Select Speeches of Kossuth · Chapter 9Preface to Kossuth's Speeches. (9)
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Remember the power which you have, and which I have endeavoured to point out in a few brief words. Remember this, and form associations; establish ladies' committees to raise substantial aid for Hungary. Now I have done. One word only remains to be said-a word of deep sorrow, the word, "Farewell, New York!" New York! that word will for ever make every string of my heart thrill. I am like a wandering bird. I am worse than a wandering bird. He may return to his summer home, I have no home on earth! Here I felt almost at home. But "Forward" is my call, and I must part. I part with the hope that the sympathy which I have met here in a short transitory home will bring me yet back to my own beloved home, so that my ashes may yet mix with the dust of my native soil. Ladies, remember Hungary, and—farewell!
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[Speech at the Citizens' Banquet, Philadelphia, Dec. 26th.]
Mr. Dallas, the Chairman, made an eloquent address advocating the cause of Hungary against Russia, and avowing the duty of America to give warlike aid. This speech was the more remarkable, as coming immediately after the arrival of the news of Louis Napoleon's usurpation. The mind of the public was naturally so full of the event, that Kossuth could not avoid to discuss it; but the topic is so threadbare to the reader, that it will suffice here to preserve a few sentiments.
In the opening, Kossuth complained of forged letters and forged cheques sent to annoy him, and anonymous letters of false accusation circulated against him. Proceeding from this to public topics, and the certainty of a new convulsion in Europe, he said, that it might prove in the future highly dangerous to the moneyed interests, if the world be persuaded that the holders of great disposable wealth use it to aid despotism, and that the possession of it checks the generous propensity to forward the triumph of freedom. If the world be confirmed in this persuasion, the results will be painfully felt by those gentlemen, whose treasures are always open for the despots to crush liberty with. Such moneylenders have excited boundless hatred in all that section of Europe, which has had to suffer from their ready financial aid to despotism. I (said Kossuth) am no Socialist, no Communist; and if I get the means to act efficiently, I shall so act that the inevitable revolution may not subvert the rights of property: but so much I confidently declare—that to the spreading of Communist doctrines in certain quarters of Europe nobody has so much contributed as those European capitalists, who by incessantly aiding the despots with their money have inspired many of the oppressed with the belief that financial wealth is dangerous to the freedom of the world. Rothschild is the most efficient apostle of Communism.
In regard to Louis Bonaparte's temporary success, Kossuth argued, that it would secure, when France makes her next move for freedom, two results beneficial to liberty: First, that in future, the French republicans would abandon their delusive and disastrous Centralization. We have shown (said he) in Hungary, that for a nation to be invincible, its life must not be bound up with its metropolis. Henceforward, in European aspirations, centralization is replaced by federative harmony. I thank Louis Napoleon for it. Your principles of local self-government, gentlemen, were hitherto professed on the continent of Europe chiefly by us Hungarians: now they will conquer the world,—a new victory for humanity. Had the old French republic stood, it would have perpetuated the curse of great standing armies, which are instruments of ambition and a wasting pestilence. Again; the blow struck by Louis Napoleon has forced his nation into the common destiny of Europe. It has forbidden France ever in future to play a separate game, and think to keep her own liberty, without effectively espousing the cause of foreign liberty.
What is the sum of all this? First, that there is nothing in the news from France to alter any judgments which you might previously have formed, or cause you any suspense. Secondly, it only more than ever claims from you an immediately decisive conduct. The success of freedom now depends entirely on what policy the United States of America will adopt.
Well! gentlemen. It may be that the United States have no reply to the hopes of the world. You will then see a mournful tear in the eye of humanity, and its breast heaving with sighs. We presume, you are so powerful that you can afford not to care about the treading down of the law of nations and the funeral of European freedom. You are so glorious at home, that you can afford to lose the glory (at so rare a crisis!) of saving liberty and justice on earth. Yet in your own hour of trial you asked and received military and naval aid from France. Your President has informed the world, that you are not willing to allow "the strong arm of a foreign power to suppress the spirit of freedom in any country." If after this you tell me that you are afraid of Russia, and are too weak to help us,—and would rather be on good terms with the Czar, than rejoice in the liberty and independence of Hungary, Italy, Germany, France,—dreadful as it would be, I would wipe away my tear, and say to my brethren, "Let us pray, and let us go to the Lord's Last Supper, and thence to battle and to death." I would then leave you, gentlemen, with a dying farewell, and with a prayer that the sun of freedom may never drop below the horizon of your happy land.
I am in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, the city of William Penn, whose likeness I saw this day in a history of your city, with this motto under it: "Si vis pacem, para bellum"—(prepare for war, if thou wilt have peace)—a weighty memento, gentlemen, to the name of William Penn.
And I am in that city which is the cradle of your independence—where, in the hour of your need, the appeal was proclaimed to the Law of Nature's God, and that appeal for help from Europe, which was granted to you.
I stood in Independence Hall, whence the spirit of freedom lisps eternal words of history to the secret recesses of your hearts. Man may well be silent where from such a place history so speaks. So my task is done—with me the pain, with you the decision—and, let me add the prophetic words of the poet, "the moral of the strain."
Kossuth took his seat amid the three times three of the audience.
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[Baltimore, Dec. 27th.]
On the 27th December Kossuth reached Baltimore, and was met by an immense concourse of citizens and a long line of military, who escorted him to his quarters with much enthusiastic demonstration. In the evening he addressed the citizens in the Hall of the Maryland Institute, which was densely crowded, great numbers standing outside the building, when unable to get admittance.
After an apologetic introduction, Kossuth proceeded to say:—
Gentlemen! It is gratifying to me to receive this spontaneous welcome. I was already grateful, during my stay in New York, to receive the expression of your sentiments, and your generous resolutions. They become the more beneficial to me, because I am on my way and very near to Washington City, where the elected of your national confidence stand in their proud position, as conservators of those lofty interests, which bind your thirty-one stars of Sovereign States into one mighty constellation of Freedom, Power, and Right; where the Congress and Government of this vast Republic watch over the common weal of your united country, and hereby make you a Power on earth, a fullgrown member of that great Family of Nations, which, having One Father in heaven, are brethren, and should act as brethren.
Among the interests intrusted by you to the Congress and Government, your foreign policy is nearly the most important. This, in a great and powerful nation, can have no other basis than Eternal Law and Christian Morality. Even your peculiar interests are, in my belief, best served, when your foreign policy rests, not on transitory considerations, but on everlasting principles. Even in private life no man can entirely cut himself off from others. A man willing to attempt it would be an exile in his own country, an exile in his own city, an exile in his family. Just so with nations, which in the larger family of man are individual members. If a nation seclude itself, it is an exile in the midst of humanity. No man, ladies and gentlemen, is independent of his fellow-man; no nation, however powerful, is independent of other nations. Put the richest, the strongest man for a single week wholly apart from family, city, country, and he will quickly learn his essential weakness. In a nation, the consequence of total isolation is not felt as soon, but it will at length be felt as surely. The hours of nations are counted by years; yet the secluded nation, self-exiled from mankind, dwindles away. Woe to the people, whose citizens care only for their own present, and not for the future of their country! the future, in which they have to live immortally by children and children's children, with whose glory and happiness and power they ought now to sympathize. Men or nations secluded are like the silk-worm, which secretes itself in a self-woven case, and at length creeps out to die. So will it at length be with the nation which is wrapped up in self.
It is one of your glories, that some portions of your united republic are farther from other portions than Hungary is from Baltimore: mere distance is therefore no reason why you should be unconcerned about our fate. You are not too far for commercial intercourse with the most distant coasts of Europe; and especially since the invention of one of your citizens has been brought to higher perfection, the ocean rather unites you to us, than separates you. Would you have the advantages of the connection, without the duties which spring out of it? Disregard of duty sooner or later kills advantage. I need not remind you what a link of nature, blood, language, science, industry, religion, civilization, exists between you and us, and binds us ever tighter. You cannot help feeling at home our condition in Europe. Our peace or war, our civilization or barbarism, our freedom or oppression, our wealth or starvation, progress or retrogression, must act upon you, just as your condition reacts upon us. The link between the destinies of Christendom cannot be cut asunder. In fact, there never yet was a time when Europe more demanded that you should have some policy towards it; and indifference is none at all. At this moment it is under universal oppression of social, political, and religious liberty,—the three treasures which make your glory and happiness. This oppression is ordered by Russia, and executed by her satellites. The elected President of France has impiously stabbed the constitution, to make himself Emperor. The Austrian Ministry has openly declared that the absolutist powers will maintain him. Thus the impulse of revolution has been given; its vibration will be felt throughout Europe and in my fatherland. Never will you have an opportunity more glorious for you, and more favourable to mankind, for adopting a real policy founded upon principles.
The people of Hungary have abundant motives to risk life for freedom and independence. Once we had a nationality; now we have none. Once we had a constitution;—by the blessing of God we succeeded to transform it three years ago from an aristocratic to a democratic one;—now Hungary has no constitution at all. For a thousand years we were a free people; we are now so no longer. Like a flock of sheep, we are appropriated, not by the Austrian empire, not by the nation, but by a despotic ambitious family. We had freedom of the press. Not nineteen years ago, I began the struggle, and endured three years imprisonment for it; but we won that great right of mankind—free expression of thought. Now there is no press at all in Hungary; there is only the hangman and martial law. We established equal protection for every religion; now there is equal oppression for all. The Protestant Church had its own self-government for its churches and schools, won by victorious arms and secured by a hundred laws; now the laws are torn down, and the freedom of church and school is gone. The Catholic Church had control of its own estates; now, day by day, the nearly bankrupt Austrian government is overgrowing that property by the poisonous weeds of a new loan, on which it vegetates, a curse to every nation on the continent. Such is the condition of the Catholic Church, concerning which I—a Protestant, not only by birth, but also by conviction—declare, that during a whole lifetime, when Hungary was struggling for religious liberty, that Church contended in the foremost rank for the rights of us Protestants. So much do we value the freedom of conscience, that the very thought was repugnant to us all, that there should be unequal rights of citizenship between Protestants and Catholics and professors of the Faith of Moses. Zeal for religious freedom will kindle Magyars to struggle, as long as there is blood in our veins. As during three centuries, so the late war was for religious independence as well as civil; indeed, still earlier, we were the barrier of Christendom against the invading Mahommedan. We succeeded lately in freeing the agriculture of Hungary, and transforming peasants into freeholders; now the Austrian dynasty is stealthily bringing back feudal rights. In freeing the peasants, we provided for indemnification of landlords; Austria taxes the peasants very heavily, and does not (for she cannot) indemnify the landlords; because her violence and wastefulness does not know how to turn our public estates to account. She favours a few landlords only, who are faithful tools of her oppression. During our struggle, we issued paper-money,—it was called the Kossuth-bank-note; Austria disavowed it, and commanded its surrender, yet twenty millions are firmly held by the people, as valuable after a new revolution. Before we fell under the stroke of Russian interference, the taxation permitted by our Parliament was only four and a half millions of dollars; Austria now imposes SIXTY. Our people burn their tobacco-seed and cut down their vines, rather than endure her tax. Such are the motives which Austria gives to Hungary not to make a new revolution! There is not a single interest which she has not mortally wounded. The mind, the heart, dignity, conscience, self-esteem, hatred, love, revenge, besides every material interest of every class, is engaged to the struggle.
The oppression of Hungary has ratified the oppression of all our continent. Since she has fallen, Italy has been completely crushed, the moderate freedom of Germany has been put down by Austria with the support of Russia; lastly, the usurpation of Louis Napoleon has been made possible. Without the restoration of Hungary Europe cannot be freed from Russian thraldom; under which nationalities are erased, no freedom is possible, all religions are subjected to like slavery. Gentlemen! the Emperor Napoleon spoke a prophetic word, when he said that in fifty years all Europe would be either republican or Cossack. Hungary once free, Europe is republican; Hungary permanently crushed, all Europe is Cossack. And what does Hungary need for freedom? Not that other nations should fight our proper battle against our immediate oppressor. We have hearts loving freedom and ready to shed their blood for it; we have armies fully equal to Austria, we want only "FAIR PLAY." Let the United States feel itself to be as it is, a Power on earth, bound to aid in the police of the nations, and in the name of violated right let it say to the Russian intruder, "Keep back, hands off, let the brave Magyars fight their own battle, else we must take their part." For centuries, perhaps, you will have no more glorious opportunity than now. Hitherto, the word Glory has been connected with conquest and oppression. Take the New Glory for yours, by assuring to all nations exemption from the conspiracy of tyrants. That is what I first humbly request and hope.
[Kossuth proceeded, as in former speeches, to explain his other requests, viz. secondly, free commerce with America, whether Hungary was in war with Austria or not; thirdly, that when the suitable moment arrived, the Government should recognize the legitimate character of the Declaration of Independence made by Hungary in April, 1849. He added]:—
These requests I have very often explained since I have had the honour to be in the United States. I explained them yesterday in Philadelphia—the cradle of your Declaration of Independence. There I was answered, not only by the unanimous adoption of these resolutions on the part of the city of Harrisburg the capital of Pennsylvania, but also by the people of Philadelphia, at a great and important meeting. Nor was that enough. I received more in Philadelphia. I was told that, besides the granting of these my humble requests, whenever war breaks out for Hungary's freedom and independence I shall find brave hearts and stout arms among the twenty-four millions of the people of the United States ready to go over to Europe and fight side by side in the great battle for the freedom and independence of the European continent. I was told that it was not possible, when the battle for mankind's liberty is fought, for the sword of Washington to rest in its scabbard. That sword, which struck the first blow here on this continent for the republican freedom of this great country, must be present there, where the last stroke for all humanity will be given. Now, gentlemen, I will not abuse your kind indulgence and patience, which you have bestowed in your crowded situation. I will only say, that should this be the generous will of the people of the United States, in the name of the honour of my nation I can give the assurance that the Hungarians will be found worthy to fight side by side with you for civil and political freedom on the European continent, and to take care, with the sword of Washington, that no hair of that lock which I received as a present in Philadelphia, and which I promised to attach to that very standard which I will bear to decide the victory against despotism—that no hair of that lock shall fall into the hands of tyrants. And now may the ladies who have honoured me with their presence graciously allow me to express to them my most humble thanks and one humble prayer. The destinies of mankind—the future of humanity—repose in the hands of womanhood. The mark which the mother imprints upon the brow of the child remains for his whole life. Ladies of the United States, when the wandering exile passes away from your presence, take to your kind care the great cause of the liberty of the world with the tenderness with which a mother takes care of her child; and when you take care of this great cause, the sympathy of the people of the United States will not vanish like the passing emotion of the heart, but will become substantial, active, and effectual.
The speaker then took his seat, with three times three from the audience.
Judge Legrand followed and proposed the Harrisburg resolutions, which were adopted. They are as annexed:—
Resolved,—That the citizens of Harrisburg, the seat of government of Pennsylvania, in town meeting assembled, hereby approve and endorse the three propositions promulgated by Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, in his great speech before the Mayor and authorities of the city of New York, viz.:—
"First. That feeling interested in the maintenance of the laws of nations, acknowledging the sovereign right of every people to dispose of its own domestic concerns to be one of the laws, and the interference with this sovereign right to be a violation of these laws of nations, the people of the United States—resolved to respect and to make respected these public laws—declares the Russian past intervention in Hungary to be a violation of these laws, which, if reiterated, would be a new violation, and would not be regarded indifferently by the people of the United States.
"Second. That the people of the United States are resolved to maintain its right of commercial intercourse with the nations of Europe, whether they be in a state of revolution against their government or not; and that, with the view of approaching scenes on the continent of Europe, the people invite the government to take appropriate measures for the protection of the trade of the people with the Mediterranean.
"Third. That the people of the United States should declare their opinion in respect to the question of the independence of Hungary, and urge the government to act accordingly."
Resolved, That the people of Hungary are, and ought to remain a free and independent nation; that Louis Kossuth is their lawful governor, and that the Hungarian people should not be prevented from exercising the rights of freemen by the tyranny of Austria and Russia.
Resolved, That we extend to Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, and the Hungarian nation, that has made such a noble stand in the cause of freedom, that sympathy, aid, and support, which freemen alone know how to grant.
Resolved, That a committee of fifteen, including the officers of this meeting, be appointed to repair to Philadelphia, and invite the Governor of Hungary to visit the capital of Pennsylvania at such times as may suit his convenience.
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[Washington Banquet, Jan. 5th, 1852.]
The Banquet given by a large number of the Members of the two Houses of Congress to Kossuth took place at the National Hotel, in Washington City. The number present was about two hundred and fifty. The Hon. Wm. R. King, of Alabama, president of the Senate, presided. On his right sat Louis Kossuth, and on his left the Hon. Daniel Webster, Secretary of State. On the right of Kossuth at the same table, sat the Hon. Linn Boyd, speaker of the House of Representatives. Besides other distinguished guests who responded to toasts, are named Hon. Thomas Corwin, Secretary of the Treasury, and Hon. Alex. H. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior.
A few minutes after eight o'clock, a large number of ladies were admitted, and the President of the Senate requested gentlemen to fill their glasses for the first toast, which was,
"The President of the United States."
To this, Mr. Webster responded.
The President then announced the second toast:
"The Judiciary of the United States: The expounder of the Constitution and the bulwark of liberty regulated by law."
Judge Wayne, of the Supreme Court of the United States, replied, and after alluding to "The distinguished stranger" who was then among them, said: I give you, gentlemen, as a sentiment:
"Constitutional liberty to all the nations of the earth, supported by Christian faith and the morality of the Bible."
The toast was received with enthusiastic applause.
The third toast was,—
"The Navy of the United States: The home squadron everywhere. Its glory was illustrated, when its flag in a foreign sea gave liberty and protection to the Hungarian Chief."
Mr. Stanton, of Tennessee, in his reply, said:
But recently, Mr. President, a new significance has been given to this flag. Heretofore, the navy has been the symbol of our power and the emblem of our liberty, but now it speaks of humanity and of a noble sympathy for the oppressed of all nations. The home squadron everywhere, to give protection to the brave and to those who may have fallen in the cause of freedom! Your acquiescence in that sentiment indicates the profound sympathy of the people of the United States for the people of Hungary, manifested in the person of their great chief; and I can conceive of no duty that would be more acceptable to the gallant officers of the navy of the United States except one, and that is, to strike a blow for liberty themselves in a just cause, approved by our Government.
The fourth toast was,—
"The army of the united states. In saluting the illustrious Exile with magnanimous courtesy, as high as it could pay to any Power on earth, it has added grace to the glory of its history."
General Shields, Senator for Illinois, Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs in the Senate, being loudly called for, replied in the necessary absence of General Scott, the chief of the army; and after an appropriate acknowledgment of the toast, added:
In paving this very high honor to our illustrious guest—this noble Hungarian—let me observe that that army which has been toasted to-night spoke for his reception by the voice of their cannon; and the cannon that spoke there spoke the voice of twenty-five millions of people. Sir, that salute which the American cannon gave the Hungarian exile had a deep meaning in it. It was not a salute to the mere man Louis Kossuth, but it was a salute in favour of the great principle which he represents—the principle which he advocates, the principle of nationality and of human liberty. Sir, I was born in a land which has suffered as an oppressed nation. I am now a citizen of a land which would have suffered from the same power, had it not been for the bravery, gallantry, and good fortune of the men of that time. Sir, as an Irishman by birth, and an American by adoption, I would feel myself a traitor to both countries if I did not sustain downtrodden nationalities everywhere—in Hungary, in Poland, in Germany, in Italy—everywhere where man is trodden down and oppressed. And, sir, I say again, that that army which maintained itself in three wars against one of the greatest and most powerful nations of the world, will, if the trying time should come again, maintain that same flag (the stars and stripes) and the same triumph, and the same victories in the cause of liberty. [Great applause.]
The president of the evening then, after a cordial speech, proposed the fifth toast:
"Hungary, represented in the person of our honoured Guest, having proved herself worthy to be free by the virtues and valour of her sons, the law of nations and the dictates of justice alike demand that she shall have fair play in her struggle for independence."
This toast was received with immense applause, which lasted several minutes.
Kossuth then rose and spoke as follows:
Sir: As once Cineas the Epirote stood among the Senators of Rome, who, with a word of self-conscious majesty, arrested kings in their ambitious march—thus, full of admiration and of reverence, I stand amongst you, legislators of the new Capitol, that glorious hall of your people's collective majesty. The Capitol of old yet stands, but the spirit has departed from it, and is come over to yours, purified by the air of liberty. The old stands a mournful monument of the fragility of human things: yours as a sanctuary of eternal right. The old beamed with the red lustre of conquest, now darkened by the gloom of oppression; yours is bright with freedom. The old absorbed the world into its own centralized glory; yours protects your own nation from being absorbed, even by itself. The old was awful with unrestricted power; yours is glorious by having restricted it. At the view of the old, nations trembled; at the view of yours, humanity hopes. To the old, misfortune was introduced with fettered hands to kneel at triumphant conquerors' feet; to yours the triumph of introduction is granted to unfortunate exiles who are invited to the honour of a seat. And where Kings and Caesars never will be hailed for their power and wealth, there the persecuted chief of a downtrodden nation is welcomed as your great Republic's guest, precisely because he is persecuted, helpless, and poor. In the old, the terrible voe victis! was the rule; in yours, protection to the oppressed, malediction to ambitious oppressors, and consolation to a vanquished just cause. And while from the old a conquered world was ruled, you in yours provide for the common federative interests of a territory larger than that old conquered world. There sat men boasting that their will was sovereign of the earth; here sit men whose glory is to acknowledge "the laws of nature and of nature's God," and to do what their sovereign, the People, wills.
Sir, there is history in these contrasts. History of past ages and history of future centuries may be often recorded in small facts. The particulars to which the passion of living men clings, as if human fingers could arrest the wheel of Destiny, these particulars die away; it is the issue which makes history, and that issue is always coherent with its causes. There is a necessity of consequences wherever the necessity of position exists. Principles are the alpha: they must finish with omega, and they will. Thus history may be often told in a few words.
Before the heroic struggle of Greece had yet engaged your country's sympathy for the fate of freedom, in Europe then so far distant and now so near, Chateaubriand happened to be in Athens, and he heard from a minaret raised upon the Propylaeum's ruins a Turkish priest in the Arabic language announcing the lapse of hours to the Christians of Minerva's town. What immense history there was in the small fact of a Turkish Imaum crying out, "Pray, pray! the hour is running fast, and the judgment draws near."