Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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That Russia, if invited, would snatch at the opportunity to gain
preponderance amongst the powers on earth--of this I entertained not the
slightest doubt; but I must confess, I did not believe either that
Austria would claim, or that the other powers of the earth, and chiefly
Great Britain and America, would permit the intervention of Russia. I
could not believe that Austria would resort to this desperate remedy,
because (and it is a remarkable circumstance which I mention now for the
first time) it was Austria which but a few years before, when, in the
transactions with Turkey, the question of foreign interference for the
maintenance of the integrity of the Turkish empire was agitated in the
councils of the world (and from which you of course were excluded, as to
the present day you always yet have been, as if you were nothing but a
patch of earth); yes, it was Austria, which objecting that the guarantee
of interference should be even claimed, pronounced in a solemn
diplomatic note these memorable words:--
_"A State ought never to accept, and still less request, of another
State, a service for which it is unable to offer in return a strict
reciprocity; else by accepting such favour she loses the flower of her
own independence--a State accepting such a favour becomes a mediatized
State: it makes an act of submission to the will of the State which
takes the charge of its defence; this State becomes a protector, and to
be dependent upon a protector is insupportable."_
Thus spoke Austria. How then could I imagine that the same Austria which
thus spoke would accept the degradation of Russian interference? And
should even the house of Austria, ruled by a guilty woman, under the
name of a witless, cruel child, be willing thus to ruin itself; how
could I imagine that England, that America, that the World, would allow
such a preponderance to Russia as makes her almost the mistress over the
world; at least opens the way to become such? No, that indeed I could
not imagine.
And still it was done. We fell, not "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung,"
but still we fell. Well: sad though be our fate, it is but a trial, and
no death. Perhaps it was necessary that the destinies of mankind should
be fulfilled. I have an unbroken faith in Him, the Heavenly Father of
all; the heart of mortal men may break, but what he does, that is well
done.
The ways of Providence are mysterious. The car of destiny goes on
unrestrained, and the weight of its wheels often crushes the happiness
of generations; floods of tears and of blood often mark its track.
Mankind looks up to heaven, and while measuring eternity with the rule
of the passing moment, sometimes despairs of the future, and believes
the sun of Freedom sunk for ever! It is a delusion: it is the folly of
anxiety! Night is the darkest before dawn, and the misfortune of the
moment often leads to the happiness of eternity.
Yes, gentlemen! the ways of Providence are miraculous. Let me cast a
look backwards into the last struggles for freedom in Europe, that their
history may become the book of future, and that, when we perceive the
salutary action of Providence even in our misfortunes, we may be
strengthened in our faith in the future freedom, and that you may see
that for us, down-trodden but not broken, there is full reason to pursue
our way, not only with the resoluteness of duty, but also with the
cheerfulness of a sure success, courageous as strength, untired as
perseverance, unshaken as religious faith, self-sacrificing as maternal
love, cautious as wisdom, but resolute as desperation itself.
But where is the action of Providence visible in the failure of 1848? is
your question. Gentlemen, I will tell you. The continent of Europe was
afflicted with three diseases in 1848--monarchical inclination,
centralization, and the antagonism of nationalities. With such elements
and in such direction, deception was unavoidable, lasting liberty was
not to be achieved.
It was the lot of the peoples to be freed from these diseases, because
God had designed the peoples to freedom and not to deception; therefore
the revolution of 1848 had to fail, but it was still not a mere accident
in history; it was a necessary step in the development of mankind's
destiny, and it will shine for ever in history as a glorious preparation
for the ultimate triumph of liberty, to carry which a positive,
practical direction is necessary. And that now exists.
France, Germany, and Italy are no more to fight for the deception of
monarchical principles, not for the triumph of dynasties, but for
republics. Hungary took this direction already in 1849, by dethroning
the Hapsburgs. France, Germany, and Italy will not follow in the track
of centralization. Hungary never followed it. And the governments may
ally themselves for the oppression of the world's liberty;--they have
already allied themselves--but nations will no more rise in arms against
one another. They will rise, not to dominate, but to be independent and
free. Instead of the antagonism of nationalities, it is now the idea of
the solidarity and fraternity of nations, which is become the character
of our times. And this is to be the source of our success in future;
this explains the fear of the tyrants which manifests itself in such
blind rage. This is the direction which I pursue; this is the secret of
the sympathy of the people, unparalleled yet in history, which I met in
both hemispheres, and of the coalition of despots, aristocrats, and
ambitious intriguers, to persecute me.
I hope, gentlemen, with these considerations before your eyes, you will
not share in the opinions of those who despair of the cause of freedom
in Europe, because the revolution of 1848 has failed.
* * * * *
LI.--THE TRIPLE BOND.
[_Address before the German Citizens of New York_.]
At the Broadway Tabernacle, on Wednesday evening, Kossuth delivered a
farewell address, before the German citizens of New York. It was spoken
in the German language, and was received with the hearty plaudits of an
immense assemblage. A small portion only of it can here find place.
Dear friends,--Allow me to address you with this sweet name of brotherly
love, hallowed by deep feeling, by the power of principles, and by the
combination of circumstances,--but likewise weighty in regard to the
determination linked to it in my grateful heart, in life as in death, to
serve the cause faithfully which you honour by such generously noble
sympathy.
To me this moment is one of solemn importance. I stand at the close of
my wanderings in America. My words are those of farewell.
In these six months I have been enriched by many an experience. I had
much to unlearn, but I have likewise learnt much.
Whatever be the result of my exertions, so much is sure, that they have
linked more closely the hearts of the Germans and Hungarians, and have
matured the instinct of solidarity into self-conscious conviction. This
result alone is worth a warm utterance of thanks; it will heavily weigh
in the future of the world.
And this result, dear friends, is it not achieved? The hearts of the
German and the Hungarian are linked more closely; they throb like the
hearts of twins which have rested under the same mother's breast; they
throb like the hearts of brothers, who, hand in hand, attain the baptism
of blood; they throb like the hearts of two comrades, on the eve of the
battle, decided to hold together like the blade and the handle.
The echo of this harmony of German song fills yet the air of this hall;
it thrills yet through the soul of the ladies and through the bosom of
the resolute men. Let the word harmony between the Germans and
Hungarians be the consecration of the present moment, which melts
together our feelings, in order that, self-conscious of the sublime aim,
which unites our nations and us all in brotherhood, we may unite in
intention, unite in resolution, unite in endurance, unite in activity
for the aim which fills your souls and mine.
And what is this aim which thrills through our bosoms like a magnetic
current? The aim is the solidarity and independence of nations;--the
freedom of our people--their liberation from the yoke of tyranny.
With this aim before my eyes and decided resolution in my heart, I feel
here amidst you as Werner Stauffacher felt, when, in the hour of the
night, on the Ruettli, God above him and the sword in his hand, he made
the covenant with his two friends against tyrannical Austria.
Let this meeting here become the symbol of a similar covenant; three[*]
were the men who made it, and Switzerland became free. Let us three
nations make a similar covenant, and the world becomes free. Germany,
Hungary, and Italy! hurrah for the new Ruettli-covenant! God increase the
number of them, as he increased the number of those on the Ruettli, and
our triune band, strong in itself, will readily greet every one, and
meet him as a brother, having the same rights in the great council of
the Amphictyons, where the nations will give their verdict against
tyrants and tyranny, on the battle-field, with the thunder of the
cannons and the clashing of swords; and will put the independence of
every nation under the common guarantee of all, in order that every one
of them may regulate her own domestic affairs, without foreign
interference, and every people may govern itself, not acknowledging any
master but the Almighty. They, will increase the members of this
covenant, but Germany, Hungary, and Italy, they are neighbours, and have
the same enemy. Hurrah! for the new covenant of Stauffacher!
[Footnote *: Werner Stauffacher, Walter Fuerst, and Arnold of the Melchthal;
November 11th, 1307.]
Now, by the God who led my people from the prairies of far Asia to the
banks of the Danube--of the Danube, whose waves have brought religion,
science, and civilization from Germany to us, and in whose waves the
tears of Germany and Hungary are mingled; by the God who led us, when on
the soil watered by our blood we were the bulwark of Christendom; by the
God who gave strength to our arm in the struggle for freedom, until our
oppressor, this godless House, which weighed so heavily on the liberties
of Germany for centuries, was humbled, and sunk down to be the underling
of the Muscovite Czar; by the ties of common oppression which tortures
our nation--by the ties of the same love of liberty, and of the same
hatred of tyranny which boils in the veins of our people--by the
remembrance of the day[*] when the Germans of Vienna rose to bar the way
toward Hungary against the hirelings of despotism--and by the blood
which flowed on the plain of Schwechat[**] from Hungarian hearts for the
deliverance of Vienna; by the Almighty Eye which watches the fate of
mankind--by all these, I pledge myself, I pledge that the people of
Hungary will keep this covenant honestly, faithfully, and truly, in life
and death.
[Footnote *: October 5th, 1848]
[Footnote **: October 30th, 1848]
I tender the brother-hand of Hungary to the German people, because I am
convinced that it is essentially necessary for the freedom and
independence of my country. Destined as we are to be the vanguard of
freedom, I know well that as long as Germany remains enslaved, even the
victory of our liberty would remain insecure; as long as Germany remains
an army, whose power is wielded by the criminal hand of the house of
Hapsburg; as long as Russia has nothing to fear from Germany, because
the two masters of Germany are but underlings of Russia--obeying the
command of their master, because he maintains them on their tottering
thrones against their own people; so long Russia will always have the
arrogance to throw her despotic sword into the scale against the freedom
of the world.
I am not the first who say it, that the freedom of Germany is the
condition of the liberty of the world; history tells it with a thousand
tongues, every statesman acknowledges it, and all the despots know it.
Twenty years past, when the German Princes recovered from the stunning
blow of the July Revolution, by finding out that LOUIS PHILIPPE was not
in earnest with his phrases of liberty, when, in the year 1832, they
united to enslave the German people, and to retract the concessions
which they had given in the fright of their hearts; when they curtailed
all the Constitutional guarantees, then HENRY LYTTON BULWER, the same
who was Ambassador in Washington during the last year, rose in the
English Parliament, and claimed that England should not permit the
liberty and independence of the German people to be crushed. He claimed
the attention of the world to the great truths that _the peace of
Europe cannot be secured without a strong Germany, and that Germany
cannot be strong without freedom._ A free Germany is a bulwark
against the encroachments of France and the arrogance of Russia.
Germany enslaved, is either the prey of the former or the tool of the
other. His prophecy is fulfilled; Germany is become half the prey and
wholly the tool of Russia. Who then can calculate on security and peace
and freedom, as long as Germany is thus enslaved.
You see, dear friends, that the brotherly union with Germany must be of
sacred importance to me, and that my heart must beat as fervently for
Germany's freedom, as for that of my own people. Therefore, I
necessarily wished to bequeath the care of the seed which I have sown,
to men urged to this task of love, not only by enlightened American
patriotism--not only by the conscience of right and duty and prudence,
but likewise especially by love for their old German fatherland. And do
I not express only the sentiments of your own hearts, when I say, "The
German may wander from his father's house, and may build for himself a
new home in a distant country, yet he ever loves truly and faithfully
his own old German fatherland"?
I request you to exert your influence, that the idea of the solidarity
of the struggle for European liberty may be well understood, and that
preparations be made to support the revolution, whenever it breaks out.
There is nothing more dangerous than to say: "The Hungarian, the
Italian, or the German fights; let us see whether he succeeds; if he
succeeds, we too will try the same." By the isolation of the nations the
combined despots become victorious. Let everybody support Liberty,
wherever she struggles. But, on the other side, the forces of the
revolution cannot so pledge and tie themselves, as to be thrown into the
abyss by every ill-combined premature outbreak. _Not an_ "EMEUTE,"
_but a_ REVOLUTION _is our aim_; and therefore the leaders of
the movement of the different nations must combine either in a
simultaneous outbreak, or to mutual support; and in this combination
there must be absolute freedom and equality.
There are persons in this country who did me the honour to mention that
I would lead the German movement. No! gentlemen; that would be a
presumptuous arrogance, even if it were practical, which it is not. This
idea itself is the most antagonistical to my principles. No!--No! No
foreign interference with the domestic affairs of a nation. I will not
bear it in Hungary, nor obtrude it abroad. Full independence is my
watchword.
But you will ask who are, or who were, the leaders of Germany, with whom
I still combine? The question is easily answered; you will acknowledge
them from their works. Whoever comes to tender me his hand as a
confederate, I do not ask who he is, where he comes from?--but I ask,
"What do you weigh? what power do you command? what forces have you
organized? or what are your prospects or means of organization?" and
then I inquire into the truth myself. I judge the vitality of the
intention, and accept or decline the proffered brotherly alliance of
mutual support.
This is my way. I do not think that Germany will ever combine under the
leadership of one man; but there are many Germans in the different parts
of Germany who enjoy the confidence of their countrymen, and have a
leading influence. Every one of these can act in his sphere. I, my
friends, will be always ready to combine with every one who does, and
who has some forces to tender to the league. I do not care for names,
for petty party disputes, or for those which belong to the domestic
questions.
[Kossuth proceeded, in assent to a special request, to give his advice
as to the method of proceeding suitable to the German voters in America;
and closed by saying:]
Those are the principles, my dear friends, which should lead you,
according to my humble opinion, in the present crisis. And if you take
into kind consideration my bequest, and exert your influence and active
aid on behalf of the movement for freedom in Europe, I can but assure
you, for my grateful farewell, that there are hundreds of thousands in
Europe who take those words for their device, which the other day, the
German singers sang, as if from the depth of my heart.
"And never shall rest the shield and the spear,
Till destroyed we see, and laid in the dust,
The enemies all."
May God help me! This is my oath, and this oath my farewell!
* * * * *
LII.--THE FUTURE OF NATIONS.
[_A Lecture in New York_.]
The following Lecture was delivered at the Broadway Tabernacle by
request of a large number of ladies and gentlemen of New York, for the
purpose of obtaining the means necessary to secure to the exiled family
of Kossuth, consisting of his aged mother, his sisters and their
children, an establishment by which they might earn an independent
livelihood.
The New York 'Evening Post' says of the Lecture:--
"Kossuth appears nowhere greater than in this able discourse. His
comprehensive politics, his beautiful sympathies, his power over
language, his poetic imagination, his magnetic and melting earnestness
of purpose, are blended with that depth of religious feeling which gives
to his character as a patriot the sanctity and unction of the prophet.
His moral and intellectual faculties are shown in harmony, working out
the great and beneficent purposes of his commanding will.
"It would be difficult to select any portion of this speech as better
than another, and we therefore commend the whole to the reader's careful
examination."
Ladies and gentlemen,--During six months I appeared many times before
the tribunal of public opinion in America. This evening I appear before
you in the capacity of a working man. My aged mother, tried by more
sufferings than any living being on earth, and my three sisters, one of
them a widow with two fatherless orphans, together a homeless family of
fourteen unfortunate souls, have been driven by the Austrian tyrant from
their home, that Golgotha of murdered right, that land of the oppressed,
but also of undesponding braves, and the land of approaching revenge.
When Russian violence, aided by domestic treason, succeeded to
accomplish what Austrian perjury could not achieve, and I with bleeding
heart went into exile, my mother and all my sisters were imprisoned by
Austria; but it having been my constant maxim not to allow to whatever
member of my family any influence in public affairs, except that I
intrusted to the charitable superintending of my youngest sister the
hospitals of the wounded heroes, as also to my wife the cares of
providing for the furniture of these hospitals, not even the foulest
intrigues could contrive any pretext for the continuation of their
imprisonment. And thus when diplomacy succeeded to fetter my patriotic
activity by the internation to far Asia, after some months of unjust
imprisonment, my mother and sisters and their family have been released;
and though surrounded by a thousand spies, tortured by continual
interference with their private life, and harassed by insulting police
measures, they had at least the consolation to breathe the native air,
to see their tears falling upon native soil, and to rejoice at the
majestic spirit of our people, which no adversities could bend and no
tyranny could break.
But at last by the humanity of the Sultan, backed by American
generosity, seconded by England, I once more was restored to personal
freedom, and by freedom to activity. Having succeeded to escape the
different snares and traps which I unexpectedly met, I considered it my
duty publicly to declare that the war between Austrian tyranny and the
freedom of Hungary is not ended yet, and swore eternal resistance to the
oppressors of my country, and declared that, faithful to the oath sworn
solemnly to my people, I will devote my life to the liberation of my
fatherland. Scarcely reached the tidings of this my after resolution the
bloody Court of Vienna, than two of my sisters were again imprisoned; my
poor old mother escaping the same cruelty only on account that bristling
bayonets of the bloodhounds of despotism, breaking in the dead of night
upon the tranquil house, and the persecution of my sisters, hurried away
out of Hungary to the prisons of Vienna, threw her in a half-dying
condition upon a sick bed. Again no charge could be brought against the
poor prisoners, because, knowing them in the tiger's den, and surrounded
by spies, I not only did not communicate any thing to them about my
foreign preparations and my dispositions at home, but have expressly
forbidden them to mix in any way with the doings of patriotism.
But tyrants are suspicious. You know the tale about Marcius. He dreamt
that he cut the throat of Dionysius the tyrant, and Dionysius condemned
him to death, saying that he would not have dreamt such things in the
night if he had not thought of it by day. Thus the Austrian tyrant
imprisoned my sisters, because he suspected that, being my sisters, they
must be initiated in my plans. At last, after five months of
imprisonment, they were released, but upon the condition that they, as
well as my mother and all my family, shall leave our native land. Thus
they became exiles, homeless, helpless, poor. I advised them to come to
your free country--the asylum of the oppressed, where labour is
honoured, and where they must try to live by their honest work.
They followed my advice, and are on their way; but my poor aged mother
and my youngest sister, the widow with the two orphans, being stopped by
dangerous sickness at Brussels, another sister stopped with them to
nurse them. The rest of the family is already on the way--in a sailing
ship of course, I believe, and not in a steamer. We are poor. My mother
and sisters will follow so soon as their health permits.
I felt the duty to help them in their first establishment here. For this
I had to work, having no means of my own.
Some generous friends advised me to try a lecture for this purpose, and
I did it. I will not act the part of crying complainants about our
misfortunes; we will bear them. Let me at once go to my task.
* * * * *
There is a stirring vitality of busy life about this your city of New
York, striking with astonishment the stranger's mind. How great is the
progress of Humanity! Its steps are counted by centuries, and yet while
countless millions stand almost at the same point where they stood, and
some even have declined since America first emerged out of an unexplored
darkness which had covered her for thousands of years, like the gem in
the sea; while it is but yesterday a few pilgrims landed on the wild
coast of Plymouth, flying from causeless oppression, seeking but for a
place of refuge and of rest, and for a free spot in the wilderness to
adore the Almighty in their own way; still, in such a brief time,
shorter than the recorded genealogy of the noble horse of the wandering
Arab; yes, almost within the turn of the hand, out of the unknown
wilderness a mighty empire arose, broad as an ocean, solid as a
mountain-rock, and upon the scarcely rotted roots of the primitive
forest, proud cities stand, teeming with boundless life, growing like
the prairie's grass in spring, advancing like the steam-engine, baffling
time and distance like the telegraph, and spreading the pulsation of
their life-tide to the remotest parts of the world; and in those cities
and on that broad land a nation, free as the mountain air, independent
as the soaring eagle, active as nature, and powerful as the giant
strength of millions of freemen.
How wonderful! What a present--and what a future yet!
Future?--then let me stop at this mysterious word--the veil of
unrevealed eternity!
The shadow of that dark word passed across my mind, and amid the bustle
of this gigantic bee-hive, there I stood with meditation alone.
And the spirit of the immovable Past rose before my eyes, unfolding the
misty picture-rolls of vanished greatness, and of the fragility of human
things.
And among their dissolving views, there I saw the scorched soil of
Africa, and upon that soil Thebes with its hundred gates, more splendid
than the most splendid of all the existing cities of the world; Thebes,
the pride of old Egypt, the first metropolis of arts and sciences, and
the mysterious cradle of so many doctrines which still rule mankind in
different shapes, though it has long forgotten their source. There I saw
Syria with its hundred cities, every city a nation, and every nation
with an empire's might. Baalbec, with its gigantic temples, the very
ruins of which baffle the imagination of man, as they stand like
mountains of carved rocks in the desert where for hundreds of miles not
a stone is to be found, and no river flows, offering its tolerant back
to carry a mountain's weight upon, and yet there they stand, those
gigantic ruins; and as we glance at them with astonishment, though we
have mastered the mysterious elements of nature, and know the
combination of levers, and how to catch the lightning, and to command
the power of steam and of compressed air, and how to write with the
burning fluid out of which the thunderbolt is forged, and how to drive
the current of streams up the mountain's top, and how to make the air
shine in the night like the light of the sun, and how to dive to the
bottom of the deep ocean, and how to rise up to the sky--though we know
all this, and many things else, still, looking at the temples of
Baalbec, we cannot forbear to ask what people of giants was that, which
could do what neither the efforts of our skill nor the ravaging hand of
unrelenting time can undo, through thousands of years. And then I saw
the dissolving picture of Nineveh, with its ramparts now covered with
mountains of sand, where Layard is digging up colossal winged bulls,
huge as a mountain, and yet carved with the nicety of a cameo; and then
Babylon, with its wonderful walls; and Jerusalem, with its unequalled
temple; Tyrus, with its countless fleets; Arad, with its wharves; and
Sidon, with its labyrinth of work-shops and factories; and Ascalon, and
Gaza, and Beyrout, and farther off Persepolis, with its world of
palaces.