Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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Now since France has three times in sixty years failed to obtain
practical results from Political revolutions, all Europe is apt to press
forward into new Social doctrine to regulate the future. Believing then,
that,--not from my merit, but from the state of my country,--I may be
able somewhat to influence the course of the next European revolution, I
think it right plainly to declare beforehand my allegiance to the great
principle of security for personal property. Nevertheless, to give
success to my endeavours in this direction, the rational expectations of
the nations of Europe must speedily be fulfilled; else neither I, nor
more important men, can avail to stay revolutionary movement. The danger
of the case may be illustrated by the ancient story of the Sibylline
books.
Take Hungary as an instance. Three years ago we should have been
extremely well contented with the laws as made by our parliament in
1848, _which laws did not break the tie between us and the house of
Hapsburg_. But then Austria assailed us with arms, and it became
impossible for us to go on with that constitution; indeed she herself
proclaimed it to be dissolved. We defeated her, and next she called in
the Russian armies. Hungary was then under the necessity of _casting
off the Hapsburg monarchy_; and only the third Sibylline book
remained. Yet Hungary did not even then renounce monarchy, but gave
instructions to her representative in England to say to the Government
of this country, that _if they wished to see monarchy established in
Hungary, we would accept any dynasty they proposed_: but it was
not-listened to. Then came the horrors of Arad,[*] and destroyed all our
faith in monarchy. So the last of the three books was burned.
[Footnote *: In Arad the Hungarian Generals, who surrendered by Goergy's
persuasion, were hanged or shot; and simultaneously Bathyanyi, who had
been arrested when he came as an ambassador of peace, was judged anew
and murdered by a second court-martial.]
And so, wherever men's reasonable expectations are not fulfilled, it
cannot be known where their fluctuations will end. Every man who is
anxious for the preservation of person and property should help the
world in obtaining rational freedom: if it be not obtained, mankind will
search after other forms of action, totally subversive of all existing
social order; and where the excitement will subside, I do not know. Men
like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such
circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence
who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.
* * * * *
IV.--LEGITIMACY OF HUNGARIAN INDEPENDENCE.
[When Kossuth had landed at Staten Island, thus for the first time
setting his foot on American soil, he was met by a deputation, which
made an address to him. He replied as follows (Dec. 5th, 1851)]:--
Ladies and gentlemen: The twelve hours that I have had the happiness to
stand on your shores, give me augury that, during my stay in the United
States, I shall have a pleasant duty to perform, in answering the
generous spirit of your people. I hope, however, that you will consider
that I am in the first moments of a hard task,--to address your
intelligent people in a tongue foreign to me. You will not expect from
me an elaborate speech, but will be contented with a few warmly-felt
words. Citizens, accept my fervent thanks for your generous welcome, and
my blessing upon your sanction of my hopes. You have most truly stated
what they are, when you announce the destiny of your glorious country,
and tell me that from it the spirit of liberty will go forth and achieve
the freedom of the world.
Yes, citizens, these are the hopes which have induced me, in a most
eventful period, to cross the Atlantic. I confidently hope, that as you
have anticipated my wishes by the expression of your generous
sentiments, so you will agree with me, that the spirit of liberty has to
go forth, not only spiritually, but materially, from your glorious
country. That spirit is a power for deeds, but is yet no _deed_ in
itself. Despotism and oppression never yet were beaten except by heroic
resistance. That is a sad necessity,--but it is a necessity
nevertheless. I have so learned it out of the great book of history. I
hope the people of the United States will remember, that in the hour of
_their_ nation's struggle, it received from Europe _more_ than
kind wishes. It received material aid from others in times past, and it
will, doubtless, now impart its mighty agency to achieve the liberty of
other lands.
Citizens, I thank you for having addressed me, not in the language of
party, but in the language of liberty, which is that of the United
States. I come hither, in the name of Hungary, to entreat, not from any
_party_ among you, but from your _whole nation_, a generous
protection for my country. And for that very reason, neither will I
intermeddle with any of your party questions. In England I often avowed
this principle; inasmuch as the very mission on which I come, is to ask
that the right of every nation to arrange its domestic concerns may be
respected. Notwithstanding this, I am sorry to see, that, before my
arrival, I have been charged with intermeddling with your presidential
election, because in one of my addresses in England I mentioned the name
of your fellow-citizen, Mr. Walker, as one of the candidates for the
Presidency. I confess with warm gratitude, that Mr. Walker uttered such
sentiments in England, as, if happily they are also those of the United
States, will enable me to declare, that Hungary and Europe are free.
Therefore I feel deeply indebted to him. But in no respect did I mix
myself up with your elections. I consider no man honest who does not
observe towards other nations the principles which he desires to be
observed towards his own: and therefore I will not interfere in your
domestic questions.
Allow me, citizens, to advert to one expression of your kind address,
personal to myself. You named me "Kossuth, Governor of Hungary."
My nomination to be Governor was not to gratify ambition. Never,
perhaps, did I feel sadder, than at the moment when that title was
conferred upon me; for I compared my feeble faculties and its high
responsibilities. It is therefore not from ambition that I thank you for
the title, but because the title rests upon our Declaration of
Independence; and by acknowledging it as mine, you recognize the
rightfulness and validity of that Declaration. And, gentlemen I frankly
declare that your whole people are bound in honour and duty to recognize
it. At this moment there is no other legitimate existing law in Hungary.
It was not the proclamation of a man or of a party. It was the solemn
declaration of the whole nation in _Congress_ assembled. It was
sanctioned by _every village_, and by _every municipality_. No
counter-proclamation has gone forth from Hungary. It has been overturned
solely by the invasion of an ambitious _foreign_ power, the Czar of
Russia; who can no more legitimately make or unmake a governor of
Hungary, than General Santa Anna, if in your late war he had forced his
way to Washington, could have unmade President Taylor. None of you will
admit that violence can destroy righteousness: it can but establish
unlawful, unrightful _fact_. If so,--if your own people, and not
foreign invaders, are the source of rightful law to _you_,--you
must in consistency recognize _our_ Independence as legitimate, and
its declaration as our still rightful law.
As to the praises which you were so kind as to bestow upon me, it is no
affectation in me when I declare that I am not conscious of having any
other merit than that of being a plain, straightforward man, a faithful
friend of freedom, a good patriot. And these qualities, gentlemen, are
so natural to _every_ honest man, that it is scarcely worth while
to speak of them; for I cannot conceive how a man with understanding and
with a sound heart, can be anything else than a good patriot and a lover
of freedom.
Yet my humble capacity has not preserved me from calumnies. Scarcely had
I arrived here, when I learned that I had been charged in the United
States with being an _irreligious man_. So long as despots exist,
and have the means to pay, they will find men to calumniate those who
are opposed to tyranny. But, suppose I were the most dishonest creature
in the world; in the name of all that is sacred, _what would that
matter in respect to the cause of Hungary?_ Would that cause become
less just, less righteous, less worthy of your sympathy, because I, for
instance, am a bad man? No! I believe you. It is not a question in
regard to any individual here. It is a question with regard to a just
cause, the cause of a country worthy to take its place in the great
family of the free nations of the world. Until I learn that you refuse
to recognize nations, whenever their governors fall short of religious
perfection, I need not care much about attacks on my mere personality.
But one thing I can scarcely comprehend,--that the PRESS--that mighty
vehicle of justice and champion of human rights--could have found an
organ, and that, in the United States, which (to say nothing of personal
calumnies) should degrade itself to assert that it was not the people of
Hungary, it was not myself and my coadjutors, that contended for
liberty; but it was the Emperor of Austria who was the champion of
liberty. Do not give it groans, gentlemen, but rather thank it; for
there can be no better service to any cause, than for its opponents to
manifest that they have nothing to say but what is ridiculous. That
_must_ have been a sacred and just cause, whose detractors need to
assert that the Emperor of Austria is the champion of freedom throughout
his own dominions and throughout the European continent.
I thank you that you have given me full proof that all these calumnies
have affected neither your judgment nor your heart. As this will be the
place whence I shall start back for Europe, I shall once more have the
happiness of addressing you publicly and bidding you an affectionate
adieu:--hoping then to be able to thank you for _acts_, as I now
thank you for _sentiments_.
* * * * *
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE BY THE HUNGARIAN NATION.
[The reader may be glad to possess the most important portions of this
celebrated document. The opponents of Kossuth have of late pretended,
that the deposition of the Hapsburgs _caused_ the overthrow of
Hungary. But the deposition was not carried until Austria was thoroughly
beaten, and Russia _had engaged_ to give her utmost aid. This
finally united all Hungary. At no earlier period would Hungary have
acted with full unanimity in so decisive a step. To have delayed it
longer would not have averted Russian invasion, and would have caused
deep discontent in Hungary. Nothing but the wilful disobedience of
Goergey, who wasted a month at Buda at this very crisis, saved the
Hapsburgs from being conquered in Vienna, before the Russian armies
could possibly come up.]
We, the legally-constituted representatives of the Hungarian nation
assembled in Diet, do by these presents solemnly proclaim, in
maintenance of the inalienable natural rights of Hungary, with all its
appurtenances and dependencies, to occupy the position of an Independent
European state; that the house of Lorraine-Hapsburg, as perjured in the
sight of God and man, has forfeited its right to the Hungarian throne.
At the same time, we feel ourselves bound in duty to make known the
motives and reasons which have impelled us to this decision, that the
civilized world may learn we have not taken this step out of overweening
confidence in our own wisdom, or out of revolutionary excitement, but
that it is an act of the last necessity, adopted to preserve from utter
destruction a nation persecuted to the limit of the most enduring
patience.
Three hundred years have passed since the Hungarian nation, by free
election, placed the house of Austria upon its throne, in accordance
with stipulations made on both sides, and ratified by treaty. These
three hundred years have been, for the country, a period of
uninterrupted suffering.
The Creator has blessed this country with all the elements of wealth and
happiness. Its area of one hundred and ten thousand square miles
presents, in varied profusion, innumerable sources of prosperity. Its
population, numbering nearly fifteen millions, feels the glow of
youthful strength within its veins, and has shown temper and docility
which warrant its proving at once the main organ of civilization in
Eastern Europe, and the guardian of that civilization when attacked.
Never was a more grateful task appointed to a reigning dynasty by the
dispensation of Providence than that which devolved upon the house of
Lorraine-Hapsburg. It would have sufficed, to do nothing to impede the
development of the country. Had this been the rule observed, Hungary
would now rank among the most prosperous nations. It was only necessary
that it should not envy the Hungarians the moderate share of
constitutional liberty which they timidly maintained during the
difficulties of a thousand years with rare fidelity to their sovereigns,
and the house of Hapsburg might long have counted this nation among the
most faithful adherents of the throne.
This dynasty, however, which can at no epoch point to a ruler who based
his power on the freedom of the people, adopted a course towards this
nation, from father to son, which deserves the appellation of perjury.
The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the
country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to
reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all
freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery. Foiled in this
effort by the untiring vigilance of the nation, it directed its
endeavour to lame the power, to check the progress of Hungary, causing
it to minister to the gain of the provinces of Austria, but only to the
extent which enabled those provinces to bear the load of taxation with
which the prodigality of the imperial house weighed them down; having
first deprived those provinces of all constitutional means of
remonstrating against a policy which was not based upon the welfare of
the subject, but solely tended to maintain despotism and crush liberty
in every country of Europe.
It has frequently happened that the Hungarian nation, in despite of this
systematized tyranny, has been obliged to take up arms in self-defence.
Although constantly victorious in these constitutional struggles, yet so
moderate has the nation ever been in its use of the victory, so strongly
has it confided in the king's plighted word, that it has ever laid down
arms as soon as the king, by new compacts and fresh oaths, has
guaranteed the duration of its rights and liberty. But every new
compact was as futile as those which preceded it; each oath which fell
from the royal lips was but a renewal of previous perjuries. The policy
of the house of Austria, which aimed at destroying the independence of
Hungary as a state, has been pursued unaltered for three hundred years.
It was in vain that the Hungarian nation shed its blood for the
deliverance of Austria whenever it was in danger; vain were all the
sacrifices which it made to serve the interests of the reigning house;
in vain did it, on the renewal of the royal promises, forget the wounds
which the past had inflicted; vain was the fidelity cherished by the
Hungarians for their king, and which, in moments of danger, assumed a
character of devotion; they were in vain, since the history of the
government of that dynasty in Hungary presents but an unbroken series of
perjured deeds from generation to generation.
In spite of such treatment, the Hungarian nation has all along respected
the tie by which it was united to this dynasty; and in now decreeing its
expulsion from the throne, it acts under the natural law of
self-preservation, being driven to pronounce this sentence by the full
conviction that the house of Lorraine-Hapsburg is compassing the
destruction of Hungary as an independent State: so that this dynasty has
been the first to tear the bands by which it was united to the Hungarian
nation, and to confess that it had torn them in the face of Europe. For
many causes a nation is justified, before God and man, in expelling a
reigning dynasty. Among such are the following:
1. When the dynasty forms alliances with the enemies of the country,
with robbers, or partizan chieftains to oppress the nation: 2. When it
attempts to annihilate the Independence of the country and its
Constitution, supported on oaths, by attacking with an armed force the
people who have committed no act of revolt: 3. When the integrity of a
country, which the sovereign has sworn to maintain, is violated, and its
resources cut away: 4. When foreign armies are employed to murder the
people, and to oppress their liberties.
Each of the grounds here enumerated would justify the exclusion of a
dynasty from the throne. But the House of Lorraine-Hapsburg is
unexampled in the compass of its perjuries, and has committed every one
of these crimes against the nation.***
In former times, a governing COUNCIL, under the name of the Royal
Hungarian Stadtholdership, the president of which was the Palatine, held
its seat at Buda, whose sacred duty it was to watch over the integrity
of the state, the inviolability of the Constitution, and the sanctity of
the laws; but this _collegiate_ authority not presenting any
element of _personal_ responsibility, the Vienna cabinet gradually
degraded this council to the position of an administrative organ of
court absolutism. In this manner, while Hungary had ostensibly an
independent government, the despotic Vienna cabinet disposed at will of
the money and blood of the people for foreign purposes, postponing our
commercial interests to the success of courtly cabals, injurious to the
welfare of the people, so that we were excluded from all connection with
the other countries of the world, and were degraded to the position of a
colony. The mode of governing by a MINISTRY was intended to put a stop
to these proceedings, which caused the rights of the country to moulder
uselessly in its parchments; by the change,[*] these rights and the
royal oath were both to become a reality. It was the apprehension of
this, and especially the fear of losing its control over the money and
blood of the country, which caused the house of Austria to resolve on
involving Hungary, by the foulest intrigues, in the horrors of fire and
slaughter, that, having plunged the country in a civil war, it might
seize the opportunity to dismember the kingdom, and to blot out the name
of Hungary from the list of independent nations, and unite its plundered
and bleeding limbs with the Austrian monarchy.
[Footnote *: The change was solemnly enacted in the Parliamentary Laws of
March, 1848, which King Ferdinand V. sanctioned by his public oath in
April, 1848.]
The beginning of this course was, (after a Ministry had been called into
existence), by ordering an Austrian general [Jellachich] to rise in
rebellion against the laws of the country and nominating him Ban of
Croatia, a kingdom belonging to the kingdom of Hungary.***
The Ban revolted therefore in the name of the emperor, and rebelled
openly against the king of Hungary, who is however one and the same
person; and he went so far as to decree the separation of Croatia and
Slavonia from _Hungary_, with which they had been united for eight
hundred years, as well as to incorporate them with the _Austrian_
empire. Public opinion and undoubted facts threw the blame of these
proceedings on the Archduke Louis, uncle to the emperor, on his brother,
the Archduke Francis Charles, and especially on the consort of the
last-named prince, the Archduchess Sophia; and since the Ban, in this
act of rebellion, openly alleged that he acted as a faithful subject of
the emperor, the ministry of Hungary requested their sovereign, by a
public declaration, to wipe off the stigma which these proceedings threw
upon the family. At that moment affairs were not prosperous for Austria
in Italy; the emperor therefore did proclaim that the Ban and his
associates were guilty of high treason, and of exciting to rebellion.
But while publishing this edict, the Ban and his accomplices were
covered with favours at court, and supplied for their enterprise with
money, arms, and ammunition. The Hungarians, confiding in the royal
proclamation, and not wishing to provoke a civil conflict, did not hunt
out those proscribed traitors in their lair, and only adopted measures
for checking any extension of the rebellion. But soon afterward the
inhabitants of South Hungary, of Servian race, were excited to rebellion
by precisely the same means.
These were also declared by the king to be rebels, but were
nevertheless, like the others, supplied with money, arms, and
ammunition. The king's commissioned officers and civil servants enlisted
bands of robbers in the principality of Servia to strengthen the rebels,
and aid them in massacring the peaceable Hungarian and German
inhabitants of the Banat. The command of these rebellious bodies was
further entrusted to the rebel leaders of the Croatians.
During this rebellion of the Hungarian Servians, scenes of cruelty were
witnessed at which the heart shudders; the peaceable inhabitants were
tortured with a cruelty which makes the hair stand on end. Whole towns
and villages, once flourishing, were laid waste. Hungarians fleeing
before these murderers were reduced to the condition of vagrants and
beggars in their own country; the most lovely districts were converted
into a wilderness.***
The greater part of the Hungarian regiments were, according to the old
system of government, scattered through the other provinces of the
empire. In Hungary itself, the troops quartered were mostly Austrian;
and they afforded more protection to the rebels than to the laws, or to
the internal peace of the country. The withdrawal of these troops, and
the return of the national militia, was demanded of the government, but
was either refused, or its fulfilment delayed; and when our brave
comrades, on hearing the distress of the country, returned in masses,
they were persecuted, and such as were obliged to yield to superior
force were disarmed, and sentenced to death for having defended their
country against rebels.
The Hungarian ministry begged the king earnestly to issue orders to all
troops and commanders of fortresses in Hungary, enjoining fidelity to
the Constitution, and obedience to the ministers of Hungary. Such a
proclamation was sent to the Palatine, the viceroy of Hungary, Archduke
Stephen, at Buda. The necessary letters were written and sent to the
post-office. But this nephew of the king, the Archduke Palatine,
shamelessly caused these letters to be smuggled back from the
post-office, although they had been countersigned by the responsible
ministers; and they were afterward found among his papers when he
treacherously departed from the country.
The rebel Ban menaced the Hungarian coast with an attack, and the
government, with the king's consent, ordered an armed corps to march
into Styria for the defence of Fiume; but this whole force received
orders to march into Italy.***
The rebel force occupied Fiume, and disunited it from the kingdom of
Hungary, and this hateful deception was disavowed by the Vienna cabinet
as having been a _misunderstanding_; the furnishing of arms,
ammunition, and money to the rebels of Croatia was also declared to have
been a misunderstanding. Finally, instructions were issued to the
effect that, until special orders were given, the army and the
commanders of fortresses were not to follow the orders of the Hungarian
ministers, but were to execute those of the Austrian cabinet.***
The king from that moment began to address the man whom he himself had
branded as a rebel, as "dear and loyal" (Lieber Getreuer); he praised
him for having revolted, and encouraged him to proceed in the path he
had entered upon.
He expressed a like sympathy for the Servian rebels, whose hands yet
reeked from the massacres they had perpetrated. It was under this
command that the Ban of Croatia, after being proclaimed as a rebel,
assembled an army, and announced his commission from the king to carry
fire and sword into Hungary, upon which the Austrian troops stationed in
the country united with him.***
Even then the Diet did not give up all confidence in the power of the
royal oath, and the king was once more requested to order the rebels to
quit the country. The answer given was a reference to a manifesto of the
Austrian ministry, declaring it to be their determination to deprive the
Hungarian nation of the independent management of their financial,
commercial, and war affairs. The king at the same time refused his
assent to the bills submitted for approval respecting troops and the
subsidy for covering the expenditure.