Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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Allow me to ask, are the United States interested in the laws of
nations? can they permit any interpolation in the code of these laws
without their consent? I am told by some that America had best not
intermeddle with European politics, and that you have always avoided to
meddle with them. But it is not so. Those who make this assertion forget
history--they forget that the United States have always claimed and
asserted the right to have their competent weight and authority about
the maritime law of nations--it was one of your Presidents who held this
emphatic language to the Potentates of Europe:
"_We cannot consent to interpolations in the maritime code of nations
at the mere will and pleasure of other Governments--we deny the right of
any such interpolation, to any one or all the nations of the earth
without our consent--we claim to have a voice in all alterations of that
code_."
Thus spoke the United States, at a time when they were not yet so
powerful as they are now. And they thus spoke not for themselves only,
but for all the nations on earth. And to what purpose did they speak
these words so full of dignity and full of effect? For the maintenance
of the laws of nations, or one part of them, the maritime code.
Dauntless and full of resolution, _they_ alone vindicated natural
rights for every nation on earth, while Europe sacrificed them.
_They_ vindicated for every nation the proud motto they have
emblazoned on their banner--"_Free Trade and Sailors' Rights_," and
_free ships and free goods_:
Now who can any longer charge me that I advance a new policy, with that
precedent before your eyes? Would you be willing to resign, now that you
are powerful, in respect to other parts of the laws of nations, that
which you have boldly taken in respect to one part of them, when you
were yet comparatively weak? Or would you do less for the end than you
have done for the means?
The maritime part of the international code is no end, but only a means
to an end. No ship takes sail for the purpose merely of sailing on the
ocean, but for the purpose of arriving somewhere. The ocean is but the
highway, and not the intended terminus. Russian intervention in Hungary
has blocked up your terminus: and the maritime code would be of no
avail, if the other provisions of international law are to be still
blotted out from the code of nations by Russian ambition. Let the
slightest eruption of the political volcano in Europe take place, and
you will see. You might have seen already during our past struggle, that
your proud principle of "_free ships, free goods_" is a mere
mockery unless the other parts of the laws of nations are also
maintained.
That is what I claim from the young and dauntless nation of America. I
claim that she shall not abandon that position in the proud days of her
power, which she so boldly took in the days of her feebleness. Or are
you already declining? Has your prodigious prosperity weakened instead
of strengthening your nation's nerves? So young! and a Republic! and
already declining! when its opposing principle, Russia, rises so boldly
and so high! Oh, no! God forbid! That would be a sorrowful sight,
fraught with the grief of centuries for all humanity!
* * * * *
XLIX.--RUSSIA AND THE BALANCE OF POWER.
[_Syracuse_.]
At Syracuse, in New York State, Kossuth was received with an address of
the usual cordiality by the ex-Mayor, Harvey Baldwin. Of his ample reply
a portion may here be presented to the reader. After alluding to
Dionysius and Timoleon, he came back to the subject of Russian
interference in Hungary, and declared that he would not appeal to their
passions, but to their calm reason, although he approved of excitement
in a good cause, and at any rate trusted that Truth and Hope would never
be out of fashion at Syracuse. He continued:--
Gentlemen, as the destination of laws in a well-regulated community is
to uphold right, justice, and security of every individual, rich or
poor, powerful or weak, and to protect his life against violence and his
property against the encroachments of fraud and crime--so the
destination of the laws of _nations_ is to secure the independence
even of the smallest States, from the encroachments of the most powerful
ones. Force will prevail instead of right, so long as _all_
independent nations do not unite for the maintenance of those laws upon
which the security of all nations rests.
I say _all_ nations, because weakness is always comparative, not
absolute. A combination of several leagued powers can reduce to the
condition of comparative weakness even the strongest power on earth.
Without the law of nations there is therefore no security for nations.
But the European powers have long ago substituted for the rule of
justice the so-called _balancing system_--that is to say, the
political balance of power among nations. That system is iniquitous, for
it is founded, not upon the national _right_ even of the smallest
nation to be maintained in its independence, but upon the natural
jealousy of the great powers. With this system the independence of the
smallest States is not sure by right and by law, but only depends on the
consideration that the absorption of such smaller States might
aggrandize one of the great powers too much. In this system humanity is
taken for nothing--the mutual jealousy of the powerful is all, and the
implicit guarantee for the security of the weaker ceases, wherever the
powerful can devise a plan of spoliation which leaves the relative
forces of the spoliators the same as before. It is thus the world has
seen the partition of Poland--that most iniquitous--most guilty
spoliation ever witnessed.
The balancing system would have protected Poland from absorption by
_one_ power, but it has not protected it from partition between
these rival powers. Formerly, separate leagues between several States
have been as a protecting barrier against the ambition of a single
powerful oppressor. In the case of Poland, the world saw with
consternation a confederacy of great powers formed to perpetrate those
very acts of spoliation which hitherto had been prevented by similar
means. I therefore am certainly no advocate of this false system of
political balance of power, and I believe the time will come when that
idol will be thrown down from the place which it usurps, and law and
right will be restored to their sovereign sway. But still I may say, it
is an imperious necessity for all the world in general, as also for the
United States, that something should be done to prevent the measureless
territorial aggrandizement of one single power, chiefly when that power
is the mighty antagonist of your own Republic, as indeed Russia is.
I have on many occasions spoken of the necessary antagonism between
despotic Russia and republican America. Allow me here to recapitulate
some facts concerning Russia.
No man familiar with the history of the last hundred years is ignorant
that the Czars of Russia take it for their destiny to rule the world. It
is their hereditary policy, in which they are brought up from generation
to generation, till that infatuation becomes a point of their character.
To come to that aim--Russian preponderance steps forth alike with
protocols, with emissaries, and with war--in two directions westward and
eastward, against Europe and against Asia.
As to Europe, after having completed her arrondisement on the
Baltic--her earnest aim is partly direct conquest, and partly sovereign
preponderance. Direct conquest, so far as the Sclave race is spread;
which the Czars desire to unite under their despotic sceptre. To attain
that end, the house of Romanoff has started the idea of Pansclavism, the
idea of union of the Sclavish nationality under Russian
protectorate.--Protectorate is always the first step which Russia takes
when desiring to conquer.
She has styled that ambitious design the regeneration of the Sclave
nationality; and to blindfold those deluded nations that they may not
see that without independence and freedom no nationality exists, she has
flattered their ambition with the prospect of dominion over the world.
The Latin race had its turn, and the German race had, and now it is the
Sclave race which is called to rule and master the world. Such was the
Satanic temptation of pride, by which Russia advanced in that ambitious
scheme. I will not now speak of the mischief she has succeeded to do in
that respect: I will only mark the fact that the ambition of Russia aims
at the direct dominion of Europe, so far as it is inhabited by the
Sclave race. The slightest knowledge of geography is sufficient to make
it understood that this would be such an accession to the power of
Russia, that, were they united under one man's despotic will, the
independence of the rest of Europe, should even Russia prudently decline
a direct conquest of it, would be but a mockery. The Czar would be
omnipotent over it, as indeed he is near to be already, at least on the
Continent.
Yet, without the conquest of Constantinople, Russia could never carry
the idea of Pansclavism: for in European Turkey a vast stock of the
Sclavonic race dwells, from Bulgaria over Servia and Bosnia down to
Montenegro, and across through Rumelia. Moreover, the conquest of
Constantinople is the hereditary leading idea of Russian policy. Peter,
called the Great, the founder of the Russian Empire, in making it from a
half-Asiatic a European State, bequeathed this policy as a sacred legacy
to all his posterity, in his political testament, which is the Magna
Charta of Russian power and despotism. All his successors have
energetically followed that inherited direction. Alexander movingly
avowed that Constantinople _is the key to his own house_, and his
brother did and does more than all his predecessors to get that key.
When the Empress Catharine visited the recently conquered Krimea,
Potemkin raised to her honour a triumphal arch, with the motto--"Hereby
is the road to Constantinople." Czar Nicholas has since learned that it
is by Vienna, rather. Russia therefore decided to get rid of this
obstacle, and to convert it out of an obstacle into a TOOL. A direct
conquest would have been dangerous, because it would have met the
opposition of all Europe. Russia therefore tried it first by monetary
influence, and had pretty well advanced in it. Metternich himself was a
pensioner to Russia. But the watchful, independent spirit of
constitutional Hungary still hindered the practical result of that
bribery.
And, mark well, gentlemen, in consequence of the geographical situation
of her dominions, and being also sovereigns of Hungary, it was chiefly
the house of Austria which was considered to be and cherished as the
great bulwark against Russia--charged especially with a jealous
guardianship of Turkish rights. And indeed had the house of Austria
comprehended the conditions of her existence, attached Hungary to
herself by respecting her independence and her constitutional rights,
and developed the power of her hereditary dominions, and placed herself
upon a constitutional basis, she could have maintained her respectable
position of guardianship for centuries. Russia was aware of that fact.
It is the intrigue of Russia, which by money and emissaries for years
before infused the notion of Pansclavism among the Bohemians, Poles,
Croats, Serbs, under the crown of Austria, equally as among the Sclave
population of Turkey; which encouraged Austria to attack Hungary, by
promising her aid in case of need. If Austria succeeded, the
constitutional life of Hungary, in many ways so offensive to Russia, was
overthrown: if Austria failed, she became a dependency of Russia. And
by the unwarrantable carelessness of some powers, the complicity of
others, the latter alternative is achieved. Austria, who was to have
_balanced_ Russia, is thrown into her scale: instead of being a
barrier, she is her vanguard, and her tool--her high road to
Constantinople, her auxiliary army to flank it.
It would be not without interest to sketch the history of Russia step by
step, advancing towards that aim by war and by emissaries, and by
diplomatic corruption and corrupted diplomacy, from the time of Mahomet
Baltadji, of cursed memory, through all subsequent wars--at the treaties
of Kutsuk Kaynardje, Balta Liman, Jassy, Bucharest, Ackierman,
Adrianople, Unkhiar Iskelessi, down to the treaty as to the Dardanelles
and the Bosphorus, and to the treaty of commerce which made two-thirds
of Constantinople itself in their daily bread dependent upon Russian
wheat, to the amount of thirty-five millions of piastres a year, while
Turkish wheat was rotting in the stores of Asia Minor. By each of these
treaties Russia advanced its frontiers, and pressed Constantinople more
closely within its iron grasp; with such perseverant consistency
pursuing her aim, that even in other political transactions, apparently
unconnected with Turkey, it was constantly this which she kept in view.
As for instance, at the conference of Tilsit, when she surrendered
continental Europe to the momentary domains of Napoleon, provided Turkey
were consigned to her. And still she did not succeed--and still
Stamboul stands a barrier to her dominion over the world. And why did
she not succeed? Because the European powers, conscious of the fact
that the conquest of Constantinople involves their own submission to
Russia, have in the last instant always prevented it, by uniting to
treat the Eastern question as one of life and death for their own
independence.
The whole Anglo-Saxon race are bound by every consideration of policy to
check the ambitious encroachments of Russia. It is not in Europe only,
but in Asia, that you meet her. She knows that her dominion over the
world must be short, while the Anglo-Saxon race bold a mighty empire in
India. Moreover, you yourselves, by the extension of your territory to
the Pacific Ocean, are drawn by a thousand natural ties of activity to
Asia. Your expedition to Japan has a world of meaning in it. Great
powers _must_ have broad views in their policy: you cannot contain
your activity, nor therefore your policy, within a domestic circle of
your own. You are for the world what Germany is for Europe. As without
the freedom of Hungary, Europe cannot _become_ free, so without the
freedom of Germany, Europe cannot _remain_ free; for Germany is the
heart of Europe. You, by having extended your dominion to the Pacific,
become the heart of the world. You are brought into the compass of
Russian hatred and Russian ambition. Either you or Russia must fall.
The balance of power, and thereby the independence of the world, has
been overthrown by the connivance of the great powers at the overthrow
of Hungary; and it can only be restored by the restoration of Hungary.
As for Austria, she never more can be restored--she is not only doomed,
she is dead. No skill, no tending can revive her. Having previously
broken every tie of affection and of allegiance, she cannot maintain
even a vegetable life, but by Russian aid. Let the reliance upon that
aid relax, and there is no power on earth which could prevent the
nations who groan under her oppressive and degrading tyranny from
shattering to pieces the rotten building of her criminal existence. And
as to my nation, I declare solemnly, that should we be left forsaken and
alone to fight once more the battle of deliverance for the world, and
should we in consequence of it fail in that honourable strife, we will
rather choose to be Russians than subject to the house of
Austria--rather submit to open, manly force of the Czar, than to the
heart-revolting perjury of the Hapsburg--rather be ruled directly by the
master, than submit to the shame of being ruled by his underlings. The
fetters of force may be broken once, but the affection of a morally
offended people to a perjurious dynasty can never be restored. Russia
we hate with inconceivable hatred, but the House of Hapsburg we hate and
we despise.
I have been often asked, what may be, amidst the present conjunctures,
an opportunity to renew our struggle for liberty? and I have answered
that the very oppression of our country, the heroism of my people, our
resolute will, and the intolerable condition of the European Continent,
is an opportunity in itself; but if too cautious men, having too little
faith in the destiny of mankind, desire yet another opportunity, there
is the prospect of a war between Turkey and Russia. This is a fatality,
pointed out by the situation of Russia, and by the pressing motives,
heaped up since the time of Peter the Great: and Russia will hasten to
try the decisive blow, since she knows that Turkey becomes more powerful
every day. Now, gentlemen, that will be an imperious opportunity to
raise once more the standard of freedom in Hungary; and, so may God
bless us, we are prepared for it. We cannot allow that our natural ally,
Turkey, be flanked from the frontiers of Hungary at the order of the
Czar. Turkey, by curious change of circumstances, having become
necessary to European freedom and civilization, will find the kindred
race of the Magyars to aid her, and by aiding her, to save the world.
The only question is, will the United States remain indifferent at the
overthrow of the balance of power on earth? No, they will not, they
cannot remain indifferent. Their position on the coast of the Pacific
answers "No." Their Republican principle answers "No." The voice of the
people, clustering in thundering manifestations around my own humble
self, answer "No." You yourself, Sir, in the name of the people of
Syracuse, which is but one tone in the mighty harmony of all the
people's voice, have told me "No."
Before these assurances, and upon the conditions of your destiny, I
rely; and I venture humbly to advise you to strengthen your fleet in the
Mediterranean. Sir, look for a port of your own, not depending upon the
smiles of petty Italian despots, but one where the stripes and stars of
America will be able to protect the principles of FREE SHIPS, FREE
GOODS. Determine the character of your country's future administration
from a broad American view, and not from any petty considerations of
small party follies. With these humble suggestions I cordially thank you
for your sympathy, and bid you an affectionate farewell!
* * * * *
L.--RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT.
[_Utica._]
At Utica, in New York State, the elegant Saloon of the Museum was
arranged for Kossuth's reception: and the Hon. W. Bacon made a powerful
address to him. Kossuth in the course of his reply, said:--
Ladies and gentlemen,--The history and the institutions of the United
States were not only the favourite study of my life, from my early
youth, strengthening my conviction that with centralization and with
parliamentary omnipotence, which absorb all independence of municipal
life, there is no practical freedom possible:--but the history and
institutions of the United States exerted also a real influence upon the
resolution of my people to resist oppression, and not to shrink before
the dangers and sacrifices of a terrible conflict.
Never yet was there a people against which all the arts of hell had been
combined worse than against the people of Hungary in 1848. Neither
dreaming to attack any, nor suspecting to be attacked, never yet was a
people less prepared for a war of defence, or more surprised by the
danger than my country was.
In those frightful days, when many of the stoutest hearts prepared
mourningly to submit to the imperious necessity, I called Hungary to
arms; and while on the one side I pronounced a curse against those who
would forsake the fatherland, and were willing to bow cowardlike before
a sacrilegious violence, and accept the degradation of servitude,--on
the other side, in order to cheer up the manly resolution of my
countrymen, I pointed to the heart-raising example of your history. And
that history became the guiding star to us, from the lustre of which we
have drawn self-reliance and resolution to bear up against all danger
and all adversities.
But while we on our part readily yielded to the heart-ennobling
influence of your history, we were disappointed in some expectations
which we derived from it. We saw that you were not forsaken in the hour
of need; yet your grievances were by far less heart-stirring than ours,
and should _you_ have failed in the noble enterprize of
independence, such a failure, at that time, would by no means have
teemed with such immediate results of positive mischiefs to the world
outside of you, as every considerate mind might have foreseen from
_our_ fall.
I therefore confess that I trusted to that instruction also of your
history, and hoped that should we prove worthy of the attention of the
world, that attention would not be restricted to a mere looking at our
contest with barren sympathies. But allow me to mention that it was not
from America alone that I hoped our struggle would not be regarded with
indifference: the example of former political transactions in Europe
entitled me to just expectations from other quarters also in that
respect.
When Greece heroically rose to assert its independence, Great Britain,
France, and even Russia herself, interposed together to pacify the two
contending parties, on the basis of the establishment of an independent
Greece. And so very anxious were those great powers to stop the effusion
of blood, that they solemnly declared they would insist upon the
pacification, should even the conflicting parties decline to consent to
the proposed arrangements. And thus Greece took its seat among the
independent States, though that was possible only by reducing the
territory of the Ottoman Empire, the integrity of which was considered
essential to the equilibrium of political power on earth.
Besides, what were those powers which interposed their mediation in
favour of bleeding Greece? It was Russia, despotical as she is: it was
legitimist France, then scarcely to be called constitutional; for it was
before the revolution of 1830: and it was the ministry of Great Britain,
then, if I am not mistaken, a Tory one.
Now was I not entitled with this precedent before my eyes, to hope that
the bloody struggle in Hungary would not be regarded with indifference?
We had not risen from any reckless excitement to assert new rights, or
to experiment on new theories; we should have been contented to keep
what we lawfully possessed. It was not we who broke the peace; we were
assailed with a perjury more sacrilegious than the world has ever
seen:--we merely took up arms to defend ourselves against national
extermination, against the nameless cruelties inflicted upon our
people,--men, women, children,--by fire, murder, war, and royal perjury.
And besides, when we took up arms in legitimate defence, it so happened
that in France there was a republic established which proclaimed the
principle of universal fraternity; and there was in England a ministry
claiming to be liberal, which on a former occasion had solemnly vouched
its word to the British parliament, that _constitutional independence
of any country, great or small, would never be a matter of indifference
to the English government;_ adding emphatically, that _whoever
might be in office, conducting the affairs of Great Britain, he would
not perform his duty if he were inattentive to the interests of such
States._ Am I to blame for having thought that there is and should be
morality in politics?
And besides, there was republican America, quite in another shape than
she was twenty years before, at the time of the war of independence in
Greece. Then she had not yet extended her sway to the Pacific, and was
not yet exposed to be so much affected by the political issues of Europe
and Asia as she now is: then she had not yet a population of more than
twenty millions, who now are in the necessity to claim the position of a
power on earth: then she was indeed a new world teeming with the
mysteries of the future, but yet was far from being what she is to-day;
nay, even the Erie Canal, the great artery which now acts as a
miraculous link between Europe and the interior of your republic, was
only about to be completed at the time. And still what mighty sympathy!
a sympathy warm in expression, and not barren in facts, thrilled through
all America, much like that which I now meet, and pervaded even your
_national_ councils:--would I were entitled to say, much like as
now! Although the question of Greece was of course worthy of all
interest (as the cause of liberty always and everywhere is), yet it was
only an isolated cause, and by no means of such surpassing influence
upon the condition of the world as the cause of Hungary was, and is.
And yet I was disappointed in the expectation which I derived from your
own history, that a just cause will find supporters and never will be
forsaken by all. Oh, we were forsaken, gentlemen! We were forsaken even
at the crisis, when, single-handed, we had defeated our cruel enemy. And
Russia, that personification of despotism, stepped in with its iron
weight, tearing to pieces the law of nations, and overthrowing upon our
ruins the balance of power on earth.