Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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Upon this the Hungarian ministers resigned, but the names submitted by
the president of the council, at the demand of the king, were not
approved of for successors. The Diet then, bound by its duty to secure
the safety of the country, voted the supplies, and ordered the troops to
be levied. The nation obeyed the summons with readiness.
The representatives of the people then summoned the nephew of the
emperor to join the camp, and as Palatine[*] to lead the troops against
the rebels. He not only obeyed the summons, but made public professions
of his devotion to the cause. As soon, however, as an engagement
threatened, he fled secretly from the camp and the country, like a
coward traitor. Among his papers a plan, formed by him some time
previously, was found, according to which Hungary was to be
simultaneously attacked on nine sides at once--from Styria, Austria,
Moravia, Silesia, Galicia, and Transylvania.
[Footnote *: The Palatine was a high officer elected by the Diet, as its
organ, and the defender of its Constitution. In fact, they always
elected a prince of the blood royal. He was virtually a Viceroy.]
From a correspondence with the Minister of War, seized at the same time,
it was discovered that the commanding generals in the military frontier
and the Austrian provinces adjoining Hungary had received orders to
enter Hungary, and support the rebels with their united forces.
This attack from nine points at once really began. The most painful
aggression took place in Transylvania; for the traitorous commander in
that district did not content himself with the practices considered
lawful in war by disciplined troops. He stirred up the Wallachian
peasants to take up arms against their own constitutional rights, and,
aided by the rebellious Servian hordes, commenced a course of Vandalism
and extinction, sparing neither women, children, nor aged men; murdering
and torturing the defenceless Hungarian inhabitants; burning the most
flourishing villages and towns, among which, Nagy-Igmand, the seat of
learning for Transylvania, was reduced to a heap of ruins.
But the Hungarian nation, although taken by surprise, unarmed and
unprepared, did not abandon its future prospects in any agony of
despair.
Measures were immediately taken to increase the small standing army by
volunteers and the levy of the people. These troops, supplying the want
of experience by the enthusiasm arising from the feeling that they had
right on their side, defeated the Croatian armaments, and drove them out
of the country.***
The defeated army fled in the direction of Vienna, where the emperor
continued his demoralizing policy, and nominated the beaten and flying
rebel as his plenipotentiary and substitute in Hungary, suspending by
this act the constitution and institutions of the country, all its
authorities, courts of justice, and tribunals, laying the kingdom under
martial law, and placing in the hand of, and under the unlimited
authority of, a rebel, the honour, the property and the lives of the
people; in the hand of a man who, with armed bands, had braved the laws,
and attacked the Constitution of the country.
But the house of Austria was not contented with the unjustifiable
violation of oaths taken by its head.
The rebellious Ban was taken under the protection of the troops
stationed near Vienna, and commanded by Prince Windischgraetz. These
troops, after taking Vienna by storm, were led as an imperial Austrian
army to conquer Hungary. But the Hungarian nation, persisting in its
loyalty, sent an envoy to the advancing enemy. This envoy, coming under
a flag of truce, was treated as a prisoner, and thrown into prison. No
heed was paid to the remonstrances and the demands of the Hungarian
nation for justice. The threat of the gallows was, on the contrary,
thundered against all who had taken arms in defence of a wretched and
oppressed country. But before the army had time to enter Hungary, a
family revolution in the tyrannical reigning house was perpetrated at
Olmuetz. Ferdinand V. was forced to resign a throne which had been
polluted with so much blood and perjury, and the son of Francis Charles,
(who also abdicated his claim to the inheritance,) the youthful Archduke
Francis Joseph, caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor of Austria and
King of Hungary. But no one can by any family compact dispose of the
constitutional throne without the Hungarian nation.
At this critical moment the Hungarian nation demanded nothing more than
the maintenance of its laws and institutions, and peace guaranteed by
their integrity. Had the assent of the nation to this change in the
occupant of the throne been asked in a legal manner, and the young
prince offered to take the customary oath that he would preserve the
Constitution, the Hungarian nation would not have refused to elect him
king in accordance with the treaties extant, and to crown him with St.
Stephen's crown, before he had dipped his hand in the blood of the
people.
He, however, refusing to perform an act so sacred in the eyes of God and
man, and in strange contrast to the innocence natural to youthful
breasts, declared in his first words his intention of conquering
Hungary, (which he dared to call a rebellious country, whereas it was he
himself that raised rebellion there,) and of depriving it of that
independence which it had maintained for a thousand years, to
incorporate it into the Austrian monarchy.***
But even then an attempt was made to bring about a peaceful arrangement,
and a deputation was sent to the generals of the perjured dynasty. This
house in its blind self-confidence, refused to enter into any
negotiation, and dared to demand an unconditional submission from the
nation. The deputation was further detained, and one of the number, the
former President[*] of the Ministry, was even thrown into prison. Our
deserted capital was occupied, and was turned into a place of execution;
a part of the prisoners of war were there consigned to the axe, another
part were thrown into dungeons, while the remainder were exposed to
fearful sufferings from hunger, and were thus forced to enter the ranks
of the army in Italy.
[Footnote *: Louis Bathyanyi. See Note to p. 6.]
[**]Finally, to reap the fruit of so much perfidy, the Emperor Francis
Joseph dared to call himself King of Hungary, in the manifesto of the
9th of March [1849], wherein he openly declares that he erases the
Hungarian nation from the list of the independent nations of Europe, and
that he divides its territory into five parts, cutting off Transylvania,
Croatia, Slavonia, and Fiume from Hungary, creating at the same time a
principality (vayvodeschaft) for the Servian rebels, and, having
paralyzed the political existence of the country, declares it
incorporated into the Austrian monarchy.
[Footnote **: This paragraph, omitted above, is inserted here, where the
reader will better understand it.]
The measure of the crimes of the Austrian house was, however, filled up,
when, after[*] its defeat, it applied for help to the Emperor of Russia;
and, in spite of the remonstrances and protestations of the Porte, and
of the consuls of the European powers at Bucharest, in defiance of
international rights, and to the endangering of the balance of power in
Europe, caused the Russian troops, stationed at Wallachia, to be led
into Transylvania, for the destruction of the Hungarian nation.
[Footnote *: The Russian army entered Transylvania on January 3d, 1849;
this is the army which was driven out again. But the main Russian armies
were only on the move in April, and took two months longer to enter
Hungary. These were applied for late in March.]
Three months ago we were driven back upon the Theiss; our just arms have
already recovered all Transylvania; Klausenburg, Hermanstadt, and
Kronstadt are taken; one portion of the troops of Austria is driven into
Bukowina; another, together with the Russian force sent to aid them, is
totally defeated, and to the last man obliged to evacuate Transylvania,
and to flee into Wallachia. Upper Hungary is cleared of foes.
The Servian rebellion is further suppressed; the forts of St. Thomas and
the Roman intrenchment have been taken by storm, and the whole country
between the Danube and the Theiss, including the country of Bacs, has
been recovered for the nation.
The commander-in-chief of the perjured house of Austria has himself been
defeated in five consecutive battles, and has with his whole army been
driven back upon and even over the Danube.
Founding a line of conduct upon all these occurrences, and confiding in
the justice of an eternal God, we in the face of the civilized world, in
reliance upon the natural rights of the Hungarian nation, and upon the
power it has developed to maintain them, further impelled by that sense
of duty which urges every nation to defend its existence, do hereby
declare and proclaim in the name of the nation regally represented by
us, the following:--
1st. Hungary, with Transylvania, as legally united with it, and the
possessions and dependencies, are hereby declared to constitute a free,
independent, sovereign state. The territorial unity of this state is
declared to be inviolable, and its territory to be indivisible.
2d. The house of Hapsburg-Lorraine--having by treachery, perjury, and
levying of war against the Hungarian nation, as well as by its
outrageous violation of all compacts, in breaking up the integral
territory of the kingdom, in the separation of Transylvania, Croatia,
Slavonia, Fiume, and its districts, from Hungary--further, by compassing
the destruction of the independence of the country by arms, and by
calling in the disciplined army of a foreign power, for the purpose of
annihilating its nationality, by violation both of the Pragmatic
Sanction and of treaties concluded between Austria and Hungary, on which
the alliance between the two countries depended--is, as treacherous and
perjured, for ever excluded from the throne of the united states of
Hungary and Transylvania, and all their possessions and dependencies,
and are hereby deprived of the style and title, as well as of the
armorial bearings belonging to the crown of Hungary, and declared to be
banished for ever from the united countries and their dependencies and
possessions. They are therefore declared to be deposed, degraded, and
banished for ever from the Hungarian territory.
3d. The Hungarian nation, in the exercise of its rights and sovereign
will, being determined to assume the position of a free and independent
state among the nations of Europe, declares it to be its intention to
establish and maintain friendly and neighbourly relations with those
states with which it was formerly united under the same sovereign, as
well as to contract alliances with all other nations.
4th. The form of government to be adopted for the future will be fixed
by the Diet of the nation.
But until this point shall be decided, on the basis of the foregoing and
received principles which have been recognized for ages, the government
of the united countries, their possessions and dependencies, shall be
conducted on personal responsibility, and under the obligation to render
an account of all acts, by Louis Kossuth, who has by acclamation, and
with the unanimous approbation of the Diet of the nation, been named
Governing President (Gubernator), and the ministers whom he shall
appoint.
And this resolution of ours we proclaim for the knowledge of all nations
of the civilized world, with the conviction that the Hungarian nation
will be received by them among the free and independent nations of the
world, with the same friendship and free acknowledgment of its rights
which the Hungarians proffer to other countries.
We also hereby proclaim and make known to all the inhabitants of the
united states of Hungary and Transylvania, their possessions and
dependencies, that all authorities, communes, towns, and the civil
officers, both in the counties and cities, are completely set free and
released from all the obligations under which they stood, by oath or
otherwise, to the said house of Hapsburg; and that any individual daring
to contravene this decree, and by word or deed in any way to aid or abet
any one violating it, shall be treated and punished as guilty of high
treason. And by the publication of this decree, we hereby bind and
oblige all the inhabitants of these countries to obedience to the
government, now instituted formally, and endowed with all necessary
legal powers.
_Debreczin, April_ 14, 1849.
* * * * *
V.--STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES AND AIMS.
[_Castle Garden, New York, Dec. 6th_.]
After apologies for his weakness through the effects of the sea, Kossuth
continued:--
Citizens! much as I want some hours of rest, much as I need to become
acquainted with my ground, before I enter publicly on matters of
business, I yet took it for a duty of honour to respond at once to your
generous welcome. I have to thank the People, the Congress, and the
Government of the United States for my liberation. I must not try to
express what I felt, when I,--a wanderer,--but not the less the
legitimate official chief of Hungary,--first saw the glorious flag of
the stripes and stars fluttering over my head--when I saw around me the
gallant officers and the crew of the _Mississippi_ frigate--most of
them worthy representatives of true American principles, American
greatness, American generosity. It was not a mere chance which cast the
star-spangled banner around me; it was your protecting will. The United
States of America, conscious of their glorious calling as well as of
their power, declared by this unparalleled act their resolve to become
the protectors of human rights. To see a powerful vessel of America,
coming to far Asia, in order to break the chains by which the mightiest
despots of Europe fettered the activity of an exiled Magyar, whose name
disturbed their sleep--to be restored by such a protection to freedom
and activity--you may well conceive, was intensely felt by me; as indeed
I still feel it. Others _spoke_--you _acted_; and I was free!
You acted; and at this act of yours tyrants trembled; humanity shouted
out with joy; the Magyar nation, crushed, but not broken, raised its
head with resolution and with hope; and the brilliancy of your stars was
greeted by Europe's oppressed millions as the morning star of liberty.
Now, gentlemen, you must be aware how great my gratitude must be. You
have restored me to life--in restoring me to activity; and should my
life, by the blessing of the Almighty, still prove useful to my
fatherland and to humanity, it will be your merit--it will be your work.
May you and your country be blessed for it!
Your generous part in my liberation is taken by the world for the
revelation of the fact, that the United States are resolved not to allow
the despots of the world to trample on oppressed humanity. That is why
my liberation was cheered from Sweden to Portugal as a ray of hope. Even
those nations which most desire my presence in Europe now, have said to
me, "Hasten on, hasten on, to the great, free, rich, and powerful people
of the United States, and bring over its brotherly aid to the cause of
your country, so intimately connected with European liberty;" and here I
stand to plead the cause of common human rights before your great
Republic. Humble as I am, God the Almighty has selected me to represent
the cause of humanity before you. My warrant hereto is written in the
sympathy and confidence of all who are oppressed, and of all who, as
your elder sister the British nation, sympathize with the oppressed. It
is written in the hopes and expectations you have entitled the world to
entertain, by liberating me out of my prison. But it has pleased the
Almighty to make out of my humble self yet another opportunity for a
thing which may prove a happy turning-point in the destinies of the
world. I bring you a brotherly greeting from the people of Great
Britain. I speak not in an official character, imparted by diplomacy
whose secrecy is the curse of the world, but I am the harbinger of the
public spirit of the people, which I witnessed pronouncing itself in the
most decided manner, openly--that the people of England, united to you
with enlightened brotherly love, as it is united in blood--conscious of
your strength as it is conscious of its own, has for ever abandoned
every sentiment of irritation and rivalry, and desires the brotherly
alliance of the United States to secure to every nation the sovereign
right to dispose of itself, and to protect that right against
encroaching arrogance. It desires to league with you against the league
of despots, and with you to stand sponsor at the approaching baptism of
European liberty.
Now, gentlemen, I have stated my position. I am a straightforward man. I
am a republican. I have avowed it openly in monarchical but free
England; and am happy to state that I have lost nothing by this avowal
there. I hope I shall not lose here, in republican America, by that
frankness, which must be one of the chief qualities of every republican.
So I beg leave openly to state the following points: FIRST that I take
it to be duty of honour and principle not to meddle with any
party-question of your own domestic affairs. SECONDLY, I profess my
admiration for the glorious principle of union, on which stands the
mighty pyramid of your greatness. Taking my ground on this
constitutional fact, it is not to a party, but to your united people
that I will confidently address my humble requests. Within the limits
of your laws I will use every honest exertion to gain your effectual
sympathy, and your financial material and political aid for my country's
freedom and independence, and entreat the realization of the hopes which
your generosity has raised. And, therefore, THIRDLY, I frankly state
that my aim is to restore my fatherland to the full enjoyment of her own
independence, which has been legitimately declared, and cannot have lost
its rightfulness by the violent invasion of foreign Russian arms. What
can be opposed to it? The frown of Mr. Hulsemann--the anger of that
satellite of the Czar, called Francis-Joseph of Austria! and the
immense danger (with which some European and American papers threaten
you), lest your minister at Vienna receive his passports, and Mr.
Hulsemann leave Washington, should I be received in my official
capacity? Now, as to your Minister at Vienna, how you can reconcile the
letting him stay there with your opinion of the cause of Hungary, I do
not know; for the present absolutist atmosphere of Europe is not very
propitious to American principles. But as to Mr. Hulsemann, do not
believe that he would be so ready to leave Washington. He has extremely
well digested the caustic words which Mr. Webster has administered to
him so gloriously. I know that your public spirit would never allow any
responsible depository of the executive power to be regulated in its
policy by all the Hulsemanns or all the Francis-Josephs in the world.
But it is also my agreeable conviction that the highminded Government of
the United States shares warmly the sentiments of the people. It has
proved it by executing in a ready and dignified manner the resolution of
Congress on behalf of my liberation. It has proved it by calling on the
Congress to consider how I shall be received, and even this morning I
was honoured by the express order of the Government with an official
salute from the batteries of the United States, in a manner in which,
according to the military rules, only a high official personage can be
greeted.
I came not to your glorious shores to enjoy a happy rest--I came not to
gather triumphs of personal distinction, but as a humble petitioner, in
my country's name, as its freely chosen constitutional leader, to
entreat your generous aid. I have no other claims than those which the
oppressed principle of freedom has to the aid of victorious liberty. If
you consider these claims not sufficient for your active and effectual
sympathy, then let me know at once that the hopes have failed, with
which Europe has looked to your great, mighty, and glorious
Republic--let me know it at once that I may hasten back and say to the
oppressed nations, "Let us fight, forsaken and single-handed, the battle
of Leonidas; let us trust to God, to our right, and to our good sword;
for we have no other help on earth." But if your generous Republican
hearts are animated by the high principle of freedom and of the
community in human destinies,--if you have the will, as undoubtedly you
have the power, to support the cause of freedom against the sacrilegious
league of despotism, then give me some days of calm reflection, to
become acquainted with the ground upon which I stand--let me take kind
advice as to my course--let me learn whether any steps have been already
taken in favour of that cause which I have the honour to represent; and
then let me have a new opportunity to expound before you my humble
request in a practical way.
I confidently hope, Mr. Mayor, the Corporation and Citizens of THE
EMPIRE CITY will grant me a second opportunity. If this be your generous
will, then let me take this for a boon of happier days; and let me add,
with a sigh of thanksgiving to the Almighty God, that Providence has
selected your glorious country to be the pillar of freedom, as it is
already the asylum to oppressed humanity.
I am told that I shall have the high honour to review your patriotic
militia. My heart throbs at the idea of seeing this gallant army
enlisted on the side of freedom against despotism. The world would then
soon be free, and you the saviours of humanity. Citizens of New York, it
is under your protection that I place the sacred cause of freedom and
the independence of Hungary.
* * * * *
VI.--REPLY TO THE BALTIMORE ADDRESS.
[_Dec. 10th_, 1851.]
Mr. Henry P. Brooks, Chairman of the Committee of the Baltimore City
Council, came forward, and after congratulating Kossuth upon his release
from peril, and arrival in America, he presented the following
resolutions of the Council written on parchment:--
IN CITY COUNCIL.
Whereas it is understood that Louis Kossuth, the illustrious Hungarian
patriot and exile, is about seeking an asylum upon our shores; and
whereas it is believed that the city of Baltimore, in common with the
whole people of the United States, feel a deep and abiding interest in
the cause of freedom wherever it is assailed, and entertain the most
sincere regret for the unfortunate condition of Hungary; and whereas, in
the reception of Kossuth, an opportunity is offered of expressing our
sympathy for the cause of Hungarian independence--of recording our
detestation of the unholy coalition by which that gallant people have
been crushed, and of evincing our admiration of the noble conduct of the
Turkish Sultan in refusing to deliver to the despots of Europe that
illustrious exile and patriot whom it is about to be our privilege and
pride to receive, as it befits the chosen people of liberty to receive
one who has so nobly battled and suffered in that sacred cause;
therefore--
_Resolved_, By the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, that we
look to the arrival of Kossuth upon our shores with mingled feelings of
satisfaction and regret--satisfaction that we are enabled to afford a
safe asylum to an illustrious patriot--regret that the cause of liberty
should give birth to such necessity.
_Resolved_, That we sympathize fully with the Hungarians in their
important struggles for Independence, but mindful of that Providence
which crowned our own efforts for liberty with success, trust yet to
behold that glorious future which their noble leader so eloquently
predicts for his beloved country.
_Resolved_, That we regard the alliance with Russia and Austria for
the purpose of crushing the spirit of liberty in Hungary as a fit
accompaniment in the annals of time for the infamous partition of
unfortunate Poland by the same tyrannical powers, each alike worthy of
the execration of the civilized world.
_Resolved_, That we cordially welcome Kossuth and his exiled
companions to the full enjoyment of American liberty and an asylum
beyond the reach of European despotism.
_Resolved_, further, That a Joint Committee of five from each
branch of the City Council be appointed, whose duty it shall be, in
conjunction with the Mayor, in the event of their arrival in our city,
to tender to them appropriate public tokens of our esteem and admiration
for their gallant conduct, as well as of our sympathy for their
sufferings and their cause.
Committee under the last resolution--First Branch: Henry P. Brooke, John
Dukehart, J. Hanson Thomas, David Blanford, John Thomas Morris.
Second Branch: Jacob J. Cohen, W. B. Morris, Hugh A. Cooper, James C.
Ninde, Geo. A. Lovering.
JOHN H. J. JEROME, Mayor.
JOHN S. BROWN, President of First Branch.
HUGH BOLTON, President of Second Branch.
City of Baltimore, State of Maryland, United States of America, Oct. 28,
A.D. 1851.