PREFACE TO KOSSUTH'S SPEECHES. (continued 6)

Indeed I can wish nothing more than that the principles of Washington should be followed. And I may also be permitted to say, that not every word of Washington is a principle, and that what he recommended as a policy according to the exigencies of his time, he never intended to recommend as a rule for ever to be followed even in such circumstances which he, with all his wisdom, could neither foresee nor imagine. And I may be perhaps permitted to wish the people of the United States should take for a truth, even in respect to the writings of Washington, what we are taught by the ministers of the Gospel in respect to the Holy Scriptures—that, by the discretion of private judgment, a distinction must be made between what is essential and what is not, between what is substantial and what is accidental, between what is a principle and what is but a history.

[Kossuth proceeded to argue concerning the just interpretation of Washington's words, as in his New York speech; and continued:]

But what is the present condition upon the basis of which I humbly plead? Allow me, in answer, to quote the words of one of your most renowned statesmen, the present Secretary of State. You will find then, gentlemen, that every word he then spoke, is yet more true and more appropriate to-day.

"The holy alliance," says Mr. Webster, "is an alliance of crowns against the people—of sovereigns against their own subjects;—the union of the physical force of all governments against the rights of all people, in all countries. Its tendency is to put an end to all Nations as such. Extend the principles of that alliance, and the nations are no more. There are only kings. It divides society horizontally, and leaves the sovereigns above, and all the people below; it sets up the one above all rule, all restraint, and puts down the others to be trampled beneath our feet."

This is the condition of things to which I claim the attention of Republican America: moreover, for its own interest's alike, I claim its attention to the following words from the same statesman, worthy of the most earnest consideration precisely now-a-days to every American.

"The declaration of —— says: the powers have an undoubted right to take a hostile attitude in regard to those states in which the overthrow of the government may operate as an example."

Mark! oh! mark! gentlemen, how this abominable doctrine is carried out in Hungary, in Prussia, in Schleswig Holstein, and in Hesse Cassel.

Now, the American statesman proceeds to maintain, that every sovereign in Europe who goes to war to repress an example, is monstrous. Indeed, if this principle be allowed, what becomes of the United States? Are you not as legitimate objects for the operation of that principle as any we attempt to set an example on the other side of the Atlantic. You thought that when oppressed you might lawfully resist oppression. We, in Hungary, thought the same; but against us is that monstrous principle of armed intervention against setting up an example. So let me therefore ask with Mr. Webster: Are you so sick of your liberty and its effects, as to be willing to part with that doctrine upon which your very existence rests? Do you forget what you, as a people, owe to lawful resistance? and are you willing to abandon the law and rights of society to the mercy of the allied despots, who have united to crush them everywhere? Neutrality? Why, indeed, that would be a strange explanation of neutrality, if you would sanction by your indifference, the hostile alliance of all despots against republican, nay, against constitutional principles on earth.

But suppose Hungary rises once more to do what Washington did (and be sure it will), and Russia interferes again and you remain again (what some of you call) neutral—that is, you remain indifferent—what is the consequence? Czar Nicholas and Emperor Francis-Joseph may buy and carry away arms, ammunition, armed ships—nay, even armed sympathizers (if they find them)—to murder Hungary with and you will protect that commerce, and consider it a lawful one. But if I buy the same, you don't protect that commerce; and if I would enlist an "armed expedition," for what the Czar may do against Hungary, you would send me to prison for ten years.

Is that neutrality? The people of Hungary crushed by violence, shall be nothing, its sovereign right nothing; but the piracy of the Czar, encroaching upon the sacred rights of mine and many other nations, shall be regarded as legitimate, against which the United States, though grown to mighty power on earth, able without any risk of its own security to maintain the law of nations and the influence of its glorious example, should still have nothing to object, only because Washington, more than half a century ago, declared neutrality appropriate to the infant condition of his country then; and was anxious to gain time, that your country might settle and mature its recent institutions, and progress to that degree of strength, when it would be able to defy any power on earth in a just cause.

No, gentlemen, my principles may be rejected by the United States, but never will impartial history acknowledge that by doing thus the United States followed the principles of Washington. The ruling policy of Washington may be summed up in the word "national self-preservation," to which he, as the generous emotions of his noble breast prompted, was ever inclined to subordinate everything.

And he was right. Self-preservation must be the chief principle of every nation. But the means of this self-preservation are different in different times. To-day, I confidently dare state, the duty of self-preservation commends to the United States, not to allow that the principle of absolutism should become omnipotent by having a charter guaranteed to violate the laws of nature and of nature's God, which Washington and his heroic associates invoked, when they proclaimed the independence of this Republic.

A second principle of Washington, and precisely in regard to foreign nations, is, to extend your commercial relations. That is, again, a principle, gentlemen, which I boldly can invoke to the support of my humble claims; because if the league of despots becomes omnipotent in Europe, it is certain that the commerce of Republican America will very soon receive a death blow on the other side of the Atlantic; whereas, the maintenance of the law of nations, by affording a fair field to Hungary, Italy, and Germany, to settle their accounts with their own domestic oppressors, would open a vast field to your commercial relations, larger than imagination can conceive.

The third principle of Washington is to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world. Well, sir, I do not solicit alliances; I solicit the maintenance of the laws of nations, that the unholy alliance of despots may not interfere with the natural right of nations, upon which yourselves have established the lofty hall of your national independence.

It is on the stream of these rights that you are borne on in a rapid and irresistible course of prosperity. Believe me, gentlemen, that course you cannot check—you could not abandon the privileges upon which you embarked, without exposing to a shipwreck the glorious future of your existence and allow me to state that my poor country has some particular claim to be protected by the consistency of your principles, because we are the first nation towards which you have not exercised your principles. You say you recognize every de facto government. Well, why was this not done with Hungary? We shook off the yoke of the Austrian dynasty, we declared our national independence, and did thus not in an untimely movement of popular excitement, but after we became de facto independent, after we had, by crushing our enemy in our struggle of legitimate defence and driving him out from our country, proved to the world that we have sufficient strength to take our position amongst the independent nations of the earth.

And still the United States (which they never yet have done) withheld the benefit of their recognition, which we have full reason to believe would have been immediately followed by other recognitions, and thus would have prevented the foreign interference of Russia, by encouraging our national independence within those boundaries of diplomatic communication which no isolated power dared yet to disregard.

Sir, I have studied the history of your immortal Washington and have, from my early youth, considered his principles as a living source of instruction to statesmen and to patriots.

I now ask you to listen to Washington himself.

When, in that very year, in which Washington issued his Farewell Address, M. Adet, the French Minister, presented him the flag of the French Republic, Washington, as president of the United States, answered officially, with these memorable words:

"Born in a land of liberty, having early learned its value, having engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it, having devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent establishment in my country, my anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly attracted, whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banner of freedom."

Thus spoke Washington. Have I not then full reason to say, that if he were alive his generous sympathy would be with me, and the sympathy of a Washington never was, and never would be, a barren word. Washington who raised the word "honesty" as a rule of policy, never would have professed a sentiment which his wisdom as a statesman would not have approved.

Sir! here let me end. I consider it already as an immense benefit that your generous attention connected the cause of Hungary with the celebration of the memory of Washington.

Spirit of the departed! smile down from heaven upon this appreciation of my country's cause; watch over those principles which thou hast taken for the guiding star of thy noble life, and the time will yet come when not only thine own country, but liberated Europe also, will be a living monument to thy immortal name.

[Many other toasts, and highly energetic speeches followed, which our limits force us to exclude.]

* * * * *

XXXII.—KOSSUTH'S CREDENTIALS.

[Farewell to Ohio, Feb. 25th.]

Sir,—I am about to bid an affectionate farewell to Cincinnati, and through Cincinnati to the commonwealth of Ohio—that bright morning star of consolation and of hope risen from the West over the gloomy horizon of Hungary's and of Europe's dark night!

Ohio! how that name thrills through the very heart of my heart, with inexpressible pleasure, like the first trumpet sound of resurrection in the ears of the chosen just!

Ohio! how I will cherish that very name, the dearest of my soul, after the name of my beloved own dear fatherland.

How I long for words of flame to express all the warmth of my heartfelt gratitude! And still how poor I feel in words, precisely because my heart is so full; so full, that I can scarcely speak—because every pulsation of my blood is fervent prayer to God for Ohio's glory and happiness.

Let me dispense with empty words—let what Ohio did, does, and will do, for the cause of European freedom, be its own monument!

I have met many a fair flower of sympathy in this great united Republic, but all Ohio has been to me a blooming garden of sympathy. From the first step on Ohio's soil to the last,—along all my way up to Cleveland down to Columbus, and across to Cincinnati, and also beyond the line of my joyful way,—in every city, in every town, in every village, in every lonely farm, I have met the same generosity, the same sympathy.

The people, penetrated by one universal inspiration of lofty principles, told me everywhere that Hungary must yet be free; that the people of Ohio will not permit the laws of nations, of justice, and of humanity, to be trampled down by the sacrilegious combination of despotism; that the people of Ohio takes the league of despots against liberty and against the principle of national self-government, for an insult offered to the great republic of the West; that it takes it for an insult which Ohio will not bear, but will put all the weight of its power into the political scale. Would that all the United States with equal resolution might spurn that insult to humanity.

That is the language which Ohio spoke to me through hundreds of thousands of freemen—that is the language which Ohio spoke to me through her senators and representatives in their high legislative capacity—that is the language which Ohio spoke to me through her chief, whom it has elevated to govern the commonwealth and to execute the people's sovereign will.

The executive power, the legislature, the people, all united in that harmony of generous protection to the just cause which I humbly plead; but that is not all yet. Sympathy and political protection I have met also everywhere; and have met it as well in the public opinion of the people as in the executive and legislative departments of several States, though it is a due tribute of acknowledgment to say, that nowhere to that extent and in equal universality as in Ohio, but that is yet not all.

The sympathy of Ohio was rich in fair fruits of substantial aid—from the hall of the State legislature down to the humble abode of noble-minded working men—and associations of the friends of Hungary, spread through that powerful commonwealth, promise a permanent, noble protection to the cause I plead.

Even the present occasion of bidding farewell to Ohio is of such a nature as to entitle me, by its very organization to the hope that you consider your noble task of aiding the cause of Hungary not yet done; but that you have determined to go on in a practical direction, till the future, developed by your active protection, proves to be richer yet in fruit than the present is.

Considering the almost universal pronouncement of public opinion in this great and prosperous commonwealth—considering the practical character of the people of the West, the natural efficiency of this organization, and who are those who with generous zeal have devoted themselves to carry it out on a large extent,—I may be well excused for entertaining some expectations of no common success—of a success which also in other parts of this great Union, may prove decisive in its effects. No greater misfortune could be met with than disappointment in such expectations, which we have been by the strongest possible motives encouraged to conceive. To be disappointed in hopes we have justly relied on, would be beyond all imagination terrible in its consequences. I shudder at the very idea of the boundless woes it could not fail to be attended with, not for myself—I attach not much value to my own life,—but for thousands, nay for millions of men.

I know, gentlemen, that here the question is entirely matter of time. But in regard to time, I am permitted to say so much.

The outbreak of the unavoidable, decisive struggle between the two opposite principles of freedom and despotism is hurried on in Europe by two great impulses. The first is the insupportability of oppression connected with the powerfully developed organization of the oppressed, which by its very progress imposes the necessity of no delay. Be pleased earnestly to reflect upon what I rather suggest than explain. And be pleased also to read between the lines. I, of course, speak not of anything relating to your country. I state simply European fact, of which every thinking man, the Czars and their satellites themselves, are fully aware, though the how and the where they cannot grasp.

The second impulse, hurrying events to a decision, is that very combined scheme of activity which the despots of Europe too evidently display. They know full well that they are on the brink of an inevitable retribution; that their crimes have pushed them to the point, where either their power will cease for ever to exist, or they must risk all for all. In former times they relied at the hour of danger upon the generous credulity of nations. By seemingly submitting, when the people arose irresistible, they conjured the fury of the storm They saved themselves by promises, and when the danger was over, they restored their abused power by breaking their oath and by deceiving their nations. By this atrocious impiety you have seen several victorious revolutions in Europe deprived of their fruits and sinking to nothing by having made compromise with royal perjury. I am too honest, gentlemen, not to confess openly, that I myself shared this error of the Old World—I myself plead guilty of that fatal European credulity. The tyrants who by falsehood have gained their end, are aware that they have no security; that the nations have lost faith in their oaths, and will never be cheated again.

Hence, gentlemen, a very essential novelty in the present condition of Europe. Formerly every revolution was followed by some slight progress in the development of constitutionalism. A little more liberty to the press, some sort of a trial by jury, a nominal responsibility of ministers, or a mockery of popular representation in the Legislature—something of that sort always resulted, momentarily, out of former revolutions; and then the consciousness of being deceived by vile mockery led to new revolutions.

But when in 1848 and 1849, our victories in Hungary had shaken to the very foundation the artificial building of oppression, so that there was no more hope left to tyranny, but to shelter itself under the wings of Russia, the Czar told them—well, I accept the part of becoming your master, ye kings, and I will help you, but you must be obedient You, yourselves have encouraged revolutions, by making concessions to them. I like not this everlasting resurrection of revolutions; it disturbs my sleep. I am not sure not to find it at my own home some fine morning. I therefore will help you, my servants, but under the condition, that it is not only the bold Hungarians who must be crushed, it is revolution which must be crushed, its very spirit, in its very vitality, everywhere; and to come to this aim, you must abandon all shame as to sworn promises; withdraw every concession made to the spirit of revolution; not the slightest freedom, no privilege, no political right, no constitutional aspirations must be permitted; all and everything must be levelled by the equality of passive obedience and absolute servitude.

"Look to my Russia; I make no concessions, I rule with an iron rod, and I am obeyed. All you must do the same and not govern, but domineer by universal oppression. That is my sovereign will—obey."

Thus spoke the Czar. It is no opinion which I relate. It is a fact, a historical fact, which the Czar openly proclaimed on several occasions, particularly in that characteristic declaration, to which the high-minded General Cass alluded in his remarkable speech on "non-intervention" in the Senate of the United States, on the 10th day of February. The Czar Nicholas, complaining, that "insurrection has spread in every nation with an audacity which has gained new force in proportion to the concessions of the Governments" declares that he considers it his divine mission to crush the Spirit of Liberty on earth, which he arrogantly terms the spirit of insurrection and of anarchy.

By this you have the definition of what is meant by the words of "war for what principle shall rule." The issue must be felt, not only in Europe, but here also and everywhere; the issue will not leave a chance for a new struggle, either to kings or to nations, for a long time perhaps, and probably for centuries.

In that condition you can see the key of the remarkable fact, that when I left my Asiatic prison under the protection of the star-spangled flag—nations of different climates, different languages, different institutions, different inclinations, united in the pronunciation of sympathy, expectation, encouragement, and hope around my poor humble self,—Italians, French, Portuguese, the people of England, Belgians, Germans, Swiss and Swedes. It was the instinct of common danger, it was the instinct of necessary union. It was no mere tribute of recognition paid to the important weight of Hungary in the scale of this intense universal struggle. It was still more a call of distress, entrusted by the voice of mankind to my care, to bring it over to free America, as to the natural and most powerful representative of that "Spirit of Liberty" against which the leagued tyrants are waging a war of extermination with inexorable resolution. Yes, it was a call of distress entrusted to my care, to remind America that there is a tie in the destinies of nations; and that those are digging a bottomless abyss who forsake the Spirit of Liberty, when within the boundaries of common civilization half the world utters in agony the call of universal distress.

That is the mission with which I come to your shores; and believe me, gentlemen, that is the key of that wonderful sympathy with which the people of this republic answers my humble appeal. There is blood from our blood in these noble American hearts; there is the great heart of mankind which pulsates in the American breast; there is the chord of liberty which vibrates to my sighs.

Let ambitious fools, let the pigmies who live on the scanty food of personal envy, when the very earth quakes beneath their feet, let even the honest prudence of ordinary household times, measuring eternity with that thimble with which they are wont to measure the bubbles of small party interest, and, taking the dreadful roaring of the ocean for a storm in a water glass, let those who believe the weather to be calm because they have drawn a nightcap over their ears, and, burying their heads into pillows of domestic comfort, do not hear Satan sweeping in a hurricane over the earth; let envy, ambition, blindness, and the pettifogging wisdom of small times, artistically investigate the question of my official capacity, or the nature of my public authority; let them scrupulously discuss the immense problem whether I still possess, or possess no longer, the title of my once-Governorship; let them ask for credentials, discuss the limits of my commission, as representative of Hungary. I pity all such frog and mouse fighting.

I claim no official capacity—no public authority—no representation; boast of no commission, of no written and sealed credentials. I am nothing but what my generous friend, the Senator of Michigan, has justly styled me, "a private and banished man." But in that capacity I have a nobler credential for my mission than all the clerks of the world can write, the credential that I am a "man,"—the credential that I am "a patriot"—the credential that I love with all sacrificing devotion my oppressed fatherland and liberty; the credential that I hate tyrants, and have sworn everlasting hostility to them; the credential that I feel the strength to do good service to the cause of freedom; good service as perhaps few men can do, because I have the iron will, in this my breast, to serve faithfully, devotedly, indefatigably, that noble cause.

I have the credential that I trust to God in heaven, to justice on earth; that I offend no laws, but cling to the protection of laws. I have the credential of my people's undeniable confidence and its unshaken faith, to my devotion, to my manliness, to my honesty, and to my patriotism; which faith I will honestly answer without ambition, without interest, as faithfully as ever, but more skilfully, because schooled by adversities. And I have the credential of the justice of the cause I plead, and of the wonderful sympathy, which, not my person, but that cause, has met and meets in two hemispheres.

These are my credentials, and nothing else. To whom this is enough, he will help me, so far as the law permits and is his good pleasure. To whom these credentials are not sufficient, let him look for a better accredited man.

I have too lively a sentiment of my own modest dignity, ever to condescend to polemics about my own personal merits or abilities. I believe my life has been public enough to appertain to the impartial judgment of history, but it may have perhaps interested you to hear, how, in a small and inconsiderable circle of the Hungarian emigration, the idea was started that I must be opposed, because I have declared against all compromise with the House of Austria, or with royalty, and because by declaring that my direction will be in every case only republican, I make every arrangement, without revolution, impossible. That I should be thus attacked at this crisis, does look like an endeavour to check a benefit to my country, but I cannot forbear humbly to beseech you, do not therefore think less favourably of my nation and of the Hungarian emigration, for which I am sorry that I can do very little, because I devote myself and all the success I may meet with to a higher aim—to my country's freedom and independence. Believe me, gentlemen, that my country and its exiled martyr sons are highly worthy of your generous sympathy, though some few of the number do not always act as they should.

They are but few who do so, and it would be unjust to measure all of us by the faults of some few. Upon the whole, I am proud to say that the Hungarian emigration was scrupulous to merit generous sympathy, and to preserve the honour of the Hungarian name. Remember that though you are Republicans, still here, in the very metropolis of Ohio, a man was found to lecture for Russo-Austrian despotism, and to lecture with the astonishing boldness of an immense ignorance.

But that good man I can dismiss with silence, the more because it is with high appreciation and warm gratitude that I saw an honourable gentleman, animated with the most generous sentiments of justice and right, take immediately upon himself the task of refutation. I may perhaps be permitted to remark, that that learned and honourable gentleman, besides having nobly advocated the cause of freedom, justice, and truth, has also well merited of his co-religionaries, who belong together with himself, to the Roman Catholic Church.

Gentlemen, I have but one word yet, and it is a sad one—the word of farewell. Cincinnati, Ohio, farewell! May the richest blessings of the Almighty rest upon thee! In every heart, and in the hearts of my people, thy name will for ever live, a glorious object for our everlasting love and gratitude.

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XXXIII.—HARMONY OF THE EXECUTIVE AND OF THE PEOPLE IN AMERICA.

[Speech at Indianapolis.]

Kossuth was received at the State House of Indianapolis by Governor Wright, who, in the course of his address said:

Although I participate with my fellow-citizens in the pleasure occasioned by your presence among us, yet it is not as an individual that I greet you with the words of welcome and hospitality. No, sir,—it is in the name of the people of the State, whom I represent, and whose warrant I feel that I have; and I bid you welcome to-day, and assure you not only of my own but of their sympathy and encouragement in the great cause you so ably represent.

He closed with the words:

If it shall be your fortune to lead your countrymen again in the contest for liberty, be assured that the people of the United States, at least, will not be indifferent, nor, if need be, inactive spectators of a conflict that may involve, not only the independence of Hungary, but the freedom of the world.

Again I bid you a most cordial welcome to the State of Indiana.

Kossuth replied:—

Governor,—Amongst all that I have been permitted to see in the United State's, nothing has more attracted my attention than that part of your democratic institutions which I see developed in the mutual and reciprocal relations between the people and the constituted public authorities.

In that respect there is an immense difference between Europe and America, for the understanding of which we have to take into account the difference of the basis of the political organization, and together with it what the public and social life has developed in both hemispheres.

The great misfortune of Europe is, that the present civilization was born in those cursed days when Republicanism set and Royalty rose. It was a gloomy change. Nearly twenty centuries have passed, and torrents of blood have watered the red-hot chains, and still the fetters are not broken; nay—it is our lot to have borne its burning heat—it is our lot to grasp with iron hand the wheels of its crushing car. Destiny—no; Providence—is holding the balance of decision; the tongue is wavering yet; one slight weight more into the one, or into the other scale, will again decide the fate of ages, of centuries.

Upon this mischievous basis of royalty was raised the building of authority; not of that authority which commands spontaneous reverence by merit and the value of its services, but of that authority which oppresses liberty. Hence the authority of a public officer in unfortunate Europe consists in the power to rule and to command, and not in the power to serve his country well—it makes men oppressive downwards, while it makes them creeping before those who are above. Law is not obeyed out of respect, but out of fear. A man in public office takes himself to be better than his countrymen, and becomes arrogant and ambitious; and because to hold a public office is seldom a claim to confidence, but commonly a reason to lose confidence; it is not a mark of civic virtue and of patriotic devotion, but a stain of civic apostacy and of venality; it is not a claim to be honoured, but a reason to be distrusted; so much so, that in Europe the sad word of the poet is indeed a still more sad fact.—

"When vice prevails and impious man bears sway The post of honour is a private station."

So was it even in my own dear fatherland. Before our unfortunate but glorious revolution of 1848, the principle of royalty had so much spoiled the nature and envenomed the character of public office, that (of course except those who derived their authority by election—which we for our municipal life conserved amongst all the corruption of European royalty through centuries) no patriot accepted an office in the government: to have accepted one was to have resigned patriotism.

It was one of the brightest principles of our murdered Revolution—that public office was restored to the place of civic virtue, and opened to patriotism, by being raised from the abject situation of a tool of oppression, to the honourable position of serving the country well. Alas! that bright day was soon overpowered by the gloomy clouds of despotism, brought back to our sunny sky by the freezing gale of Russian violence. And on the continent of Europe there is night again. There is scarcely one country where the wishes and the will of the people are reflected in the government. There is no government which can say:

"My voice is the echo of the people's voice—I say what my people feels; I proclaim what my people wills; I am the embodiment of his principles, and not the controller of his opinion: the people and myself—we are one."

No, on the continent of Europe people and governments are two hostile camps. What immense mischief, pregnant with oppression and with nameless woe, is encompassed within the circle of this single fact!

How different the condition of America! It is not men who rule, but the law; and law is obeyed, because the people is respecting the general will by respecting the law. Public office is a place of honour, because it is the field for patriotic devotion. Governments have not the arrogant pretension to be the masters of the people; but have the proud glory to be its faithful servants. A public officer ceases not to be a citizen; he has doubly the character of a citizen, by sharing in and by executing the people's will. And whence this striking difference? It is because the civilization of America is founded upon the principle of Democracy. It was born when Royalty declined, and Republicanism rose. Hence the delightful view, not less instructive than interesting, that here in America, instead of the clashing dissonance between the words "government" and "people" we see them melting into one accord of harmony.

Thus here the public opinion of the people never can fail to be a direct rule for the government, and reciprocally the word of the government has the weight of a fact by the people's support. When your government speaks, it is the people which speaks.

Sir, I most humbly thank your Excellency, that you have been pleased to afford to me the benefit of hearing and seeing that delightful as well as happy harmony between the people and the government of the State of Indiana, in the support of that noble and just cause which I plead, on the issue of which, not the future of my country only depends, but together with it, the future condition of all those parts of our globe which are confined within the boundaries of Christian civilization, which, be sure of it, gentlemen, in the ultimate issue, will have the same fate.

Sir, it is not without reason, that at Indianapolis in particular,—and to your Excellency, the truly faithful, the high-minded, and the deservedly popular Chief Magistrate of this Commonwealth, I speak that word. It is not the first time that your Excellency, surrounded as now, has spoken as the honoured organ of the public opinion of Indiana. It is not yet two years since your Excellency did the same on the occasion of a visit of the favourite son of Kentucky, Governor Crittenden. I well remember the topic of your eloquence. It was the solicitude of Indiana in regard to the glorious Union of these Republics. May God preserve it for ever! But precisely because you, the favourite son of Indiana and the honoured representatives of the sovereign people of Indiana—in one accord of perfect harmony esteem the Gordian knot of the Union above all, allow me to say once more, that if the United States permit the principle of non-interference to be blotted out from the code of nations on earth, foreign interference mingling with some domestic discord, perhaps with that which two years ago called forth your patriotic solicitude for the Union; yes, foreign interference mingling with some of your domestic discords, will be the Alexander who will cut asunder the Gordian knot of your Union, in this our present century.

Republics exist upon principles: they are secure only when they act upon principles. He who does not accept a principle, asserted by another, will not long enjoy the benefit of it himself; and nations always perish by their own sin. Oh may those whom your united people entrusted with the noble care to be guardians of your Union—be pleased to consider that truth ere it be too late.

Sir, to the State of Indiana I am in many respects particularly obliged. True, I have had invitations to visit many other States, but the invitation from the State of Indiana was first received. Please to accept my warmest thanks. I have seen in other States a harmony between the people and the government, but nowhere has the Governor of a State condescended to represent the people in a public welcome, nowhere stepped out as the orator of the people's sympathy and its sentiment. I most humbly thank you for this honour.

In Maryland, the Governor introduced me to the Legislature. In Pennsylvania the chief Magistrate was the organ of a common welcome of the Legislature and Citizens. In Massachusetts he took the lead as the people's elect in recommending my principles to the Legislature—and in Ohio the chief Magistrate, by accepting the Presidency of the Association of the friends of Hungary, became generally the executive of the people's practical sympathy, which so magnanimously responded to the many political manifestations of its Representatives in the Legislature.

Let me hope, sir, that as you have been generously pleased to be the interpreter of Indiana's welcome and sympathy, you will also not refuse to become the Chief Executive Magistrate to the practical development of the same.

I may cordially thank, in the name of my cause, the people of Indiana, its Governor, and Representatives, for the high honour of the Legislature's invitation, and of this public welcome.

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XXXIV.—IMPORTANCE OF FOREIGN POLICY, AND OF STRENGTHENING ENGLAND.

[Speech at Louisville, March 6th.]

At the Court House, Louisville, Kossuth was addressed by Bland Ballard, Esq., and replied as follows:

Whatever be the immediate issue of that discussion about foreign policy, which now so eminently occupies public attention throughout the United States, from the Capitol and White-house at Washington down to the lonely farms of your remotest territories, one fact I have full reason to take for sure, and that is: That when the trumpet-sound of national resurrection is once borne over the waves of the Atlantic announcing to you that nations have risen to assert those rights to which they are called by nature and nature's God—when the roaring of the first cannon-shot announces that the combat is begun which has to decide which principle is to rule over the Christian world—absolutism or national sovereignty—there is no power on earth which could induce the people of the United States to remain inactive and indifferent spectators of that great struggle, in which the future of the Christian world—yes, the future of the United States themselves is to be decided. The people of the United States will not remain indifferent and inactive spectators and will not authorize, will not approve, any policy of indifference. You yourself have told me so, sir.

In the position of every considerable country there is a necessity of a certain course, to adopt which cannot be avoided, and may be almost called destiny. The duty as well as the wisdom of statesmen consists in the ability to steer, in time, the vessel into that course, which, if they neglect to do in time, the price will be higher and the profit less.

There is scarcely anything which has more astonished me than the fact—that, for the last thirty-seven years, almost every Christian nation has shared the great fault of not caring much about what are called foreign matters, foreign policy. Precisely the great nations, England, France, America, which might have regulated the course of their governments for a very considerable period, abandoned almost entirely that part of their public concerns, which with great nations is the most important of all, because it regulates the position of the country in its great national capacity. The slightest internal interest was discussed publicly and regulated previously by the nation, before the government had to execute it; but, as to the most important interest—the national position of the country and its relations to the world, Secret Diplomacy, a fatality of mankind, stepped in, and the nations had to accept the consequences of what was already done, though they subsequently reproved it. In England, I four months ago, avowed that all the interior questions together cannot equal in importance the exterior; there is summed up the future of Britain: and if the people of England do not cut short the secrecy of diplomacy—if it do not in time take this all absorbing interest into its own hands, as it is wont to do with every small home interest, it will have to meet immense danger very soon, as this danger has already seriously accumulated by former neglect. Here too, in the United States, there is no possible question equal in importance to foreign policy, and especially in regard to European matters. And I say that, if the United States do not in due time adopt such a course, as will prevent the Czar of Russia, and his despotic satellites, from believing that the United States give them entirely free field to regulate the condition of Europe, which cannot fail to react morally and materially on your condition, then indeed embarrassments, sufferings, and danger will accumulate in a very short time over you.

Great Britain, it is clear as matters now stand, can avoid a war with the continental powers of Europe only by joining their alliance, or at least by giving them security, that England will not only not support the liberal movement on the Continent, but that it will submit to the policy of the absolutist powers. It is not impossible that England will yield. Do not forget, gentlemen, that an English ministry, be it Tory or Whig, is always more or less aristocratic, and it is in the nature of aristocracy that it may love its country well, but indeed aristocracy more. There is therefore always some inclination to be on good terms with whoever is an enemy to what aristocracy considers its own enemy, that is, democracy. This consideration, together with the above mentioned carelessness of the people about foreign policy, gives you the key to many events which else it would be impossible to understand. People against another people should never feel hatred, but brotherly sympathy. The memory of oppression suffered from governments should never be imparted to nations, and children should never be hated, despised, or punished, because their fathers have sinned. We Hungarians wrestled for centuries with Turkey, and now we are friends, true friends, and natural allies against a common enemy. Several of my own ancestors lost their lives in Turkish wars, or their property in ransom out of Turkish captivity; yet to me it is a Turkish Sultan who saved my life and gave bread to thousands of my countrymen, which no other power did on earth. Such is the change of time. It is Russia which crushed my bleeding fatherland, yet the inexorable hatred of my heart does not extend to the people of Russia. I love that people—I pity its poor, unfortunate instruments of despotism. Wherever there is a people, there is my love. Therefore, let the passionate excitement of past times subside before the prudent advice of present necessities. You are blood from England's blood, bone from its bone, and flesh from its flesh. The Anglo-Saxon race was the kernel around which gathered this glorious fruit—your Republic. Every other nationality is oppressed. It is the Anglo-Saxon alone which stands high and erect in its independence. You, the younger brother, are entirely free, because Republican. They, the elder brother, are monarchical, but they have a constitution, and they have many institutions which even you retained, and, by retaining them, have proved that they are institutions congenial to freedom, and dear to freemen. The free press, the jury, free speech, the freedom of association, the institution of municipalities, the share of the people in the legislature, are English institutions; the inviolability of person and the inviolability of property are English principles. England is the last stronghold of these principles in Europe. Is this not enough to make you stand side by side with those principles in behalf of oppressed humanity?

If the United States and England unite in policy now and make by their imposing attitude a breakwater to the ambitious league of despotism, the Anglo-Saxon race, with all who gathered around that kernel, will not only have the glorious pleasure of having saved the Christian world from being absorbed by despotism, but you especially will have the noble satisfaction of having contributed to the progress and to the development of freedom in England, Scotland, and Ireland themselves: for the principles of national sovereignty, independence, and self-government, when restored on the continent of Europe, must in a beneficent manner reach upon those islands themselves. They may remain monarchical, if it be their will to do so, but the parliamentary omnipotence, which absorbs all that you call State rights and self-government, will yield to the influence of Europe's liberated continent. England will govern its own domestic concerns by its own parliament, and Scotland its own, and Ireland its own, just as the states of your galaxy do; the three countries are destined to mutual connection, by their geographical relations, by far more than New York with Louisiana or Carolina with California. By conserving the state-rights of self-government to all of them they will unite in a common government for the common interest, as you have done. Union, and not unity, must be the guiding star of the future with every power composed of several distinct bodies, and though I am a republican more perhaps than thousands who are citizens of a republic, inasmuch as I have known all the curse of having had a king—still such a development of Great Britain's future, were it even connected with monarchy, I, a true republican, would hail with fervent joy. To contribute to such a future, I indeed should consider more practical support to the cause of freedom, to the cause of Ireland itself, than, out of passionate aversions either for past or present wrongs, to discourage, nay, almost force Great Britain to submit to the threatening attitude of despots or even to side with them against liberty. Out of such a submission there can never result any good to any one in the world, and certainly none to you—none to the nations of Europe—none to Ireland—but increased oppression to Europe and Ireland, and danger to you yourselves.

I therefore say that a war side by side with England against the leagued despots, if war should become a necessity, is not an idea to look on in advance with aversion. You have united with England on a far less important occasion. And should England not yield to the despots, I most confidently ask whoever in the United States inclines to judge matters according to the true interests of his country and not by private passion, whether you could remain indifferent in a struggle, the issue of which either would make England omnipotent on earth, or crush liberty down throughout the world, leave America exposed to the pressure of victorious despotism, and before all, exclude republican America from every political and commercial relation with all Europe. Should England see that she will not stand alone in protesting against interference, she will, she must protest against it, because it is the condition of her own future. But if the United States should again adhere to the policy of indifference (which is no policy at all), then indeed England may perhaps yield to the threatening attitude of the absolutist powers. The policy of the United States may now decide the direction of the policy of England, and thus prevent immense mischief, incalculable in its consequences, even for the future of the United States themselves.

It is here I take the opportunity briefly to refer to an assertion of an American statesman, who holds a high place in your affections and in my respect. He advances the theory, that, should, you now take the course which I humbly claim, the despots of Europe would be provoked by your example to interfere with your institutions and turn upon you in the hour of your weakness and exhaustion, because you have set an example of interference.

I indeed am at a loss to understand that. Is it interference I claim? No; precisely the contrary, if you now declare "that your very existence being founded on that principle of the eternal laws of nature and of nature's God—that every nation has the independent right to regulate its domestic concerns, to fix its institutions and its government"—you cannot contemplate with indifference that the absolutist powers form a league of mutual support against this principle of mankind's common law. You therefore protest against this principle of "foreign interference." I indeed cannot understand by what logic such a protest could be taken up by the despotic powers as a pretext for interference in your domestic concerns. My logic is entirely different. It runs thus; If your country remains an indifferent spectator of the violation of the laws of nations by foreign interference, then it has established a precedent—it has consented that the principle of interference become interpolated into the book of international law, and you will see the time when the league of despots commanding the whole force of oppressed Europe will remind you thus:

"Russia has interfered in Hungary, because it considered the example set up by Hungary dangerous to Russia. America has silently recognized the right of that interference. France has interfered in Rome, because the example of the Roman democracy was dangerous to Prance. America has silently agreed. The absolutist governments, in protection of their divine right, have leagued in a saintly alliance, with the openly avowed purpose to aid one another by mutual interference against the spirit of revolution and the anarchy of republicanism. America has not protested against it; therefore the principle of foreign interference against every dangerous example has, by common consent of every power on earth—contradicted by none, not even by America—become an established international law."

And reminding you thus, they will speak to you in the very words of that distinguished statesman to whom I respectfully allude.

"You have quitted the ground upon which your national existence is founded. You have consented to the alteration of the laws of nations—the existence of your republic is dangerous to us; we therefore, believing that your anarchical (that is, republican) doctrines are destructive of, and that monarchical principles are essential to, the peace and security and happiness of our subjects, will obliterate the bed which has nourished such noxious weeds; we will crush you down as the propagandists of doctrines too destructive to the peace and good order of the world."

I have quoted the very words, very unexpectedly given to publicity,—words, which I out of respect and personal affection, did not answer then, precisely because I took the interview for a private one. Even now I refrain from entering into further discussion, out of the same considerations of respect, though I am challenged by this unlooked for publicity. I will say nothing more. But after having quoted the very words, I leave to the public opinion to judge whether their authority is against or for a national protest against the principle of foreign interference.

Let once the principle become established with your silent consent and you will soon see it brought home to you, and brought home in a moment of domestic discord, which Russian secret diplomacy and Russian gold will skilfully mix. You may be sure of it; and this mighty Union will be shaken by that very principle of foreign interference which you silently let be established as an uncontroverted rule for the despots of the earth.

Great countries are under the necessity of holding the position of a power on earth. If they do not thus, foreign powers dispose of their most vital interests. Indifference to the condition of the foreign world is a wilful abdication of their duty, and of their independence. Neutrality, as a constant rule, is impossible to a great power. Only small countries, as Switzerland and Belgium, can exist upon the basis of neutrality.

Great powers may remain neutral in a particular case, but they cannot take neutrality for a constant principle, and they chiefly cannot remain neutral in respect to principles.

Great powers can never play with impunity the part of no power at all.

Neutrality when taken as a principle means indifference to the condition of the world.

Indifference of a great power to the condition of the world is a chance given to foreign powers to regulate the interests of that indifferent foreign power.

Look in what light you appear before the world with your policy of indifference. Look at the instructions of your navy in the Mediterranean, recently published, forbidding American officers even to speak politics in Europe. Look at the correspondences of your commodores and consuls, frightened to their very souls that a poor exile on board an American ship is cheered by the people of Italy and France, and charging him for the immense crime of having met sympathy without any provocation on his part. Look at the cry of astonishment of European writers, that Americans in Europe are so little republican. Look how French Napoleonist papers frown indignantly at the idea that the Congress of the United States dare to honour my humble self. Look how they consider it almost an insult, that an American Minister, true to his always professed principles, dares to speak about European politics. Look how one of my aristocratical antagonists, who quietly keeps house in France, where I was not permitted to pass, and who, a tool in other hands, would wish to check my endeavours to benefit my country, because he would like to get home in some other way than by a revolution and into a republic—look how he, from Paris in London papers, dares to scorn the idea that America could pretend to weigh anything in the scale of European events.

Do you like this position, free republicans of America? And yet that is your position in the world now, and that position is the consequence of your adhering to your policy of indifference, at a time when you needed to act like a power on earth.

Remember the Sibylline books. The first three were burned when you silently let Russian interference be accomplished in Hungary, and did not give us your recognition when we had achieved and declared our independence.

Six books yet remain. The spirit of the age, the Sibylla of opportunity, holds a second three books over the fire. Do not allow her to burn them—else only the last three remain, and I fear you will have, without profit, more to pay for them than would have bought all the nine, and with them the glory and happiness of an eternal, mighty Republic!

Gentlemen, I humbly thank you for your kindness, and bid you an affectionate farewell.

* * * * *

XXXV.—CATHOLICISM VERSUS JESUITISM.

[At St. Louis, (Missouri.)]

Mr. Kasson addressed Kossuth in an ample speech; in which he said:—

Everywhere have the untrammelled masses of this people, as you passed, lifted up their hands and voices, and supplicated the Almighty to give to you blessing, and to your country redemption. Let this be some recompense for the privations you have encountered, while, like Aeneas, you have been wandering an exile from your native, captured, prostrate Troy.

I should not do my whole duty without saying, in behalf of the thousands assembled here, that we have an unshaken confidence in Hungary's chosen leader. We are not so blind that we cannot observe how no envenomed shaft was fixed to the bow-string against him, in England and America, while he was yet a helpless and powerless refugee, within Turkish hospitality. But when the people were gathering around him in free countries, shoulder to shoulder—when even the hearts of statesmen began to open to him, and hope dawned in the Hungarian sky once more, then it was these arrows of detraction darkened the air, shot from the Court of the French Usurper, or from the pensioners of autocratic bounty. Your patient labours and forbearance in your country's cause, while thus assailed, have won for you, sir, our sincere respect, and another wreath at the hand of the Muse of History.

Kossuth replied:

Gentlemen,—During my brief sojourn in your hospitable city, I have heard so much local pettiness and so much hypocritical tactics of men imported from Austria to advocate the cause of Russo-Austrian despotism in Republican America, and chiefly in your city here, that indeed I began to long for the pure air where the merry sunshine, as well as the melancholy drop of rain, the roaring of the thunder storm, equally as the sigh of the breeze, tell to the oppressors and their tools, and not only to the oppressed, that there is a God in heaven who rules the universe by eternal laws; the Almighty Father of humanity, omnipotent in wisdom, bountiful in His omnipotence, just in His judgment, and eternal in His love; the Lord who gave strength to the boy David against Goliath, who often makes out of humble individuals efficient instruments to push forward the condition of mankind towards that destiny which His merciful will has assigned to it—His will, against which neither the proud ambition of despots, nor the skill of their obsequious tools can prevail—in Him I put my trust and go cheerfully on in my duties. I am in the right way to benefit the cause, noble and just and great, to which I devoted my life; for if there were no success in what I am engaged, the despots would neither fear, nor hate, nor persecute me.

Their persecution imparts more hope to my breast than all your kindness; and I give you my word that if I have the consciousness of having well merited in my past the hatred and the fear of tyrants and their instruments, so may God bless me as I will do all a mortal man can do to merit that hatred and that fear still more.

Why? Am I not standing on the banks of the Mississippi, cheered, welcomed, and supported, as warmly and as heartily as when I stepped first upon your glorious shores? Opposition, hostility, venomous calumny, have exhausted all means to check the sympathy of the people. And has that sympathy subsided? has it abated? is it checked? No, it rolls on swelling as I advance—here I have again an imposing evidence before my eyes, here in St. Louis, my namesake city, where so much, and that so perseveringly, was done to prevent this evidence.

Yes, it rolls, and will roll on, swelling till it will finally submerge all endeavours to mislead the instincts of freemen, to fetter the energies of the nation, to stifle its spirit, and to check the growing aspirations of the people's upright heart.

When the struggle is about principles, indifference is suicide. Nay, indifference is impossible: for indifference about the fate of that principle upon which your national existence and all your future rests—is passive submission to the opposite principle—it is almost equivalent to an alliance with the despots. He who is not for freedom is against freedom. There is no third choice.

The people's instinct feels the danger of losing an irreparable opportunity, and hence the fact, never yet met in history, that a homeless exile becomes an object of such sympathy, rolling on like a sea, in spite of all the passionate rage of my enemies, and all the Christian tolerance of the Reverend Father Jesuits, which they in such an evident manner show to me. It is time to advertise them by a few remarks that I am aware of their hostility, and ready to meet it openly. I make this advertisement by design here, because it is not my custom to attack from behind or in the dark. Mine is not the famous doctrine, that the end sanctifies the means. I like to meet the enemy face to face—a fair field and fair arms.

And in one thing more I will not imitate my reverend opponents. I will never indulge in any personalities, never act otherwise than becoming to a gentleman. If they choose to pursue a different course, let them do so, and let them earn the fruits of it.

My humble person I entirely submit to the good pleasure of their passion. If they tell you, gentlemen, that I am no great man, they speak the truth. Being on good terms with my conscience, I do not much care to be on bad terms with Czars and Emperors, their obedient servants, and the reverend father Jesuits. Nay, if I were on good terms with them, I scarcely could remain on good terms with my conscience. So much for myself—now a few words as to the question between us.

I am claiming moral and material aid against that Czar of Russia who is the most bloody persecutor of Roman Catholics. The present Pope himself, before the revolution, when he was yet more of a High Priest than of an Italian Despot, and cared more about spiritual than temporal business, openly and bitterly complained in the councils of the Cardinals against that bloody persecution which the Roman Catholics have suffered from the Czar of Russia. Now, considering that I plead for republican principles, to which the Reverend Father Jesuits should be here warmly attached, if they are willing to have the reputation of good citizens, and not to be traitors to your Republic, which affords to them not only the protection of its laws, but also the full enjoyment of all the privileges of your republican freedom;—it is indeed a strange, striking fact, to see these reverend fathers here in a Republic so warmly advocating the cause of despotism, and so passionately persecuting the cause I humbly plead, which at the same time is the cause of political freedom and religious liberty for numerous millions of Roman Catholics throughout Europe.

As I am somewhat acquainted with the terrible history of that Order, I thought to find the explanation of this striking fact, in the historical ambition of that Order to rule the world—this, their everlasting standard idea, to which they in all times sacrificed everything, and misused even the holiest of all religion, as an instrument to that ambition. But here in St. Louis I got hold of a definite circumstance which makes the matter quite clear.

I hold in my hand the printed Catalogue of the Society of Jesuits in the province of Missouri, as they term your state. Herein I see that amongst the thirty-five members officiating in the college of the Father Jesuits, in St. Louis, there are not less than eight Reverend Father Jesuits imported from Austria. Now you see why I am so persecuted here. This plain fact tells the story of a big book.

But amongst all that the reverend gentlemen oppose to me there are only two considerations to which the honour of my cause and of my nation forces me to answer in a few remarks. They charge against me that my cause is hostile to the Roman Catholic religion, and to get the Irish citizens to side with them for the support of Russo-Austrian despotism they charge me that I am no friend of Ireland.

I. As to the Catholic religion—I indeed am a Protestant, not only by birth, but also by conviction; and warmly penetrated by this conviction, I would delight to see the same shared by the whole world. But before all, I am mortally opposed to intolerance and to sectarism. I consider religion to be a matter of conscience which every man has to arrange between God and himself. And therefore I respect the religious conviction of every man. I claim religious liberty for myself and my nation, and must of course respect in others the right I claim for myself. There is nothing in the world capable to rouse a greater indignation in my breast than religious oppression. But particularly I respect the Catholic religion, as the religion of some seven millions of my countrymen, to whom I am bound in love, in friendship, in home recollections, in gratitude, and in brotherhood, with the most sacred ties. And I am proud to say, that as in general it is a pre-eminent glory of my country, to be attached to the principle of full religious liberty without any restriction, for all to all, so it is the particular glory of my Roman Catholic countrymen not to be second to any in the world, on the one side in attachment to their own religion, and on the other side in toleration for other religions.

The Austrian dynasty having been continually encroaching upon the chartered right of Protestantism, who were those who struggled in the first rank for our rights? Our Roman Catholic countrymen! It was a glorious sight, almost unparalleled in history, but was also fully appreciated by the Hungarian Protestants. All of us, man by man, would rather sacrifice life, and blood, and goods, than to allow that a hair's breadth should be crushed from the religious liberty of our Roman Catholic countrymen.

Now, what position took the Roman Catholics of Hungary in our past struggle? There was not only no difference between them and the Protestants in their devotion for our country's freedom and independence, but they, according to the importance of their number, took in the struggle a very pre-eminent part. The Roman Catholic Bishops of Hungary protested against the perjurious treachery of the dynasty; many of them suffer even now for their devotion to justice, liberty, and right; and who is the Jesuit who dares to affirm that he is more devoted to the Catholic religion than the Bishops of Hungary? Our battalions were filled with Roman Catholic volunteers; Catholic priests led their faithful flocks to the battle field; our National Convention was composed in majority of Catholics—all the Catholic population, without any exception, consented to and cheered enthusiastically my being elected Governor of Hungary, though I am a Protestant. I had and I have their friendship, their devotion, their support; and when I formed the first Ministry of Independent Hungary, not only a full half of the new Ministry I entrusted to Roman Catholics, but especially I nominated a Roman Catholic Bishop to be Minister of public instruction, and all the Protestants of my country hailed the nomination with applause. Such is the cause of Hungary. Who dares now to charge me that that cause is hostile to the Roman Catholic religion?

But I am allied with Mazzini, with the Romans, and with the Italians; thus goes on the charge: and these cursed Italians are enemies to the Pope. Not to the Pope as High Priest of the Roman Catholic Church, but as despotic sovereign of Rome and his corrupted temporal government—the worst of human inventions. How long has it been a principle of the Roman Catholic religion, that the Romans should not be Republicans? and that the high priest of the Roman church should be a despotic sovereign over the Roman nation? and in that capacity be a devoted ally and obedient servant to the Czar of Russia, the sworn enemy and bloody persecutor of Roman Catholicism? Why, when in 1849, the French Republic sent an army against the Roman Republic to restore the Pope, not to his spiritual authority, because that was by nobody contradicted, but to his temporal despotism, the whole danger could have been averted by the Romans by becoming, en masse, Protestants. The idea was pronounced in Rome and not a single Roman accepted it. They preferred to struggle without hope of victory—they preferred to bleed and to die rather than to abandon their faith.

Now, who can dare to insult that people—who can dare to insult the Roman Catholics of Hungary, Croatia, Italy, Germany, Poland, France—who can dare to insult the thousands of thousands of Roman citizens of the United States—Senators, Governors, Judges—men of all public and private positions—who can dare to insult them, as hostile to their own religion, because they unite to support that cause which I plead? And because they side with republican freedom, with civil and religious liberty, against Russo-Austrian despotism?

Who can dare to affirm that he represents the Catholic religion, if three millions of Catholic Romans do not represent it? The Reverend Father Jesuits perhaps!

I take the liberty to say in a few words: They are that society which Clement XIV, the high priest of the Roman Catholic Church, abolished as dangerous to the Roman Catholic religion; they are those whom every Roman Catholic King excluded from his territories as dangerous to religion and social order; they are those, the ascendancy of whom has always been a period of disaster and confusion to the Roman Catholic church; they are those who now make an alliance or rather a compact of submission with the Czar of Russia, like that which evil-doers, according to the superstition of past ages, made with the evil spirit. And here, in free republican America, they plead the cause of Russian despotism; the cause of that Czar, who is the relentless persecutor of Catholicism; who forced the United Greek Catholics, in the Polish Provinces, by every imaginable cruelty, to abjure their connection with Rome, and carried out, at a far greater expense of human life than Ferdinand and Isabella or Louis XIV, the most stupendous proselytism which violence has yet achieved. More than a hundred thousand human beings had died of misery, or under the lash, as the Minsk nuns were proved to have been killed, before he terrified these unhappy millions into a submission against which their consciences revolted. Yet with this man, red with Catholic blood, and damned with the million curses of their co-religionists, the Rev. Father Jesuits are in alliance; and why? Because it is a characteristic of that Order, to be ambitious to rule the world. To achieve this, they have now made the Pope the obedient satrap of the Czar. Into the enormity of this, enlightened Catholics see clearly. Roman Catholics of Hungary, of Poland, of Italy, Germany, and France have understood this. Is it possible that those of this republic should less understand it? Why, in Italy and Rome itself, a majority of the Catholic clergy are hostile to the temporal authority of the Pope, and sympathize with Mazzini so generally, that of seventeen conspirators recently arrested for conspiring in favour of the Republic against Austria, sixteen were priests belonging to the humbler orders of the clergy.

Gentlemen, I am sorry to have to argue such a question in the United States. If it be indeed true, that amongst the Roman Catholics here an opposition is got up against our cause, let them remember that in opposing me, they oppose the independence and freedom of millions of Hungarian Catholics,—of Catholic Italy,—of the Catholic half of Germany, and of Catholic France; they are supporting the Czar, the most bloody enemy of their religion. Yet I am glad to be able to say, that not all the Roman Catholics here are opposed to me. I have warm friends and kind protectors among them. The gallant General Shields,—Mr. Downs, the Senator from Louisiana,—the warm-hearted Governor of Maryland,—Judge Le Grand at Baltimore, and many other of my kindest friends, are Roman Catholics. From New York onward, multitudes of Roman Catholics have shared the general sympathy. And why not? surely freedom is a treasure to every religious denomination whatsoever.[*]

[Footnote *: Some sentences have been added from the Pittsburg speech, at the end of which the same subject was treated.]

So much for the charge that the cause which I plead—the cause of millions of Roman Catholics—is hostile to the Roman Catholic religion. Should I be forced to enter upon this topic once more, I will take the heart-revolting history of those who have thus calumniated our cause, into my hands, and recall to the memory of public opinion the terrible pages of blood, ambition, countless crimes, and intolerance; but I hope there will be no occasion for it.

II. Now as to Ireland. Where is a man on earth, with uncorrupted soul and with liberal instincts in his heart, who would not sympathize with poor, unfortunate Ireland? Where is a man, loving freedom and right, in whom the wrongs of Green Erin would not stir the heart? Who could forbear warmly to feel for the fatherland of the Grattans, of O'Connells, and of Wolfe Tones? I indeed am such, that wherever is oppression and a people, there is my love.

But why do I not plead Erin's wrongs? I am asked. My answer is: am I not pleading the principle of Liberty? and is the cause of freedom not the cause of Ireland?

I see all the despots of the European continent united in a crusade against liberty; there are two powers still neutral, the position of which may well decide for or against despotism; these two powers are Great Britain and America. If the Almighty blessed my endeavours—if I could succeed to contribute something, that America, and by its influence over the public opinion of the people of England, Great Britain itself, should side with Liberty, from whatever consideration— from whatever interest, against despotism—then indeed I boldly declare before God and men, that I have achieved a greater benefit and done a better service to the future of Ireland, than all who go about loudly crying about Erin's wrongs, and not doing anything for the triumph of that cause which is about to be decided, and is the cause of all nations, who are oppressed, and of all who are, or will be free. Whereas, if, by uniting in the chorus of empty words, I should contribute to alarm not only the government, but also the people of England, and to force that government to side with despotism in the decisive struggle against liberty, (to which that government, being as it is, aristocratical, feels but too much inclined,) then indeed I am sure I should do such a wrong to the future of Ireland, as the sacrifice of my life and torrents of blood, and the sufferings of generations, could not expiate.

Be sure therefore, gentlemen, that every man who pleads for liberty, pleads for Ireland; be sure, that every blow stricken for liberty is stricken also for Ireland; that not always the most noisy are the best friends; and prudent activity is often better service than any show of eloquent words.

And so let me hope, that while it is sure that he who is for freedom is for Ireland, it also will be found that Irish blood can never be against liberty.

And as to you all, gentlemen, let me hope that, however the advocates of despotism may try to mislead public opinion in free America, the uncorrupted noble instinct of the people will prove to the world that it is not in vain, that the down-trodden spirit of liberty raises the sign of distress towards you, and that the wronged and the oppressed can confidently appeal for help, for justice and for redress, to the free and powerful Republic of America.

I thank you, gentlemen, for the patience with which you have listened during this torrent of rain. It shows that your sympathy is warm and sincere—one which cannot be cooled down or washed away.

* * * * *

XXXVI.—THE IDES OF MARCH.

[Farewell Speech at St. Louis, March 15th.]

Ladies and gentlemen: To-day is the fourth anniversary of the Revolution in Hungary.

Anniversaries of Revolutions are almost always connected with the recollection of some patriots, death-fallen on that day, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, martyrs of devotion to their fatherland.

Almost in every country there is some proud cemetery, or some modest tomb-stone, adorned on such a day by a garland of evergreen, the pious offering of patriotic tenderness.

I past the last night in a sleepless dream. And my soul wandered on the magnetic wings of the past, home to my beloved bleeding land, and I saw in the dead of the night, dark veiled shapes, with the paleness of eternal grief upon their brow, but terrible in the tearless silence of that grief, gliding over the churchyards of Hungary, and kneeling down to the head of the graves, and depositing the pious tribute of green and cypress upon them; and after a short prayer rising with clenched fists, and gnashing teeth, and then stealing away tearless and silent as they came—stealing away, because the blood-hounds of my country's murderer lurks from every corner on that night, and on this day, and leads to prison those who dare to show a pious remembrance to the beloved. To-day, a smile on the lips of a Magyar is taken for a crime of defiance to tyranny, and a tear in his eye is equivalent to a revolt. And yet I have seen, with the eye of my home-wandering soul, thousands performing the work of patriotic piety.

And I saw more. When the pious offerers stole away, I saw the honoured dead half risen from their tombs, looking to the offerings, and whispering gloomily, "still a cypress, and still no flower of joy! Is there still the chill of winter and the gloom of night over thee, fatherland? are we not yet revenged? and the sky of the east reddened suddenly, and quivered with bloody flames, and from the far, far west, a lightning flashed like a star-spangled stripe, and within its light a young eagle mounted and soared towards the quivering flames of the east, and as he drew near, upon his approaching, the flames changed into a radiant morning sun, and a voice from above was heard in answer to the question of the dead:

"Sleep yet a short while; mine is the revenge. I will make the stars of the west, the sun of the east; and when ye next awake, ye will find the flower of joy upon your cold bed."

And the dead took the twig of cypress, the sign of resurrection, into their bony hands and lay down.

Such was the dream of my waking soul, and I prayed, and such was my prayer: "Father, if thou deemest me worthy, take the cup from my people, and give it in their stead to me." And there was a whisper around me like the word "Amen." Such was my dream, half foresight and half prophecy; but resolution all. However, none of those dead whom I saw, fell on the 15th of March. They were victims of the royal perjury which betrayed the 15th of March. The anniversary of our revolution has not the stain of a single drop of blood.

We, the elect of the nation, sat on that morning busily but quietly in the legislative hall of old Presburg, and without any flood of eloquence, passed our laws in short words, that the people shall be free; the burdens of feudality cease; the peasant become free proprietor; that equality of duties, equality of rights, shall be the fundamental law; and civil, political, social, and religious liberty, the common property of all the people, whatever tongue it may speak, or in whatever church pray, and that a national ministry shall execute these laws, and guard with its responsibility the chartered ancient independence of our Fatherland.

Two days before, Austria's brave people in Vienna had broken its yoke; and summing up despots in the person of its tool, old Metternich, drove him away, and the Hapsburgs, trembling in their imperial cavern of imperial crimes, trembling, but treacherous, and lying and false, wrote with yard-long letters, the words, "Constitution" and "Free Press," upon Vienna's walls; and the people in joy cheered the inveterate liars, because the people knows no falsehood.

On the 14th I announced the tidings from Vienna to our Parliament at Presburg. The announcement was swiftly carried by the great democrat, the steam-engine, upon the billows of the Danube, down to old Buda and to young Pesth, and while we, in the House of Representatives, passed the laws of justice and freedom, the people of Pesth rose in peaceful but majestic manifestation, declaring that the people should be free. At this manifestation, all the barriers raised by violence against the laws, fell of themselves. Not a drop of blood was shed. A man who was in prison because he had dared to write a book, was carried home in triumph through the streets. The people armed itself as a National Guard, the windows were illuminated, and bonfires burnt; and when these tidings returned back to Presburg, blended with the cheers from Vienna, they warmed the chill of our House of Lords, who readily agreed to the laws we proposed. And there was rejoicing throughout the land. For the first time for centuries the farmer awoke with the pleasant feeling that his time was now his own—for the first time went out to till his field with the consoling thought that the ninth part of his harvest will not be taken by the landlord, and the tenth by the bishop. Both had fully resigned their feudal portion, and the air was brightened by the lustre of freedom, and the very soil budding into a blooming paradise.

Such is the memory of the 15th of March, 1848.

One year later there was blood, but also victory, over the land; the people, because free, fought like demi-gods. Seven great victories we had gained in that month of March. On this very day, the remains of the first 10,000 Russians fled, over the frontiers of Transylvania, to tell at home how heavily the blow falls from free Hungarian arms. It was in that very month that one evening I lay down in the bed, whence in the morning Windischgrätz had risen: and from the battle-field (Isaszeg) I hastened to the Congress at Debreczin, to tell the Representatives of the nation: "It is time to declare our national independence, because it is really achieved. The Hapsburgs have not the power to contradict it more." Nor had they. But Russia, having experienced by the test of its first interference, that there was no power on earth caring about the most flagrant violation of the laws of nations, and seeing by the silence of Great Britain and of the United States, that she may dare to violate those laws, our heroes had to meet a fresh force of nearly 200,000 Russians. No power cheered our bravely won independence, by diplomatic recognition; not even the United States, though they always professed their principle to be that they recognise every de-facto government. We therefore had the right to expect a speedy recognition from the United States. Our struggle rose to European height, but we were left alone to fight for the world; and we had no arms for the new battalions, gathering up in thousands with resolute hearts and empty hands.

The recognition of our independence being withheld, commercial intercourse for procuring arms abroad was impossible—the gloomy feeling of entire forsakedness spread over our tired ranks, and prepared the field for the secret action of treachery; until the most sacrilegious violation of those common laws of nations was achieved and the code of "nature and of nature's God," was drowned in Hungary's blood. And I, who on the 15th of March, 1848, saw the principle of full civil and religious liberty triumphing in my native land—who, on the 15th of March, 1849, saw this freedom consolidated by victories—one year later, on the 15th of March, 1850, was on my sorrowful way to an Asiatic prison.

But wonderful are the works of Divine Providence.

It was again in the month of March, 1851, that the generous interposition of the United States cast the first ray of hope into the dead night of my captivity. And on the 15th of March, 1852, the fourth anniversary of our Revolution, guided by the bounty of Providence, here I stand in the very heart of your immense Republic; no longer a captive, but free in the land of the free, not only not desponding, but firm in confidence of the future, because raised in spirits by a swelling sympathy in the home of the brave, still a poor, a homeless exile, but not without some power to do good to my country and to the cause of liberty, as my very persecution proves.

Such is the history of the 15th of March, in my humble life. Who can tell what will be the character of the next 15th of March?

Nearly two thousand years ago the first Caesar found a Brutus on the Ides or 15th of March. May be that the Ides of March, 1853, will see the last of the Caesars fall under the avenging might of a thousand-handed Brutus—the name of whom is "the people"—inexorable at last after it has been so long generous. The seat of Caesars was first in the south, from the south to the east, from the east to the west, and from the west to the north. That is their last abode. None was lasting yet. Will the last, and worst, prove luckier? No, it will not. While the seat of Caesars was tossed around and thrown back to the icy north, a new world became the cradle of a new humanity, where in spite of the Caesars, the genius of freedom raised (let us hope) an everlasting throne. The Caesar of the north and the genius of freedom have not place enough upon this earth for both of them; one must yield and be crushed beneath the heels of the other. Which is it? Which shall yield?—America may decide.

Allow me to add a few remarks in dry and plain words, on other subjects. It is not necessary to explain why I am attacked by Russia, Austria, and their allies. But some of you, gentlemen, may have felt surprised to see that two Hungarians have joined in the attack, both of whom accepted of the office of ministers from my hands, and held that office under my good pleasure, and from my will, till we all three proceeded into exile on the same evening. My two assailants now live and act under the protection of Louis Napoleon, who did not permit me even to pass through France.

You may yet find perhaps some more joining them, but the number will not be large. Oh! the bitter pangs of an exile's daily life are terrible. I have seen many a character faltering under the constant petty care of how to live, which stood firm like a rock under the storm of a quaking world, therefore I should not be surprised to find yet some few joining in those attacks, as I have neither means nor time to care for the wants of individuals, not even of my own children. What I get is not mine, but my country's; and must be employed to secure its future prospects; and it may be that others may avail themselves of this circumstance, and show some temporary compassion to private misfortune, under the condition of secession from me, with the purpose of being then able to say that the cause of Hungary is hopeless, because not even the Hungarian exiles live in concord. That may happen thus with some few; for hunger is painful: but few they will be. The immense majority of my brother exiles will rather starve than yield to such a snare.

There may be some also that will fall victims to the craft of skilful aristocratic diplomatists, who would fain keep or get the reputation of liberal men, but without the necessity of becoming really liberal. That class of influential persons may give some hope—even some half indefinite promise of support to the cause of Hungary (which they never intend to fulfil), under the condition of a peaceful compromise with the House of Austria upon a monarchical-aristocratical basis, and not in that way which I have proclaimed openly in England, knowing that every root of the monarchical principle is torn out from the breasts of the people of Hungary, so that we can never be knit again. Therefore the future of Hungary can only be republican, and there is no door to that future, but to continue the struggle. There may perhaps be some few honest but weak men, who, weary of a homeless life, would fain return home, even under the condition of monarchical-aristocratical compromise which some skilful diplomatists make glitter into their eyes.

But as to those two who do good service to the tyrant of their and my country, the very circumstance that they were silent when I (because a prisoner) was not able to work much, but are trying to check my endeavours, now that I am about to achieve something which can only prove to be a benefit to Hungarians,—smaller or greater, but only a benefit and in no case a harm; this very circumstance shows the nature of their attacks. But as to the pretence, by which they try to lull to sleep their own consciences, that was revealed to me by a copy of a confidential communication of one of their silent associates to a private circle of friends, where it is stated, that, as I have declared exclusively for a republic, a party must be got up under the nominal leadership of Bathyanyi, on a monarchical basis, because my views leave no hope to get home in an honourable manner, otherwise than by a revolution.

That is the key of the dispute. As to myself, I am a republican, and will never be a subject to a king, any more than be a king myself. But I love my country too sincerely to favour the course I would pursue, on my own private sentiments alone. I know the Hapsburg, and I know my country. I have weighed my people's revolution, wishes and will, and weighed the condition of the only possible success. Upon this basis I act, and am happy to say that the considerate prudence of a statesman, and the duties of a patriot, not only act in full harmony with my own personal republican convictions, but indeed cannot allow me in any other course. Either freedom and our popular rights have no future, not only in Hungary, but indeed in Europe, or that future will be, can be, and shall be only republican for the Hungarians. It is more than foolish to think that either an insurrectionary war can be prevented in Europe, or that that war can terminate otherwise than either by a consolidated despotism or republicanism. No other issue is possible. Therefore, however mean be the private motives of the hostility of those, my very few Hungarian enemies, I pity them. Out of too great a desire to get home, they have made their return in every case impossible. Not all the power of earth could afford them security at home against the indignation of the people. Not, if I succeed to liberate my country, for the people will consider them as traitors, who have done all they could to prevent that liberation; not, if I should fail, because then the people will believe that their counter-machinations are what caused me to fail.

So much for them. But the confidence with which I look to the republican freedom of Hungary has been confirmed, by considering how weak must the case be of those who urge you to indifference, when they are forced to resort to the argument that we have no chance of success.

I have often answered that objection, which in itself is a distrust in God, in justice, in right, and in the blessings of humanity. Allow me to-day in addition, only one remark. Two days ago the rumour was spread that Louis Napoleon was killed. It was remarkable to see how those who countenance despotism, grew livid by despair, and how those who doubt about our success rose in spirits and in confidence. Some time ago a similar false rumour caused almost a commercial crisis in the cotton market of New Orleans. Now how can the security of that cause be trusted, where the mere possible death of a single individual, and of such an individual, can so crush every calculation upon the solidity of the peace of oppression?

Allow me to draw your attention to a circumstance which one of your countrymen, William Henry Trescott, of South Carolina, has recommended to public attention, already in the year 1849, in his pamphlet, entitled 'A few Thoughts on the Foreign Policy of the United States.' The position of the United States underwent an immense change, as soon as your boundaries extended to the Pacific; extensive commercial relations with Asia became a necessity. You feel it—the very movements now commenced in respect to Japan bear witness to it. Let those movements be completed, and whom will you meet? Russia. That is the old story. Everybody who is willing to have some influence in the East must meet Russia, whose sterling thought is to exclude all other powers from the East.

England is to you the competitor in the commerce of the East; and competitors may well have a fair field for them both; but Russia is not a competitor there, she is an enemy. Look to the Mediterranean Sea, and remember the everlasting thought of Russia to crush Turkey, and to get hold of Constantinople. What is the key of this eternal fond desire, inherited from Peter the Great? It is not the mere desire of territorial aggrandizement; the real key is, that it is only by the possession of Constantinople that Russia, a great territorial power already, can become also a great maritime power. The Mediterranean is what Russia wants, to be the mistress of Europe, Asia, of Africa, and of the world. But the Sultan, sitting on the Bosphorus, confines the navy of the Czar to the Black Sea, an interior lake, without any outlet but by the beautiful Bosphorus. Constantinople taken, it is Russia which controls the Mediterranean:—a circumstance of such immense importance, that Mr. Trescott says, it would be a sufficient reason for direct and positive interference—that is, for war.

There—there—in Turkey, will be decided the fate of the world. Perhaps there will be not only the end, but also the beginning of the end; and some American politicians say, the United States can do nothing for Europe's liberty, but Turkey can,—holding only the Bosphorus against an inroad from Sebastopol!—Turkey, with its brave four hundred thousand men—the natural ally of all those European nations who will, who must, struggle against Russian preponderance. How wonderful! The Bosphorus in the hands of the Sultan, saves the world from Russian dominion; and yet I am asked, what can America do for Europe? How many men-of-war have you in the Mediterranean? I would you had more. Would you had some other anchorage in the Mediterranean for your glorious flag! Turkey has many a fine harbour, and a great deal of good will. The Turkish Aghas now would not be afraid to see cheered, for instance, by the inhabitants of Mytilene, the American flag, should it ever happen that that flag were cast in protection around my humble self; nay, I am sure they would smilingly join in the harsh but cordial "khôsh guelden, sepa gueldin," which is more than a thrice welcome in your language. But the word welcome reminds me that I have to say to you farewell—and that is a sad word in the place where I have met so warm a welcome, but it must be done. Can I hope to have the consolation of knowing that in bidding farewell to my namesake city, I leave high-minded men, who, remembering that they have seen the Hungarian exile on the Ides of March, will have faith in the future of freedom's just cause, and make the central city of the great United Republic the centre of numerous associations of the friends of Hungary in the Great West, whence I confidently hope the sun of freedom will move towards the East.