herself proclaimed it to be dissolved. We defeated her, and next she called in the Russian armies. Hungary was then under the necessity of casting off the Hapsburg monarchy; and only the third Sibylline book remained. Yet Hungary did not even then renounce monarchy, but gave instructions to her representative in England to say to the Government of this country, that if they wished to see monarchy established in Hungary, we would accept any dynasty they proposed: but it was not-listened to. Then came the horrors of Arad,[*] and destroyed all our faith in monarchy. So the last of the three books was burned.

[Footnote *: In Arad the Hungarian Generals, who surrendered by Görgy's persuasion, were hanged or shot; and simultaneously Bathyanyi, who had been arrested when he came as an ambassador of peace, was judged anew and murdered by a second court-martial.]

And so, wherever men's reasonable expectations are not fulfilled, it cannot be known where their fluctuations will end. Every man who is anxious for the preservation of person and property should help the world in obtaining rational freedom: if it be not obtained, mankind will search after other forms of action, totally subversive of all existing social order; and where the excitement will subside, I do not know. Men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.

* * * * *

IV.—LEGITIMACY OF HUNGARIAN INDEPENDENCE.

[When Kossuth had landed at Staten Island, thus for the first time setting his foot on American soil, he was met by a deputation, which made an address to him. He replied as follows (Dec. 5th, 1851)]:—

Ladies and gentlemen: The twelve hours that I have had the happiness to stand on your shores, give me augury that, during my stay in the United States, I shall have a pleasant duty to perform, in answering the generous spirit of your people. I hope, however, that you will consider that I am in the first moments of a hard task,—to address your intelligent people in a tongue foreign to me. You will not expect from me an elaborate speech, but will be contented with a few warmly-felt words. Citizens, accept my fervent thanks for your generous welcome, and my blessing upon your sanction of my hopes. You have most truly stated what they are, when you announce the destiny of your glorious country, and tell me that from it the spirit of liberty will go forth and achieve the freedom of the world.

Yes, citizens, these are the hopes which have induced me, in a most eventful period, to cross the Atlantic. I confidently hope, that as you have anticipated my wishes by the expression of your generous sentiments, so you will agree with me, that the spirit of liberty has to go forth, not only spiritually, but materially, from your glorious country. That spirit is a power for deeds, but is yet no deed in itself. Despotism and oppression never yet were beaten except by heroic resistance. That is a sad necessity,—but it is a necessity nevertheless. I have so learned it out of the great book of history. I hope the people of the United States will remember, that in the hour of their nation's struggle, it received from Europe more than kind wishes. It received material aid from others in times past, and it will, doubtless, now impart its mighty agency to achieve the liberty of other lands.

Citizens, I thank you for having addressed me, not in the language of party, but in the language of liberty, which is that of the United States. I come hither, in the name of Hungary, to entreat, not from any party among you, but from your whole nation, a generous protection for my country. And for that very reason, neither will I intermeddle with any of your party questions. In England I often avowed this principle; inasmuch as the very mission on which I come, is to ask that the right of every nation to arrange its domestic concerns may be respected. Notwithstanding this, I am sorry to see, that, before my arrival, I have been charged with intermeddling with your presidential election, because in one of my addresses in England I mentioned the name of your fellow-citizen, Mr. Walker, as one of the candidates for the Presidency. I confess with warm gratitude, that Mr. Walker uttered such sentiments in England, as, if happily they are also those of the United States, will enable me to declare, that Hungary and Europe are free. Therefore I feel deeply indebted to him. But in no respect did I mix myself up with your elections. I consider no man honest who does not observe towards other nations the principles which he desires to be observed towards his own: and therefore I will not interfere in your domestic questions.

Allow me, citizens, to advert to one expression of your kind address, personal to myself. You named me "Kossuth, Governor of Hungary."

My nomination to be Governor was not to gratify ambition. Never, perhaps, did I feel sadder, than at the moment when that title was conferred upon me; for I compared my feeble faculties and its high responsibilities. It is therefore not from ambition that I thank you for the title, but because the title rests upon our Declaration of Independence; and by acknowledging it as mine, you recognize the rightfulness and validity of that Declaration. And, gentlemen I frankly declare that your whole people are bound in honour and duty to recognize it. At this moment there is no other legitimate existing law in Hungary. It was not the proclamation of a man or of a party. It was the solemn declaration of the whole nation in Congress assembled. It was sanctioned by every village, and by every municipality. No counter-proclamation has gone forth from Hungary. It has been overturned solely by the invasion of an ambitious foreign power, the Czar of Russia; who can no more legitimately make or unmake a governor of Hungary, than General Santa Anna, if in your late war he had forced his way to Washington, could have unmade President Taylor. None of you will admit that violence can destroy righteousness: it can but establish unlawful, unrightful fact. If so,—if your own people, and not foreign invaders, are the source of rightful law to you,—you must in consistency recognize our Independence as legitimate, and its declaration as our still rightful law.

As to the praises which you were so kind as to bestow upon me, it is no affectation in me when I declare that I am not conscious of having any other merit than that of being a plain, straightforward man, a faithful friend of freedom, a good patriot. And these qualities, gentlemen, are so natural to every honest man, that it is scarcely worth while to speak of them; for I cannot conceive how a man with understanding and with a sound heart, can be anything else than a good patriot and a lover of freedom.

Yet my humble capacity has not preserved me from calumnies. Scarcely had I arrived here, when I learned that I had been charged in the United States with being an irreligious man. So long as despots exist, and have the means to pay, they will find men to calumniate those who are opposed to tyranny. But, suppose I were the most dishonest creature in the world; in the name of all that is sacred, what would that matter in respect to the cause of Hungary? Would that cause become less just, less righteous, less worthy of your sympathy, because I, for instance, am a bad man? No! I believe you. It is not a question in regard to any individual here. It is a question with regard to a just cause, the cause of a country worthy to take its place in the great family of the free nations of the world. Until I learn that you refuse to recognize nations, whenever their governors fall short of religious perfection, I need not care much about attacks on my mere personality. But one thing I can scarcely comprehend,—that the PRESS—that mighty vehicle of justice and champion of human rights—could have found an organ, and that, in the United States, which (to say nothing of personal calumnies) should degrade itself to assert that it was not the people of Hungary, it was not myself and my coadjutors, that contended for liberty; but it was the Emperor of Austria who was the champion of liberty. Do not give it groans, gentlemen, but rather thank it; for there can be no better service to any cause, than for its opponents to manifest that they have nothing to say but what is ridiculous. That must have been a sacred and just cause, whose detractors need to assert that the Emperor of Austria is the champion of freedom throughout his own dominions and throughout the European continent.

I thank you that you have given me full proof that all these calumnies have affected neither your judgment nor your heart. As this will be the place whence I shall start back for Europe, I shall once more have the happiness of addressing you publicly and bidding you an affectionate adieu:—hoping then to be able to thank you for acts, as I now thank you for sentiments.

* * * * *

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE BY THE HUNGARIAN NATION.

[The reader may be glad to possess the most important portions of this celebrated document. The opponents of Kossuth have of late pretended, that the deposition of the Hapsburgs caused the overthrow of Hungary. But the deposition was not carried until Austria was thoroughly beaten, and Russia had engaged to give her utmost aid. This finally united all Hungary. At no earlier period would Hungary have acted with full unanimity in so decisive a step. To have delayed it longer would not have averted Russian invasion, and would have caused deep discontent in Hungary. Nothing but the wilful disobedience of Görgey, who wasted a month at Buda at this very crisis, saved the Hapsburgs from being conquered in Vienna, before the Russian armies could possibly come up.]

We, the legally-constituted representatives of the Hungarian nation assembled in Diet, do by these presents solemnly proclaim, in maintenance of the inalienable natural rights of Hungary, with all its appurtenances and dependencies, to occupy the position of an Independent European state; that the house of Lorraine-Hapsburg, as perjured in the sight of God and man, has forfeited its right to the Hungarian throne. At the same time, we feel ourselves bound in duty to make known the motives and reasons which have impelled us to this decision, that the civilized world may learn we have not taken this step out of overweening confidence in our own wisdom, or out of revolutionary excitement, but that it is an act of the last necessity, adopted to preserve from utter destruction a nation persecuted to the limit of the most enduring patience.

Three hundred years have passed since the Hungarian nation, by free election, placed the house of Austria upon its throne, in accordance with stipulations made on both sides, and ratified by treaty. These three hundred years have been, for the country, a period of uninterrupted suffering.

The Creator has blessed this country with all the elements of wealth and happiness. Its area of one hundred and ten thousand square miles presents, in varied profusion, innumerable sources of prosperity. Its population, numbering nearly fifteen millions, feels the glow of youthful strength within its veins, and has shown temper and docility which warrant its proving at once the main organ of civilization in Eastern Europe, and the guardian of that civilization when attacked. Never was a more grateful task appointed to a reigning dynasty by the dispensation of Providence than that which devolved upon the house of Lorraine-Hapsburg. It would have sufficed, to do nothing to impede the development of the country. Had this been the rule observed, Hungary would now rank among the most prosperous nations. It was only necessary that it should not envy the Hungarians the moderate share of constitutional liberty which they timidly maintained during the difficulties of a thousand years with rare fidelity to their sovereigns, and the house of Hapsburg might long have counted this nation among the most faithful adherents of the throne.

This dynasty, however, which can at no epoch point to a ruler who based his power on the freedom of the people, adopted a course towards this nation, from father to son, which deserves the appellation of perjury.

The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery. Foiled in this effort by the untiring vigilance of the nation, it directed its endeavour to lame the power, to check the progress of Hungary, causing it to minister to the gain of the provinces of Austria, but only to the extent which enabled those provinces to bear the load of taxation with which the prodigality of the imperial house weighed them down; having first deprived those provinces of all constitutional means of remonstrating against a policy which was not based upon the welfare of the subject, but solely tended to maintain despotism and crush liberty in every country of Europe.

It has frequently happened that the Hungarian nation, in despite of this systematized tyranny, has been obliged to take up arms in self-defence. Although constantly victorious in these constitutional struggles, yet so moderate has the nation ever been in its use of the victory, so strongly has it confided in the king's plighted word, that it has ever laid down arms as soon as the king, by new compacts and fresh oaths, has guaranteed the duration of its rights and liberty. But every new compact was as futile as those which preceded it; each oath which fell from the royal lips was but a renewal of previous perjuries. The policy of the house of Austria, which aimed at destroying the independence of Hungary as a state, has been pursued unaltered for three hundred years.

It was in vain that the Hungarian nation shed its blood for the deliverance of Austria whenever it was in danger; vain were all the sacrifices which it made to serve the interests of the reigning house; in vain did it, on the renewal of the royal promises, forget the wounds which the past had inflicted; vain was the fidelity cherished by the Hungarians for their king, and which, in moments of danger, assumed a character of devotion; they were in vain, since the history of the government of that dynasty in Hungary presents but an unbroken series of perjured deeds from generation to generation.

In spite of such treatment, the Hungarian nation has all along respected the tie by which it was united to this dynasty; and in now decreeing its expulsion from the throne, it acts under the natural law of self-preservation, being driven to pronounce this sentence by the full conviction that the house of Lorraine-Hapsburg is compassing the destruction of Hungary as an independent State: so that this dynasty has been the first to tear the bands by which it was united to the Hungarian nation, and to confess that it had torn them in the face of Europe. For many causes a nation is justified, before God and man, in expelling a reigning dynasty. Among such are the following:

1. When the dynasty forms alliances with the enemies of the country, with robbers, or partizan chieftains to oppress the nation: 2. When it attempts to annihilate the Independence of the country and its Constitution, supported on oaths, by attacking with an armed force the people who have committed no act of revolt: 3. When the integrity of a country, which the sovereign has sworn to maintain, is violated, and its resources cut away: 4. When foreign armies are employed to murder the people, and to oppress their liberties.

Each of the grounds here enumerated would justify the exclusion of a dynasty from the throne. But the House of Lorraine-Hapsburg is unexampled in the compass of its perjuries, and has committed every one of these crimes against the nation.***

In former times, a governing COUNCIL, under the name of the Royal Hungarian Stadtholdership, the president of which was the Palatine, held its seat at Buda, whose sacred duty it was to watch over the integrity of the state, the inviolability of the Constitution, and the sanctity of the laws; but this collegiate authority not presenting any element of personal responsibility, the Vienna cabinet gradually degraded this council to the position of an administrative organ of court absolutism. In this manner, while Hungary had ostensibly an independent government, the despotic Vienna cabinet disposed at will of the money and blood of the people for foreign purposes, postponing our commercial interests to the success of courtly cabals, injurious to the welfare of the people, so that we were excluded from all connection with the other countries of the world, and were degraded to the position of a colony. The mode of governing by a MINISTRY was intended to put a stop to these proceedings, which caused the rights of the country to moulder uselessly in its parchments; by the change,[*] these rights and the royal oath were both to become a reality. It was the apprehension of this, and especially the fear of losing its control over the money and blood of the country, which caused the house of Austria to resolve on involving Hungary, by the foulest intrigues, in the horrors of fire and slaughter, that, having plunged the country in a civil war, it might seize the opportunity to dismember the kingdom, and to blot out the name of Hungary from the list of independent nations, and unite its plundered and bleeding limbs with the Austrian monarchy.

[Footnote *: The change was solemnly enacted in the Parliamentary Laws of
March, 1848, which King Ferdinand V. sanctioned by his public oath in
April, 1848.]

The beginning of this course was, (after a Ministry had been called into existence), by ordering an Austrian general [Jellachich] to rise in rebellion against the laws of the country and nominating him Ban of Croatia, a kingdom belonging to the kingdom of Hungary.***

The Ban revolted therefore in the name of the emperor, and rebelled openly against the king of Hungary, who is however one and the same person; and he went so far as to decree the separation of Croatia and Slavonia from Hungary, with which they had been united for eight hundred years, as well as to incorporate them with the Austrian empire. Public opinion and undoubted facts threw the blame of these proceedings on the Archduke Louis, uncle to the emperor, on his brother, the Archduke Francis Charles, and especially on the consort of the last-named prince, the Archduchess Sophia; and since the Ban, in this act of rebellion, openly alleged that he acted as a faithful subject of the emperor, the ministry of Hungary requested their sovereign, by a public declaration, to wipe off the stigma which these proceedings threw upon the family. At that moment affairs were not prosperous for Austria in Italy; the emperor therefore did proclaim that the Ban and his associates were guilty of high treason, and of exciting to rebellion. But while publishing this edict, the Ban and his accomplices were covered with favours at court, and supplied for their enterprise with money, arms, and ammunition. The Hungarians, confiding in the royal proclamation, and not wishing to provoke a civil conflict, did not hunt out those proscribed traitors in their lair, and only adopted measures for checking any extension of the rebellion. But soon afterward the inhabitants of South Hungary, of Servian race, were excited to rebellion by precisely the same means.

These were also declared by the king to be rebels, but were nevertheless, like the others, supplied with money, arms, and ammunition. The king's commissioned officers and civil servants enlisted bands of robbers in the principality of Servia to strengthen the rebels, and aid them in massacring the peaceable Hungarian and German inhabitants of the Banat. The command of these rebellious bodies was further entrusted to the rebel leaders of the Croatians.

During this rebellion of the Hungarian Servians, scenes of cruelty were witnessed at which the heart shudders; the peaceable inhabitants were tortured with a cruelty which makes the hair stand on end. Whole towns and villages, once flourishing, were laid waste. Hungarians fleeing before these murderers were reduced to the condition of vagrants and beggars in their own country; the most lovely districts were converted into a wilderness.***

The greater part of the Hungarian regiments were, according to the old system of government, scattered through the other provinces of the empire. In Hungary itself, the troops quartered were mostly Austrian; and they afforded more protection to the rebels than to the laws, or to the internal peace of the country. The withdrawal of these troops, and the return of the national militia, was demanded of the government, but was either refused, or its fulfilment delayed; and when our brave comrades, on hearing the distress of the country, returned in masses, they were persecuted, and such as were obliged to yield to superior force were disarmed, and sentenced to death for having defended their country against rebels.

The Hungarian ministry begged the king earnestly to issue orders to all troops and commanders of fortresses in Hungary, enjoining fidelity to the Constitution, and obedience to the ministers of Hungary. Such a proclamation was sent to the Palatine, the viceroy of Hungary, Archduke Stephen, at Buda. The necessary letters were written and sent to the post-office. But this nephew of the king, the Archduke Palatine, shamelessly caused these letters to be smuggled back from the post-office, although they had been countersigned by the responsible ministers; and they were afterward found among his papers when he treacherously departed from the country.

The rebel Ban menaced the Hungarian coast with an attack, and the government, with the king's consent, ordered an armed corps to march into Styria for the defence of Fiume; but this whole force received orders to march into Italy.***

The rebel force occupied Fiume, and disunited it from the kingdom of Hungary, and this hateful deception was disavowed by the Vienna cabinet as having been a misunderstanding; the furnishing of arms, ammunition, and money to the rebels of Croatia was also declared to have been a misunderstanding. Finally, instructions were issued to the effect that, until special orders were given, the army and the commanders of fortresses were not to follow the orders of the Hungarian ministers, but were to execute those of the Austrian cabinet.***

The king from that moment began to address the man whom he himself had branded as a rebel, as "dear and loyal" (Lieber Getreuer); he praised him for having revolted, and encouraged him to proceed in the path he had entered upon.

He expressed a like sympathy for the Servian rebels, whose hands yet reeked from the massacres they had perpetrated. It was under this command that the Ban of Croatia, after being proclaimed as a rebel, assembled an army, and announced his commission from the king to carry fire and sword into Hungary, upon which the Austrian troops stationed in the country united with him.***

Even then the Diet did not give up all confidence in the power of the royal oath, and the king was once more requested to order the rebels to quit the country. The answer given was a reference to a manifesto of the Austrian ministry, declaring it to be their determination to deprive the Hungarian nation of the independent management of their financial, commercial, and war affairs. The king at the same time refused his assent to the bills submitted for approval respecting troops and the subsidy for covering the expenditure.

Upon this the Hungarian ministers resigned, but the names submitted by the president of the council, at the demand of the king, were not approved of for successors. The Diet then, bound by its duty to secure the safety of the country, voted the supplies, and ordered the troops to be levied. The nation obeyed the summons with readiness.

The representatives of the people then summoned the nephew of the emperor to join the camp, and as Palatine[*] to lead the troops against the rebels. He not only obeyed the summons, but made public professions of his devotion to the cause. As soon, however, as an engagement threatened, he fled secretly from the camp and the country, like a coward traitor. Among his papers a plan, formed by him some time previously, was found, according to which Hungary was to be simultaneously attacked on nine sides at once—from Styria, Austria, Moravia, Silesia, Galicia, and Transylvania.

[Footnote *: The Palatine was a high officer elected by the Diet, as its organ, and the defender of its Constitution. In fact, they always elected a prince of the blood royal. He was virtually a Viceroy.]

From a correspondence with the Minister of War, seized at the same time, it was discovered that the commanding generals in the military frontier and the Austrian provinces adjoining Hungary had received orders to enter Hungary, and support the rebels with their united forces.

This attack from nine points at once really began. The most painful aggression took place in Transylvania; for the traitorous commander in that district did not content himself with the practices considered lawful in war by disciplined troops. He stirred up the Wallachian peasants to take up arms against their own constitutional rights, and, aided by the rebellious Servian hordes, commenced a course of Vandalism and extinction, sparing neither women, children, nor aged men; murdering and torturing the defenceless Hungarian inhabitants; burning the most flourishing villages and towns, among which, Nagy-Igmand, the seat of learning for Transylvania, was reduced to a heap of ruins.

But the Hungarian nation, although taken by surprise, unarmed and unprepared, did not abandon its future prospects in any agony of despair.

Measures were immediately taken to increase the small standing army by volunteers and the levy of the people. These troops, supplying the want of experience by the enthusiasm arising from the feeling that they had right on their side, defeated the Croatian armaments, and drove them out of the country.***

The defeated army fled in the direction of Vienna, where the emperor continued his demoralizing policy, and nominated the beaten and flying rebel as his plenipotentiary and substitute in Hungary, suspending by this act the constitution and institutions of the country, all its authorities, courts of justice, and tribunals, laying the kingdom under martial law, and placing in the hand of, and under the unlimited authority of, a rebel, the honour, the property and the lives of the people; in the hand of a man who, with armed bands, had braved the laws, and attacked the Constitution of the country.

But the house of Austria was not contented with the unjustifiable violation of oaths taken by its head.

The rebellious Ban was taken under the protection of the troops stationed near Vienna, and commanded by Prince Windischgrätz. These troops, after taking Vienna by storm, were led as an imperial Austrian army to conquer Hungary. But the Hungarian nation, persisting in its loyalty, sent an envoy to the advancing enemy. This envoy, coming under a flag of truce, was treated as a prisoner, and thrown into prison. No heed was paid to the remonstrances and the demands of the Hungarian nation for justice. The threat of the gallows was, on the contrary, thundered against all who had taken arms in defence of a wretched and oppressed country. But before the army had time to enter Hungary, a family revolution in the tyrannical reigning house was perpetrated at Olmütz. Ferdinand V. was forced to resign a throne which had been polluted with so much blood and perjury, and the son of Francis Charles, (who also abdicated his claim to the inheritance,) the youthful Archduke Francis Joseph, caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. But no one can by any family compact dispose of the constitutional throne without the Hungarian nation.

At this critical moment the Hungarian nation demanded nothing more than the maintenance of its laws and institutions, and peace guaranteed by their integrity. Had the assent of the nation to this change in the occupant of the throne been asked in a legal manner, and the young prince offered to take the customary oath that he would preserve the Constitution, the Hungarian nation would not have refused to elect him king in accordance with the treaties extant, and to crown him with St. Stephen's crown, before he had dipped his hand in the blood of the people.

He, however, refusing to perform an act so sacred in the eyes of God and man, and in strange contrast to the innocence natural to youthful breasts, declared in his first words his intention of conquering Hungary, (which he dared to call a rebellious country, whereas it was he himself that raised rebellion there,) and of depriving it of that independence which it had maintained for a thousand years, to incorporate it into the Austrian monarchy.***

But even then an attempt was made to bring about a peaceful arrangement, and a deputation was sent to the generals of the perjured dynasty. This house in its blind self-confidence, refused to enter into any negotiation, and dared to demand an unconditional submission from the nation. The deputation was further detained, and one of the number, the former President[*] of the Ministry, was even thrown into prison. Our deserted capital was occupied, and was turned into a place of execution; a part of the prisoners of war were there consigned to the axe, another part were thrown into dungeons, while the remainder were exposed to fearful sufferings from hunger, and were thus forced to enter the ranks of the army in Italy.

[Footnote *: Louis Bathyanyi. See Note to p. 6.]

[**]Finally, to reap the fruit of so much perfidy, the Emperor Francis Joseph dared to call himself King of Hungary, in the manifesto of the 9th of March [1849], wherein he openly declares that he erases the Hungarian nation from the list of the independent nations of Europe, and that he divides its territory into five parts, cutting off Transylvania, Croatia, Slavonia, and Fiume from Hungary, creating at the same time a principality (vayvodeschaft) for the Servian rebels, and, having paralyzed the political existence of the country, declares it incorporated into the Austrian monarchy.

[Footnote **: This paragraph, omitted above, is inserted here, where the reader will better understand it.]

The measure of the crimes of the Austrian house was, however, filled up, when, after[*] its defeat, it applied for help to the Emperor of Russia; and, in spite of the remonstrances and protestations of the Porte, and of the consuls of the European powers at Bucharest, in defiance of international rights, and to the endangering of the balance of power in Europe, caused the Russian troops, stationed at Wallachia, to be led into Transylvania, for the destruction of the Hungarian nation.

[Footnote *: The Russian army entered Transylvania on January 3d, 1849; this is the army which was driven out again. But the main Russian armies were only on the move in April, and took two months longer to enter Hungary. These were applied for late in March.]

Three months ago we were driven back upon the Theiss; our just arms have already recovered all Transylvania; Klausenburg, Hermanstadt, and Kronstadt are taken; one portion of the troops of Austria is driven into Bukowina; another, together with the Russian force sent to aid them, is totally defeated, and to the last man obliged to evacuate Transylvania, and to flee into Wallachia. Upper Hungary is cleared of foes.

The Servian rebellion is further suppressed; the forts of St. Thomas and the Roman intrenchment have been taken by storm, and the whole country between the Danube and the Theiss, including the country of Bacs, has been recovered for the nation.

The commander-in-chief of the perjured house of Austria has himself been defeated in five consecutive battles, and has with his whole army been driven back upon and even over the Danube.

Founding a line of conduct upon all these occurrences, and confiding in the justice of an eternal God, we in the face of the civilized world, in reliance upon the natural rights of the Hungarian nation, and upon the power it has developed to maintain them, further impelled by that sense of duty which urges every nation to defend its existence, do hereby declare and proclaim in the name of the nation regally represented by us, the following:—

1st. Hungary, with Transylvania, as legally united with it, and the possessions and dependencies, are hereby declared to constitute a free, independent, sovereign state. The territorial unity of this state is declared to be inviolable, and its territory to be indivisible.

2d. The house of Hapsburg-Lorraine—having by treachery, perjury, and levying of war against the Hungarian nation, as well as by its outrageous violation of all compacts, in breaking up the integral territory of the kingdom, in the separation of Transylvania, Croatia, Slavonia, Fiume, and its districts, from Hungary—further, by compassing the destruction of the independence of the country by arms, and by calling in the disciplined army of a foreign power, for the purpose of annihilating its nationality, by violation both of the Pragmatic Sanction and of treaties concluded between Austria and Hungary, on which the alliance between the two countries depended—is, as treacherous and perjured, for ever excluded from the throne of the united states of Hungary and Transylvania, and all their possessions and dependencies, and are hereby deprived of the style and title, as well as of the armorial bearings belonging to the crown of Hungary, and declared to be banished for ever from the united countries and their dependencies and possessions. They are therefore declared to be deposed, degraded, and banished for ever from the Hungarian territory.

3d. The Hungarian nation, in the exercise of its rights and sovereign will, being determined to assume the position of a free and independent state among the nations of Europe, declares it to be its intention to establish and maintain friendly and neighbourly relations with those states with which it was formerly united under the same sovereign, as well as to contract alliances with all other nations.

4th. The form of government to be adopted for the future will be fixed by the Diet of the nation.

But until this point shall be decided, on the basis of the foregoing and received principles which have been recognized for ages, the government of the united countries, their possessions and dependencies, shall be conducted on personal responsibility, and under the obligation to render an account of all acts, by Louis Kossuth, who has by acclamation, and with the unanimous approbation of the Diet of the nation, been named Governing President (Gubernator), and the ministers whom he shall appoint.

And this resolution of ours we proclaim for the knowledge of all nations of the civilized world, with the conviction that the Hungarian nation will be received by them among the free and independent nations of the world, with the same friendship and free acknowledgment of its rights which the Hungarians proffer to other countries.

We also hereby proclaim and make known to all the inhabitants of the united states of Hungary and Transylvania, their possessions and dependencies, that all authorities, communes, towns, and the civil officers, both in the counties and cities, are completely set free and released from all the obligations under which they stood, by oath or otherwise, to the said house of Hapsburg; and that any individual daring to contravene this decree, and by word or deed in any way to aid or abet any one violating it, shall be treated and punished as guilty of high treason. And by the publication of this decree, we hereby bind and oblige all the inhabitants of these countries to obedience to the government, now instituted formally, and endowed with all necessary legal powers.

Debreczin, April 14, 1849.

* * * * *

V.—STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES AND AIMS.

[Castle Garden, New York, Dec. 6th.]

After apologies for his weakness through the effects of the sea, Kossuth continued:—

Citizens! much as I want some hours of rest, much as I need to become acquainted with my ground, before I enter publicly on matters of business, I yet took it for a duty of honour to respond at once to your generous welcome. I have to thank the People, the Congress, and the Government of the United States for my liberation. I must not try to express what I felt, when I,—a wanderer,—but not the less the legitimate official chief of Hungary,—first saw the glorious flag of the stripes and stars fluttering over my head—when I saw around me the gallant officers and the crew of the Mississippi frigate—most of them worthy representatives of true American principles, American greatness, American generosity. It was not a mere chance which cast the star-spangled banner around me; it was your protecting will. The United States of America, conscious of their glorious calling as well as of their power, declared by this unparalleled act their resolve to become the protectors of human rights. To see a powerful vessel of America, coming to far Asia, in order to break the chains by which the mightiest despots of Europe fettered the activity of an exiled Magyar, whose name disturbed their sleep—to be restored by such a protection to freedom and activity—you may well conceive, was intensely felt by me; as indeed I still feel it. Others spoke—you acted; and I was free! You acted; and at this act of yours tyrants trembled; humanity shouted out with joy; the Magyar nation, crushed, but not broken, raised its head with resolution and with hope; and the brilliancy of your stars was greeted by Europe's oppressed millions as the morning star of liberty. Now, gentlemen, you must be aware how great my gratitude must be. You have restored me to life—in restoring me to activity; and should my life, by the blessing of the Almighty, still prove useful to my fatherland and to humanity, it will be your merit—it will be your work. May you and your country be blessed for it!

Your generous part in my liberation is taken by the world for the revelation of the fact, that the United States are resolved not to allow the despots of the world to trample on oppressed humanity. That is why my liberation was cheered from Sweden to Portugal as a ray of hope. Even those nations which 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 Republic. 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 harbinger 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 brotherly 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 brotherly alliance of the United States to secure to every 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, I 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 exertion 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 which 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 Russian arms. What can be opposed to it? The frown of Mr. Hulsemann—the anger of that satellite of the Czar, called Francis-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 atmosphere of Europe is not very propitious to American principles. But as to Mr. Hulsemann, do not believe that he would be so ready to leave Washington. He has extremely well digested the caustic words which Mr. Webster has administered 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 principle 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 Republic—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 Republican 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 acquainted 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 opportunity 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 opportunity. 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.

* * * * *

VI.—REPLY TO THE BALTIMORE ADDRESS.

[Dec. 10th, 1851.]

Mr. Henry P. Brooks, Chairman of the Committee of the Baltimore City Council, came forward, and after congratulating 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 Hungarian patriot and exile, is about seeking an asylum upon our shores; and whereas it is believed 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 coalition 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 Europe that illustrious exile and patriot whom it is about to be our privilege and pride to receive, as it befits the chosen people of liberty to receive one who has so nobly battled and suffered in that sacred cause; therefore—

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, That we sympathize fully with the Hungarians in their important struggles for Independence, but mindful of that Providence which crowned our own efforts for liberty with success, trust yet to behold that glorious future which their noble leader so eloquently predicts for his beloved country.

Resolved, That we regard the alliance 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.

Resolved, That we cordially welcome Kossuth and his exiled companions to the full enjoyment of American liberty and an asylum beyond the reach of European despotism.

Resolved, further, 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 public 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, Geo. A. Lovering.

JOHN H. J. JEROME, Mayor.
JOHN S. BROWN, 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 individuals, and only left for use in respect to nations. Whatever a man can do for his country, even though he should 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. Whatever a man can do on behalf of his country and of humanity, would never be so much as his duty calls 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 misrepresentation 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 Revolution 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 constitutional 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 Wallachians, 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 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, and 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 Russia to interfere.

* * * * *

VII.—HEREDITARY POLICY OF AMERICA.

[Speech at the Corporation Dinner, New York, Dec. 11th, 1851.]

The Mayor having made an address to Kossuth, closed by proposing the following toast:—

"Hungary—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 unparalleled. 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 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 in principle, that we shall have your generous aid for restoring to our land its sovereign independence. 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 consequences of departing from that wisdom, you are not sure. 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 attachment to its fundamental principles, which by no means exclude 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 transitory 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 Washingtons imparted to it such an interpretation, as were equivalent 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 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 immensity, a world yourselves. Then you were a small people of three millions 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. Francia,—be induced to live a life secluded from the world, indifferent to the destinies of mankind, 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 disavowing 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 geographical 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 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 earth, and must therefore accept all the consequences 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 you would resign your proud place and your still prouder 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 republics 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 happiness, 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 ever young, ever great, ever beautiful virtue, imparts to man. Now this immense agricultural interest, desiring large markets, at the 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 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 regulated 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 eye 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, Washington 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 quarrelling 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 law of nations, common to all, and, therefore, 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 the common law of mankind, in which, because it is such, every nation is equally interested. 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 accident—a mere matter of fact? If it were so, you were not entitled to invoke the protection of God for your great country; 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 considered 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 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 recommended it without becoming inconsistent; for it was this common law of mankind 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 independence. 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 Franklin—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 principle—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 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 necessary 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 consistency 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 all 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—all 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 protection 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 will moan towards Heaven. The genius of charity, Christian love, and justice will mourningly fly the earth; a heavy curse will fall upon morality—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 itself 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, Richard 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 straggles, 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 development of your Fulton's glorious invention, distance is no 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 distance be taken in a nominal sense. Europe is nearer to you than the greatest part of the American continent—yea! even nearer than perhaps some parts of your own territory. President Monroe's second motive is, that you are separated from Europe by 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 commercial 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 French Legation in the United States expressed to your government in an able note of 27th October past:—"America is closely connected 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 commerce. 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 result 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 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 commercial intercourse is the most powerful convoyer of principles, and be sure 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)—and 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 the 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 tranquilly, 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 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 important 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 fell, 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 progressive 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 Fillmore, made a communication 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 governments, and the sympathy with which we witness every struggle against oppression, forbid that we should be 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 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 sympathy 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 explanation 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 misrepresentations of ill-will—correctly understood here. I will only state now one fact, and that is, that our endeavours for independence were crushed by the armed interference of a foreign despotic power—the principle of all evil on earth—Russia. 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—a principle, not a mere temporary policy calculated for the first twenty years of your infancy. Russia has interfered with the internal concerns of Hungary, and by doing so has violated the policy of the United States, established as a lasting principle 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 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 Secretary 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 honourable Secretary of State 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 country. That is an acknowledged principle with your statesmen. What then is the 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 is 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 burn; but what others do is not my concern. I am not my brother's keeper. I 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 Monaco, cannot stop the Czar of Russia 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. Every 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. Woe 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 may be told, "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 1781, 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 all 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 curse of olden times—hatred—be more efficient in the destinies of mankind than love of freedom, principles of justice, and the laws of humanity? 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, gentlemen; 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 Russian 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 Montalembert threatens the French republicans. It was Russian intervention in Hungary which governed French intervention in Rome, 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 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 Russian secret aid, awaits this time (which I scarcely believe), and suppose that there should be a Republic in France; of course the first act of the new French President must be, at least, to recall the French troops from Rome. Nobody can doubt that a revolution in Italy will follow. Or if there is no peaceful solution in France, but a revolution, then every man knows that whenever the heart of France boils up, the pulsation is felt throughout Europe, and oppressed nations once more rise, and Russia again interferes.

Now I humbly ask, with the view of these circumstances before your eyes, can it be convenient to such a great power as this glorious Republic, 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. Russian interference and treason achieved what the sacrilegious Hapsburg dynasty failed to achieve. You know the old words, "While Rome 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 confidently hope that there is only one course possible, consistently 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 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 instructions 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 sovereign 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 hospitality, 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 wont, 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 Hungary to that independence which was formally declared in 1849 would be prevented, Russian arrogance and preponderance would be checked, and the oppressed nations of Europe 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 war; 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 down, what shall we do?" My answer is, "But it will not break down." Even so I answer. But your declaration will be respected—Russia will not interfere—you will have no occasion for war—you will have prevented war. Be sure Russia would twice, thrice consider, before provoking against itself, besides the roused judgment of nations—(to say nothing of the legions of republican France)—the English "Lion" and the star-surrounded "Eagle" of America. Remember that you, in conjunction with England, once before declared that you would not permit European absolutism to interfere with the formerly Spanish colonies of America. Did this declaration bring you to a war? quite the contrary; it prevented war. 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 the blockade, and your commerce is shut out; or, if captured Venice, 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 jurisdiction, 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 governments—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 congenial principles, and not make itself in any respect dependent on the glorious smiles of the Kings Bomba et Compagne.

The THIRD object of my wishes, gentlemen, is the recognition of the independence of Hungary when the critical moment arrives. Your own declaration of independence proclaims the right of every nation to assume among the 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 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 constitutional 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 England. It was clearly defined that we owed 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 occupied 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 Hungary 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 country 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 government of that Hapsburgian dynasty. The Austrian Empire, as you know, was established only in 1806, when the Rhenish 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 France 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 are not intended to make, and will 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.

[Footnote *: In the original Latin, obnoxium, "not entangled, or compromised, with any other.">[

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 feudal incumbrances. We replaced the 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 Noble; 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 with the king's own sanction. 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 our 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 absolutist 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 responsibility 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 conspiracy, and attacked us by arms, and upon receiving a false report of a great victory this young usurper issued a proclamation declaring that Hungary shall no 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 shalt not exist, tyrant, but we will;" and we banished him, and issued the declaration of the deposition of his dynasty, and of our separate independence.

So you see, gentlemen, that there is a very 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 became 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 declaration. One thing only happened,—a foreign power, Russia, came with its armed bondsmen, and, aided by treason, has overthrown us for a while. 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, which 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 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. But if that sympathy which I have the honour to meet with is really intended to become beneficial, 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 accomplished. The first is, by spontaneous subscription; the second is, by a loan. The latter may require private consultation 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:—

CINCINNATI, O., Nov. 14, 1851.

M. LOUIS KOSSUTH, Governor of Hungary:—Sir—I have authorized 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 apprised 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, all warmly attached to liberty. A million dollars, paid singly, would be to me far more precious than paid in one single 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 France 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.

* * * * *

VIII.—ON NATIONALITIES.

[Speech 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 institutions—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 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 occasion—I do not fear to utter it—was, let who will cavil, la solidarité des peuples—the sublime 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. Bryant 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 Independent Republican 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, distorting 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 freedom 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 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 France, under nominally republican government, all the fruits of victorious revolutions are nipt by the blasting grip of centralized power,—legislative and administrative omnipotence. The independence of the French press is crushed; the government cannot bear the free word of public opinion; and in a republic, the shout "Vive la république" 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 all those who rule ought to be hanged; but men only laughed at the foolish extravagance. Nevertheless, 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 by the immense circulation of your journals. It is not solely the cheap price which renders your 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, what 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, POPULAR 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 universality 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 will.

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 powerful complex of the great word PRESS, 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 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 Russia has crushed the press on the whole European continent. Freedom of the press is incompatible with the preponderance of Russia, 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 Russian 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 suffering, 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 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 your central government, nor those of separate states, nor your municipalities, legislate or administer in every language spoken among you; yet you have a national government.

Now, suppose many of you were struck 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? what 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? What 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. But happy art then, 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 institutions; 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 inheritance 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 Hungary, 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 intimidation 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, notwithstanding all their protestation, 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 malignant plot? That of the twelve millions of inhabitants of Hungary 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 language 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 Vienna 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 language 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 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, Transylvania, and to give it up to the neighbouring 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 conquest 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 humanity, 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, independent 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 Roman did. It was a Russian plot—it was a dark design to make out of national feelings a tool to Russian preponderance over the world.

Perhaps you are not aware of the historical origin of this plot. It was after that most immortal act of tyranny, the third division of Poland, that the chance of fate brought the Prince Czartorinsky, to the Court of Catherine of Russia. 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 restoration of Poland, suggesting for equivalent the idea of Russian 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 Russian 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 Russians, that is, absorbed by despotism.

Russia 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 every spark of noble sentiment, if there was one, in Alexander's heart. Upon the throne of the Romanoffs 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 oppression and of Russian preponderance—Russia 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. Russia 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 servitude—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 cannot 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 Russian 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 thousands 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 Roman 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 offered 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 proceedings. This is the origin of that fatality, that Democracy did not grow up for centuries in Hungary. The public proceedings being in Latin, the laws given in Latin, public instruction carried on in Latin, the great mass of the people, who were agriculturists, did not partake in any of this; and 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 Reformation. 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 political rights. But still, Latin public life went on down to 1780. At that time, Joseph of Hapsburg, aiming at centralization, 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 into 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 well, 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 replaced 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 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 government 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 Republic; 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 all equal right to aid out of the public funds, for the moral, religious, and scientific development in churches and in schools. Nay, we extended this even to political affairs, sanctioning the free use of every 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 Constitution 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 government! 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 Austria as Schwarzenberg does. Metternich encroached upon the constitutional rights of Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, and Slavonia. Schwarzenberg has abolished them, and young Francis-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 illusory 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 have groaned under Austrian rule. Under such circumstances to have a common life was an absurdity augmented by deceit.

I cannot exhaust this vast topic in one speech. We want Republican institutions, so founded on self-government everywhere, that the people themselves may be sovereign everywhere. 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 Radetzky murdered on the scaffold during three short years. The House of Savoy is become the blood-hound of Austria against fugitive Hungarians.

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 propositions 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 protective aid of the free independent Press. Then I may yet see fulfilled the noble words of your Chairman's poetry:—

Truth crush'd to earth shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among….
(let me add, Sir,).. with all her worshippers.

In the course of the same evening, one of the toasts drunk was, "To the 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 suffered 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. For 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 thousand 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 of all these dogmas, and establishes 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 whatever other people; give them freedom and independence; establish among them the great principle of local self-government, 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 institutions, but institutions in their turn make men. And if a people under Providence are endowed with institutions that 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 institutions, and to remember 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, according 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 Rome, 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 appropriate than their behaviour. But they prove, that from whatever country there are political exiles, there the institutions are bad. I know we are in the habit of hearing about Red Republicans and Socialists as men who are dangerous on 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 MILITARY INSTITUTIONS.

[Speech to the New York Militia, December 16th.]

The First Division, consisting of four brigades, was presented 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 devotion 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 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 themselves to sustain the honour of our flag and the freedom won by our fathers. They represent fairly all classes of our citizens. Our hard-working and ingenious mechanic—our enterprising 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 enterprise and widely diffused intelligence. 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 established 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 Russian 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 independence, would have been unconquerable. But treason and despotism combined, triumphed over freedom. Then commenced a scene of horrors and cruelty, such as despots only and the minions of despots can perpetrate.

Hungarian liberty may be cast down, but cannot be destroyed. The sacred flame burns 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 oppressors. 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. Establish 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 pursuit 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 forms of government of other nations, than with their forms of 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 combined 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 to guarantee the peace of the world. To effect this most desirable object, you have adopted the true method. You would operate upon the public opinion, and public opinion operating upon free government, creates and establishes 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 institutions, must we look tamely on and see the life-blood of freedom crushed out by the iron heel of barbaric despotism, and hear the death-groans 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 independence of their country." [Here there was an outburst of cheering, and Colonel 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 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 which 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 ambition of aspiring; so, I hope you will kindly 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 the last war, when he told them:—"Soldiers, what I have to offer you is fatigue, danger, struggling, 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 explanation 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. But 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 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 common to every citizen, and public instruction and education must have such a direction as to enable every citizen to perform 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 to perform it. Taking the basis of your organization as an example for Hungary, Hungary would have at least one million of men ready to defend it against the oppression of any power whatever. That the militia of Hungary, thus developed, would be the most solid guardian of my country's freedom and independence, we have shown in our past struggles. 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 indispensable to the freedom of Europe. I will prove this in a few words. The enemy of European freedom is Russia. Now, can Hungary be a barrier to secure Europe against this power of Russia? 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 Russian encroachments. Another thing is, the weakness of Russia 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 Russian territory is of immense extent, and that its population is oppressed; tranquillity and the order of the grave,—not the order of contentment,—is kept in Russia 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 Russia 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 mankind's neck, as he blasphemously boasted he had the authority 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 oppressed 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 provinces of Gallicia, Lithuania, &c. These are proofs that the might of Russia is not so immense that it should intimidate a nation fighting in a just cause. With Hungary once free, Russia would never dare to threaten European liberty again.

But if Russia is so weak as I have shown her to be, why, you may say, do I ask your support and aid against her interference? Because Russia 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 I ask, in the name of my country, the great and beneficial support of the United States to check and prevent Russian interference in Hungary, so that we may have time 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 it to assume its rightful executive in the 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 the militia of the United States will ever be ready to protect oppressed humanity. My third 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 will 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 Hungary, 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 supporters 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 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.

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X.—CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL FOR DEMOCRACY AND PEACE.

[Reply to the Address of the Democrats of Tammany Hall, New York, 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, would become a symbol of its noblest instincts 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 insignificance 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 be 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 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 gens d'armes, 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 Washingtons are not so thickly strewn around. Woe to the country, whose institutions are 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.

[Footnote *: The news of the coup d'état had not yet reached him.]

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 oppression is neither contentment nor tranquillity. There are some who prefer being oppressed to the dangers of shaking off oppression; 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 material 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 composed of drops. The greatest results are achieved, not by individuals, but by the humble industry of mankind, incessantly bringing man nearer to the aim providentially destined for him. Not all the Rothschilds together can wield such 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 million 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 Almighty 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 confidence.

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