Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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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 Windischgraetz 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.