Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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All these passed before my eyes as they have been, and again they passed
as they now are, with no trace of their ancient greatness, but here and
there a ruin, and everywhere the desolation of tombs. With all their
splendour, power, and might, they vanished like a bubble, or like the
dream of a child, leaving but for a moment a drop of cold sweat upon the
sleeper's brow, or a quivering smile upon his lips; then, this wiped
away, dream, sweat, smile--all is nothingness.
So the powerful cities of the ancient greatness of a giant age; their
very memory but a sad monument of the fragility of human things.
And yet, proud of the passing hour's bliss, men speak of the future, and
believe themselves insured against its vicissitudes!
And the spirit of history rolled on the misty shapes of the past before
the eyes of my soul. After those cities of old came the nations of old.
The Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the war-like Philistines, the commercial
republics of Phoenicia and the Persians, ruling from the Indus to the
Mediterranean, and Egypt becoming the centre of the universe, after
having been thousands of years ago the cradle of its civilization.
Where is the power, the splendour, and the glory of all those mighty
nations? All has vanished without other trace than such as the foot of
the wanderer leaves upon the dust.
And still men speak of the future with proud security!
And yet they know that Carthage is no more, though it ruled Spain, and
ruled Africa beyond the pillars of Hercules down to Cerne, an immense
territory, blessed with all the blessings of nature, which Hannon filled
with flourishing cities, of which now no trace remains.
And men speak of the future, though they know that such things as heroic
Greece once did exist, glorious in its very ruins, and a source of
everlasting inspiration in its immortal memory.
Men speak of the future, and still they can rehearse the powerful
colonies issued from Greece, and the empires their heroic sons have
founded. And they can mark out with a finger on the map, the
unparalleled conquests of Alexander; how he crossed victoriously that
desert whence Semiramis, out of a countless host, brought home but
twenty men; and Cyrus, out of a still larger number, only seven men. But
he (Alexander) went on in triumph, and conquered India up to the
Hydaspes as he conquered before Tyrus and Egypt, and secured with
prudence what he had conquered with indomitable energy.
And men speak of the future, though they know that such a thing did
exist as Rome, the Mistress of the World--Rome rising from atomic
smallness to immortal greatness, and to a grandeur absorbing the
world--Rome, now having all her citizens without, and now again having
all the world within her walls; and passing through all the vicissitudes
of gigantic rise, wavering decline, and mournful fall. And men speak of
the future still with these awful monuments of fragility before their
eyes!
But it is the sad fate of Humanity that, encompassing its hopes, fears,
contentment, and wishes, within the narrow scope of momentary
satisfaction, the great lesson of history is taught almost in vain.
Whatever be its warnings, we rely on our good fortune; and we are
ingenious in finding out some soothing pretext to lull down the dreadful
admonitions of history. Man, in his private capacity, consoles the
instinctive apprehension of his heart with the idea that his condition
is different from what warningly strikes his mind. The patriot feels
well, that not only the present, but also the future of his beloved
country, has a claim to his cares; but he lulls himself into
carelessness by the ingenious consolation that the condition of his
country is different--that it is not obnoxious to those faults which
made other countries decline and fall; that the time is different; the
character and spirit of the nation are different, its power not so
precarious, and its prosperity more solid; and that, therefore, it will
not share the same fate of those which vanished like a dream. And the
philanthropist, also, whose heart throbs for the lasting welfare of all
humanity, cheers his mind with the idea that, after all, mankind at
large is happier than it was of yore, and that this happiness ensures
the future against the reverses of olden times.
That fallacy, natural as it may be, is a curse which weighs heavily on
us. Let us see in what respect our age is different from those olden
times. Is mankind more virtuous than it has been of yore? Why, in this
enlightened age, are we not looking for virtuous inspirations to the
god-like characters of these olden times? If we take virtue to be love
of the laws, and of the Fatherland, dare we say that our age is more
virtuous? If that man is to be called virtuous, who, in all his acts,
is but animated by a regard to the common good, and who, in every case,
feels ready to subordinate his own selfish interest to public
exigencies--if that be virtue (as indeed it is), I may well appeal to
the conscience of mankind to give an impartial verdict upon the
question, if our age be more virtuous than the age of Codrus or of
Regulus, of Decius and of Scaevola. Look to the school of Zeno, the
stoics of immortal memory; and when you see them contemning alike the
vanity of riches and the ambition of personal glory, impenetrable to the
considerations of pleasure and of pain, occupied only to promote public
welfare and to fulfil their duties toward the community; when you see
them inspired in all their acts by the doctrine that, born in a society,
it is their duty to live for the benefit of society; and when you see
them placing their own happiness only upon the happiness of their
fellow-men--then say if our too selfish, too material age can stand a
comparison with that olden period. When you remember the politicians of
ancient Greece, acknowledging no other basis for the security of the
commonwealth than virtue, and see the political system of our days
turning only upon manufactures, commerce, and finances, will you say
that our age is more virtuous? When, looking to your own country--the
best and happiest, because the freest of all--you will not dissimulate
in your own mind what considerations influence the platforms of your
political parties; and then in contra-position will reflect upon those
times when Timon of Athens, chosen to take part in his country's
government, assembled his friends and renounced their friendship, in
order that he might not be tempted by party considerations or by
affections of amity, in his important duties toward the commonwealth.
Then, having thus reflected, say, "Take you our own age to be more
virtuous, and therefore more ensured against the reverses of fortune,
than those older times?"
But perhaps there is a greater amount of private happiness, and by the
broad diffusion of private welfare, the security of the commonwealth is
more lasting and more sure?
Caraccioli, having been ambassador in England, when returned to Italy,
said, "that England is the most detestable country in the world, because
there are to be found twenty different sorts of religion, but only two
kinds of sauces with which to season meat."
There is a point in that questionable jest. Materialism! curse of our
age! Who can seriously speak about the broad diffusion of happiness in a
country where contentment is measured according to how many kinds of
sauces we can taste? My people is by far not the most material. We are
not much given to the cupidity of becoming rich. We know the word
"enough." The simplicity of our manners makes us easily contented in our
material relations; we like rather to be free than to be rich; we look
for an honourable profit, that we may have upon what to live; but we
don't like to live for the sake of profit; augmentation of property and
of wealth with us is not the aim of our life--we prefer tranquil,
independent mediocrity to the incessant excitement and incessant toil of
cupidity and gain. Such is the character of my nation; and yet I have
known a countryman of mine who blew out his brains because he had no
means more to eat daily _pates de foi gras_ and drink champagne.
Well, that was no Hungarian character, but, though somewhat
eccentrically, he characterized the leading feature of our century.
Indeed, are your richest money-kings happier than Fabricius was, when he
preferred his seven acres of land, worked by his own hands, to the
treasures of an empire? Are the ladies of to-day, adorned with all the
gorgeous splendour of wealth, of jewels, and of art, happier than those
ladies of ancient Rome have been, to whom it was forbidden to wear silk
and jewelry, or drive in a carriage through the streets of Rome? Are the
ladies of to-day happier in their splendid parlours, than the Portias
and the Cornelias have been in the homely retirement of their modest
nurseries? Nay; all that boundless thirst of wealth, which is the ruling
spirit of our age, and the moving power of enterprising energy, all this
hunting after treasures, and all its happiest results, have they made
men nobler, better, and happier? Have they improved their soul, or even
their body and their health, at least so much that the richest of men
could eat and digest two dinners instead of one? Or has the insatiable
thirst of material gain originated a purer patriotism? has it made
mankind more devoted to their country, more ready to sacrifice for
public interest? If that were the case, then I would gladly confess the
error of my doubts, and take the pretended larger amount of happiness
for a guarantee of the future of the commonwealth. But, ladies and
gentlemen! a single word--the manner in which we use it, distorting its
original meaning, often characterizes a whole century. You all know the
word "_idiot_;" almost every living language has adopted it, and
all languages attach to it the idea that an "idiot" is a poor, ignorant,
useless wretch, nearly insane. Well, "idiot" is a word of Greek
extraction, and meant with the Greek a man who cared nothing for the
public interest, but was all devoted to the selfish pursuit of private
profit, whatever might have been its results to the community. Oh! what
an immense, what a deplorable change must have occurred in the character
of Humanity, till unconsciously we came to the point, that by what name
the ancient Greeks would have styled those European money-kings, who,
for a miserable profit, administer to the unrelenting despots their
eternal loans, to oppress nations with, we now apply that very name to
the wretched creatures incapable to do any thing for themselves. We bear
compassion for the idiots of to-day, but the modern editions of Greek
idiotism, though loaded with the bloody scars of a hundred thousand
orphans, and with the curse of millions, stand high in honour, and go
on, proudly glorying in their criminal idiotism, heaping up the gold of
the world.
But I may be answered, after all, though our age be not so virtuous, and
though the large accumulation in wealth has in reality not made mankind
happier; still, it cannot be denied, you are in a prosperous condition,
and prosperity is a solid basis of your country's future. Industry,
navigation, commerce, have so much developed, they have formed so many
ties by which every citizen is linked to his country's fate, that your
own material interest is a security to your country's future.
In loving your own selves you love your country, and in loving your
country you love your own selves. This community of public and private
interest will make you avoid the stumbling-block over which others fell.
Prosperity is, of course, a great benefit; it is one of the aims of
human society; but when prosperity becomes too material, it does not
always guarantee the future. Paradoxical as it may appear, too much
prosperity is often dangerous, and some national misfortune is now and
then a good preservative of prosperity. For great prosperity makes
nations careless of their future; seeing no immediate danger, they
believe no danger possible; and then when a danger comes, either by
sudden chance or by the slow accumulation of noxious elements, then,
frightened by the idea that in meeting the danger their private property
might be injured or lost, selfishness often prevails over patriotism,
and men become ready to submit to arrogant pretensions, and compromise
with exigencies at the price of principles, and republics flatter
despots, and freemen covet the friendship and indulgence of tyrants,
only that things may go on just as they go, though millions weep and
nations groan; but still, things should go on just as they go, because
every change may claim a sacrifice, or affect our thriving private
interest. Such is often the effect of too great, of too secure
prosperity. Therefore, prosperity alone affords yet no security.
You remember the tale of Polycrates. He was the happiest of men; good
luck attended every one of his steps; success crowned all he undertook,
and a friend thus spoke to him: "Thou art too happy for thy happiness to
last. Appease the anger of the Eumenides by a voluntary sacrifice, or
deprive thyself of what thou most valuest among all that thou
possessest." Polycrates obeyed, and drew from his finger a precious
jewel, of immense value, dear to his heart, and threw it into the sea.
Soon after a fish was brought to his house, and his cook found the
precious ring in the belly of the fish; but the friend who advised him
hastened to flee from the house, and shook the dust of its threshold
from his shoes, because he feared a great mischief must fall upon that
too prosperous house. There is a deep meaning in that tale of
Polycrates.
Machiavel says, that it is now and then necessary to recall the
constituting essential principles to the memory of nations. And who is
charged by Providence with this task? Misfortune! It was the battles of
Cannae and of Thrasymene which recalled the Romans to the love of their
fatherland; nations had till now, about such things, no other teacher
than misfortune. They should choose to have a less afflicting one. They
can have it. To point this out will be the final object of my remarks,
but so much is certain, that prosperity alone is yet no security for the
future, even of the happiest commonwealth. Those ancient nations have
been also prosperous. They were industrious, as your nation is; their
land has been covered with cities and villages, well-cultivated fields,
blessed with the richest crops, and crowded with countless herds spread
over immense territories, furrowed with artificial roads; their
flourishing cities swarmed with artists, and merchants, and workmen, and
pilots, and sailors, like as New York does. Their busy labourers built
gigantic water-works, digged endless canals, and carried distant waters
through the sands of the desert; their mighty, energetic spirit built
large and secure harbours, dried the marshy lakes, covered the sea with
vessels, the land with living beings, and spread a creation of life and
movement along the earth. Their commerce was broad as the known world.
Tyre exchanged its purple for the silk of Serica; Cashmere's soft
shawls, to-day yet a luxury of the wealthiest, the diamonds of Golconda,
the gorgeous carpets of Lydia, the gold of Ophir and Saba, the aromatic
spices and jewels of Ceylon, and the pearls and perfumes of Arabia, the
myrrh, silver, gold dust, and ivory of Africa, as well as the amber of
the Baltic and the tin of Thule, appeared alike in their commerce,
raising them in turn to the dominion of the world, and undoing them by
too careless prosperity. The manner and the shape of one or the other
art, of one or other industry, has changed; the steam-engine has
replaced the rowing-bench, and cannon replaced the catapult; but, as a
whole, even your country, which you are proud to hear styled "the living
wonder of the world"--yes, even your country in the New World, and
England in the Old--England, that gigantic workshop of industry,
surrounded with a beautiful evergreen garden; yes, all the dominions of
the Anglo-Saxon race, can claim no higher praise of its prosperity, than
when we say, that you have reproduced the grandeur of those ancient
nations, and nearly equal their prosperity. And what has become of them?
A sad skeleton. What remains of their riches, of their splendour, and
of their vast dominions? An obscure recollection; a vain memory. Thus
fall empires; thus vanish nations, which have no better guardians than
their prosperity. But "we have," will you say, "we have a better
guardian--our freedom, our republican institutions; our confederation
uniting so many glorious stars into one mighty galaxy--these are the
ramparts of our present, these our future security."
Well, it would ill become me to investigate if there be nothing "rotten
in the state of Denmark," and certainly I am not the man who could feel
inclined to undervalue the divine power of liberty; to underrate the
value of your democratic institutions, and the vitality of your glorious
Union. It is to them I look in the solitary hours of meditation, and
when, overwhelmed with the cares of the patriot, my soul is groaning
under nameless woes, it is your freedom's sunny light which dispels the
gloomy darkness of despondency; here is the source whence the
inspiration of hope is flowing to the mourning world, that down-trodden
millions at the bottom of their desolation still retain a melancholy
smile upon their lips, and still retain a voice in their bleeding chest,
to thank the Almighty God that the golden thread of freedom is not yet
lost on earth. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, all this I feel, and all this
I know, reflecting upon your freedom, your institutions, and your Union;
but casting back my look into the mirror of the past, there I see upon
mouldering ground, written with warning letters, the dreadful truth,
that all this has nothing new; all this has been; and all this has never
yet been proved sufficient security. Freedom is the fairest gift of
Heaven; but it is not the security of itself. Democracy is the
embodiment of freedom, which in itself is but a principle. But what is
the security of democracy? And if you answer, "The Union is;" then I
ask, "And where is the security of the Union?" Yes, ladies and
gentlemen, Freedom is no new word. It is as old as the world. Despotism
is new, but Freedom not. And yet it has never yet proved a charter to
the security of nations. Republic is no new word. It is as old as the
word "Society." Before Rome itself, republics absorbed the world. There
were in all Europe, Africa and Asia Minor, but republics to be found,
and many among them democratic. Men had to wander to far Persia if they
would have desired to know what sort of thing a monarch is. And all they
have perished; the small ones by foreign power, the large ones by
domestic vice. And union, and confederacy, the association of
societies--a confederate republic of republics, is also no new
invention. Greece has known it and flourished by it, for a while. Rome
has known it; by such associations she attacked the world. The world has
known them; with them it defended itself against Rome. The so-called
Barbarians of Europe, beyond the Danube and the Rhine, have known it; it
was by a confederacy of union that they resisted the ambitious mistress
of the world. Your own country, America, has known it; the traditionary
history of the Romans of the West, of those six Indian Nations, bears
the records of it, out of an older time than your ancestors settled in
this land; the wise man of the Onondaga Nation has exercised it long
before your country's legislators built upon that basis your independent
home. And still it proved in itself alone no security to all those
nations who have known it before you. Your own fathers have seen the
last of the Mohawks burying his bloody tomahawk in the namesake flood,
and have listened to the majestic words of Logan, spoken with the
dignity of an Aemilius, that there exists no living being on earth in
the veins of whom one drop of the blood of his race did flow. Well, had
history nothing else to teach us, than that all what the wisdom of man
did conceive, and all that his energy has executed through the
innumerable days of the past, and all that we take to be glorious in
nations and happy to men, cannot so much do as to ensure a future even
to such a flourishing commonwealth as yours; then weaker hearts may well
ask, What good is it to warn us of a fatality which we cannot escape;
what good is it to hold up the mournful monuments of a national
mortality to sadden our heart, if all that is human must share that
common doom? Let us do as we can, and so far as we can, and let the
future bring what it may. But that would be the speech of one having no
faith in the all-watching Eye, and regarding the eternal laws of the
universe not as an emanation of a bountiful Providence, but of a blind
fatality, which plays at hazard with the destinies of men. I never will
share such blasphemy. Misfortune came over me, and came over my house,
and came over my guiltless nation; still I never have lost my trust in
the Father of all. I have lived the days when the people of my oppressed
country went along weeping over the immense misfortune that they cannot
pray, seeing the downfall of the most just cause and the outrageous
triumph of the most criminal of all crimes on earth; and they went along
not able to pray, and weeping that they are not able to pray. I
shuddered at the terrible tidings in the desolation of my exile; but I
could pray, and sent the consolation home, that I do not despair; that I
believe in God, and trust to His bountiful providence, and ask them who
of them dares despair when I do not? I was in exile, as I am now, but
arrogant despots were debating about my blood, my infant children in
prison, my wife, the faithful companion of my sorrows and my cares,
hunted like a noble deer, and my sisters in the tyrant's fangs, red with
the blood of my nation, and the heart of my aged mother breaking, about
the shattered fortunes of her house, and all of them at last homeless
wanderers, cast to the winds, like the yellow leaves of a fallen tree;
and my fatherland, my dear, beloved fatherland, half murdered, half in
chains, and humanity nearly all oppressed, and those who are not yet
oppressed looking with compassion at our sad fate, but taking it for
wise policy not to help, and the sky of freedom dark on our horizon, and
darkening fast over all, and nowhere a ray of hope; a lustre of
consolation nowhere; and still I did not despair; and my faith to God,
my trust to Providence has spread over my down-trodden land.
I therefore, who do not despair of my own country's future, though it be
overwhelmed with misfortunes, I certainly have an unwavering faith in
the destinies of Humanity; and though the mournful example of so many
fallen nations instructs us, that neither the diffusion of knowledge,
nor the progress of industry, neither prosperity, nor power, nay, not
even freedom itself, can secure a future to nations, still I say there
is one thing which can secure it; there is one law, the obedience to
which would prove a rock upon which the freedom and happiness of nations
may rest sure to the end of their days. And that law, ladies and
gentlemen, is the law proclaimed by our Saviour; that rock is the
unperverted religion of Christ. But while the consolation of this
sublime truth falls meekly upon my soul like as the moonlight falls upon
the smooth sea, I humbly claim your forbearance, ladies and gentlemen; I
claim it in the name of the Almighty Lord, to hear from my lips a
mournful truth. It may displease you; it may offend; but still truth is
truth. Offended vanity may blame me; power may frown at me, and pride
may call my boldness arrogant, but still truth is truth, and I, bold in
my unpretending humility, will proclaim that truth; I will proclaim it
from land to land and from sea to sea; I will proclaim it with the faith
of the martyrs of old, till the seed of my word falls upon the
consciences of men. Let come what come may, I say with Luther: God help
me, I cannot otherwise. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the law of our
Saviour, the religion of Christ, can secure a happy future to nations.
But, alas! there is yet no Christian people on earth--not a single one
among all. I have spoken the word. It is harsh, but true. Nearly two
thousand years have passed since Christ has proclaimed the eternal
decree of God, to which the happiness of mankind is bound, and has
sanctified it with His own blood, and still there is not one single
nation on earth which would have enacted into its law-book that eternal
decree. Men believe in the mysteries of religion, according to the creed
of their church; they go to church, and they pray and give alms to the
poor, and drop the balm of consolation into the wounds of the afflicted,
and believe they do all that the Lord commanded to do, and believe they
are Christians. No! Some few may be, but their nation is not--their
country is not; the era of Christianity has yet to come, and when it
comes, then, only then, will be the future of nations sure. Far be it
from me to misapprehend the immense benefit which Christian religion,
such as it already is, has operated in mankind's history. It has
influenced the private character of men, and the social condition of
millions; it was the nurse of a new civilization, and softening the
manners and morals of men, its influence has been felt even in the worst
quarter of history--in war. The continual massacres of the Greek and
Roman kings and chiefs, and the extermination of nations by them--the
all-devastating warfare of the Timurs and Gengis Khans--are in general
not more to be met with; only my own dear fatherland was doomed to
experience once more the cruelties of the Timurs and Gengis Khans out of
the sacrilegious hands of the dynasty of Austria, which calumniates
Christianity by calling itself Christian. But though that beneficial
influence of Christianity we have cheerfully to acknowledge, yet it is
still not to be disputed that the law of Christ does yet nowhere rule
the Christian world.