Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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And besides, I have to say farewell to New York! This is a sorrowful
word. What immense hopes are linked in my memory with its name!--hopes
of resurrection for my fatherland--hopes of liberation for the European
continent! Will the expectations which the mighty outburst of New York's
heart foreshadowed, be realized? or will the ray of consolation pass
away like an electric flash? Oh, could I cast one single glance into the
book of futurity! No, God forgive me this impious wish. It is He who hid
the future from man, and what he does is well done. It were not good for
man to know his destiny. The sense of duty would falter or be unstrung,
if we were assured of the failure or success of our aims. It is because
we do not know the future, that we retain our energy of duty, So on will
I go in my work, with the full energy of my humble abilities, without
despair, but with hope.
It is Eastern blood which runs in my veins. If I have somewhat of
Eastern fatalism, it is the fatalism of a Christian who trusts with
unwavering faith in the boundless goodness of a Divine Providence. But
among all these different feelings and thoughts that come upon me in the
hour of my farewell, one thing is almost indispensable to me, and that
is, the assurance that the sympathy I have met with here will not pass
away like the cheers which a warbling girl receives on the stage--that
it will be preserved as a principle, and that when the emotion subsides,
the calmness of reflection will but strengthen it. This consolation I
wanted, and this consolation I have, because, ladies, I place it in your
hands. I bestow on your motherly and sisterly cares, the hopes of
Europe's oppressed nations,--the hopes of civil, political, social, and
religious liberty. Oh let me entreat you, with the brief and stammering
words of a warm heart, overwhelmed with emotions and with sorrowful
cares--let me entreat you, ladies, to be watchful of the sympathy of
your people, like the mother over the cradle of her beloved child. It is
worthy of your watchful care, because, it is the cradle of regenerated
humanity.
Especially in regard to my poor fatherland, I have particular claims on
the fairer and better half of humanity, which you are. The _first_
of these claims is, that there is not perhaps on the face of the earth a
nation, which in its institutions has shown more chivalric regard for
ladies than the Hungarian. It is a praiseworthy trait of the Oriental
character. You know that it was the Moorish race in Spain, who were the
founders of the chivalric era in Europe, so full of personal virtue, so
full of noble deeds, so devoted to the service of ladies, to heroism,
and to the protection of the oppressed. You are told that the ladies of
the East are degraded to less almost than a human condition, being
secluded from all social life, and pent up within the harem's walls. And
so it is. But you must not judge the East by the measure of European
civilization. They have their own civilization, quite different from
ours in views, inclinations, affections, and thoughts. We in Hungary
have gained from the West the advantages of civilization for our women,
but we have preserved for them the regard and reverence of our Oriental
character. Nay, more than that, we carried these views into our
institutions and into our laws. With us, the widow remains the head of
the family, as the father was. As long as she lives, she is the mistress
of the property of her deceased husband. The chivalrous spirit of the
nation supposes she will provide, with motherly care, for the wants of
her children; and she remains in possession so long as she bears her
deceased husband's name. Under the old constitution of Hungary (which we
reformed upon a democratic basis--it having been aristocratic) the widow
of a lord had the right to send her representative to the parliament,
and in the county elections of public functionaries widows had a right
to vote alike with the men. Perhaps this chivalric character of my
nation, so full of regard toward the fair sex, may somewhat commend my
mission to the ladies of America.
Our _second_ particular claim is, that the source of all the
misfortune which now weighs so heavily upon my bleeding fatherland, is
in two ladies--Catharine of Russia, and Sophia of Hapsburg, the
ambitious mother of this second Nero, Francis-Joseph. You know that one
hundred and fifty years ago, Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, the bravest
of the brave, foreseeing the growth of Russia, and fearing that it would
oppress and overwhelm civilization, ventured with a handful of men to
attack its rising power. After immortal deeds, and almost fabulous
victories, one loss made him a refugee upon Turkish soil, like myself.
But, happier than myself, he succeeded in persuading Turkey of the
necessity of checking Russia in her overweening ambition, and curtailing
her growth. On went Mehemet Baltadji with his Turks, and met Peter the
Czar, and pent him up in a corner, where there was no possibility of
escape. There Mehemet held him with iron grasp till hunger came to his
aid. Nature claimed her rights, and in a council of war it was decided
to surrender to Mehemet. Then Catharine who was present in the camp,
appeared in person before the Grand Vizier to sue for mercy. She was
fair, and she was rich with jewels of nameless value. She went to the
Grand Vizier's tent. She came back without her jewels, but she brought
mercy, and Russia was saved. From that celebrated day dates the downfall
of Turkey, and the growth of Russia. Out of this source flowed the
stream of Russian preponderance over the European continent. The
depression of liberty, and the nameless sufferings of Poland and of my
poor native land, are the dreadful fruits of Catharine's success on that
day, cursed in the records of the human race.
The second lady who will be cursed through all posterity in her memory,
is Sophia, the mother of the present usurper of Hungary--she who had the
ambitious dream to raise the power of a child upon the ruins of liberty,
and on the neck of prostrate nations. It was her ambition--the evil
genius of the House of Hapsburg in the present day--which brought
desolation upon us. I need only mention one fact to characterize what
kind of a heart was in that woman. On the anniversary of the day of
Arad, where our martyrs bled, she came to the court with a bracelet of
rubies set in so many roses as was the number of heads of the brave
Hungarians who fell there, declaring that she joyfully exhibited it to
the company as a memento which she wears on her very arm, to cherish in
eternal memory the pleasure she derived from the killing of those heroes
at Arad. This very fact may give you a true knowledge of the character
of that woman, and this is the _second_ claim to the ladies'
sympathy for oppressed humanity and for my poor fatherland.
Our _third_ particular claim is the behaviour of our ladies during
the last war. It is no arbitrary praise--it is a fact,--that, in the
struggle for our rights and freedom, we had no more powerful
auxiliaries, and no more faithful executors of the will of the nation,
than the women of Hungary. You know that in ancient Rome, after the
battle of Cannae, which was won by Hannibal, the Senate called on the
people spontaneously to sacrifice all their wealth on the altar of their
fatherland. Every jewel, every ornament was brought forth, but still the
tribune judged it necessary to pass a law prohibiting the ladies of Rome
to wear more than half an ounce of gold, or particoloured splendid
dresses. Now, we wanted in Hungary no such law. The women of Hungary
brought all that they had. You would have been astonished to see how, in
the most wealthy houses of Hungary, if you were invited to dinner, you
would be forced to eat soup with iron spoons. When the wounded and the
sick--and many of them we had, because we fought hard--when the wounded
and the sick were not so well provided as it would have been our duty
and our pleasure to do, I ordered the respective public functionaries to
take care of them. But the poor wounded went on suffering, and the
proper officers were but slow in providing for them. When I saw this,
one single word was spoken to the ladies of Hungary, and in a short time
there was provision made for hundreds of thousands of sick. And I never
met a single mother who would have withheld her son from sharing in the
battle; but I have met many who ordered and commanded their children to
fight for their fatherland. I saw many and many brides who urged on the
bridegrooms to delay their day of happiness till they should come back
victorious from the battles of their fatherland. Thus acted the ladies
of Hungary. A country deserves to live; a country deserves to have a
future, when the women, as much as the men, love and cherish it.
But I have a stronger motive than all these to claim your protecting
sympathy for my country's cause. It is her nameless woe, nameless
sufferings. In the name of that ocean of bloody tears which the impious
hand of the tyrant wrung from the eyes of the childless mothers, of the
brides who beheld the executioner's sword between them and their wedding
day--in the name of all these mothers, wives, brides, daughters, and
sisters, who, by thousands of thousands, weep over the graves of Magyars
so dear to their hearts,--who weep the bloody tears of a patriot (as
they all are) over the face of their beloved native land--in the name of
all those torturing stripes with which the flogging hand of Austrian
tyrants dared to outrage human nature in the womankind of my native
land--in the name of that daily curse against Austria with which even
the prayers of our women are mixed--in the name of the nameless
sufferings of my own dear wife [here the whole audience rose and cheered
vehemently]--the faithful companion of my life,--of her, who for months
and for months was hunted by my country's tyrants, with no hope, no
support, no protection, but at the humble threshold of the hard-working
people, as noble and generous as they are poor--in the name of my poor
little children, who when so young as to be scarcely conscious of life,
had already to learn what an Austrian prison is--in the name of all
this, and what is still worse, in the name of liberty trodden down, I
claim, ladies of New York, your protecting sympathy for my country's
cause. Nobody can do more for it than you. The heart of man is as soft
wax in your tender hands. Mould it, ladies; mould it into the form of
generous compassion for my country's wrongs, inspire it with the noble
feelings of your own hearts, inspire it with the consciousness of your
country's power, dignity, and might. You are the framers of man's
character. Whatever be the fate of man, one stamp he always bears on his
brow--that which the mother's hand impressed upon the soul of the child.
The smile of your lips can make a hero out of the coward, and a generous
man out of the egotist; one word from you inspires the youth to noble
resolutions; the lustre of your eyes is the fairest reward for the toils
of life. You can kindle energy even in the breast of broken age, that
once more it may blaze up in a noble generous deed before it dies. All
this power you have. Use it, ladies, in behalf of your country's glory,
and for the benefit of oppressed humanity, and when you meet a cold
calculator, who thinks by arithmetic when he is called to feel the
wrongs of oppressed nations, convert him, ladies. Your smiles are
commands, and the truth which pours forth instinctively from your
hearts, is mightier than the logic articulated by any scholar. The Peri
excluded from Paradise, brought many generous gifts to heaven in order
to regain it. She brought the dying sigh of a patriot; the kiss of a
faithful girl imprinted upon the lips of her bridegroom, when they were
distorted by the venom of the plague. She brought many other fair gifts;
but the doors of Paradise opened before her only when she brought with
her the first prayer of a man converted to charity and brotherly love
for his oppressed brethren and humanity.
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!
* * * * *
XIV.--RESULTS OF THE OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
[_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.
* * * * *
XV.--INTEREST OF AMERICA IN HUNGARIAN LIBERTY.
[_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.