Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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Montesquieu himself, whom nobody could charge to be partial for
republics, avows that despotism is incompatible with the Christian
religion, because the Christian religion commands meekness, and
despotism claims arbitrary power to the whims and passions of a frail
mortal; and still it is more than 1,500 years since the Christian
religion became dominant, and through that long period despotism has
been pre-eminently dominant; you can scarcely show one single truly
democratic republic of any power which had subsisted but for a hundred
years, exercising any influence upon the condition of the world.
Constantine, raising the Christian religion to Rome's imperial throne,
did not restore the Romans to their primitive virtues. Constantinople
became the sewer of vice; Christian worship did not change the despotic
habits of Kings. The Tituses, the Trajans, the Antonines, appeared
seldom on Christian thrones; on the contrary, mankind has seen, in the
name of religion, lighted the piles of persecution, and the blazing
torches of intolerance; the earth overspread with corpses of the million
victims of fanaticism; the fields watered with blood; the cities wrapped
in flames, and empires ravaged with unrelenting rage. Why? Is it
Christian religion which caused these deplorable facts, branding the
brow of partly degraded, partly outraged Humanity? No. It was precisely
the contrary; the fact that the religion of Christ never yet was
practically taken for an all-overruling law, the obedience to which,
outweighing every other consideration, would have directed the policy of
nations--that fact is the source of evil, whence the oppression of
millions has overflowed the earth, and which makes the future of the
proudest, of the freest nation, to be like a house built upon sand.
Every religion has two parts. One is the dogmatical, the part of
worship; the other is the moral part.
The first, the dogmatic part, belonging to those mysterious regions
which the arm of human understanding cannot reach, because they belong
to the dominion of belief, and that begins where the dominion of
knowledge ends--that part of religion, therefore, the dogmatic one,
should be left to every man to settle between God and his own
conscience. It is a sacred field, whereon worldly power never should
dare to trespass, because there it has no power to enforce its will.
Force can murder; it can make liars and hypocrites, but no violence on
earth can force a man to believe what he does not believe. Yet the
other part of religion, the moral part, is quite different. That
teaches duties toward ourselves and toward our fellow-men. It can be,
therefore, not indifferent to the human family: it can be not
indifferent to whatever community, if those duties be fulfilled or not,
and no nation can, with full right, claim the title of a Christian
nation, no government the title of a Christian government, which is not
founded upon the basis of Christian morality, and which takes it not for
an all-overruling law to fulfil the moral duties ordered by the religion
of Christ toward men and nations, who are but the community of men, and
toward mankind, which is the community of nations. Now, look to those
dread pages of history, stained with the blood of millions, spilt under
the blasphemous pretext of religion; was it the intent to vindicate the
rights, and enforce the duties of Christian morality, which raised the
hand of nation against nation, of government against government? No: it
was the fanaticism of creed, and the fury of dogmatism. Nations and
governments rose to propagate their manner to worship God, and their own
mode to believe the inscrutable mysteries of eternity; but nobody has
yet raised a finger to punish the sacrilegious violation of the moral
laws of Christ, nobody ever stirred to claim the fulfilment of the
duties of Christian morality toward nations. There is much speaking
about the separation of Church and State, and yet, on close examination,
we shall see that there was, and there is, scarcely one single
government entirely free from the direct or indirect influence of one or
other religious denominations; scarcely one which would not at least
bear a predilection, if not countenance with favour, one or another
creed--but creed, and always creed. The mysteries of dogmatism, and the
manner of worship, enter into these considerations; they enter even into
the politics, and turn the scales of hatred and affection; but certainly
there is not one single nation, not one single government, the policy of
which would ever have been regulated by that law of morality which our
Saviour has promulgated as the eternal law of God, which shall be obeyed
in all the relations of men to men. But you say, of the direct or
indirect amalgamation of Church and State, proved to be dangerous to
nations in Christian and for Christian times, because it affected the
individual rights of men, and among them, the dearest of all, the
liberty of conscience and the freedom of thought. Well, of this danger,
at least, the future of your country is free; because here, at least, in
this, your happy land, religious liberty exists. Your institutions left
no power to your government to interfere with the religion of your
citizens. Here every man is free to worship God as he chooses to do.
And that is true, and it is a great glory of your country that it is
true. It is a fact which entitles to the hope that your nation will
revive the law of Christ, even on earth. However, the guarantee which
your Constitution affords to religious liberty is but a negative part of
a Christian government. There are, besides that, positive duties to be
fulfilled. He who does no violence to the conscience of man, has but the
negative merit of a man doing no wrong; but as he who does not murder,
does not steal, and does not covet what his neighbour's is, but by not
stealing, not murdering, not coveting what our neighbour's is, we did
yet no positive good; a man who does not murder has not yet occasion to
the title of virtuous man. And here is precisely the infinite merit of
the Christian religion. While Moses, in the name of the Almighty God,
ordered but negative degrees toward fellow-men, the Christian religion
commands positive virtue. Its divine injunctions are not performed by
not doing wrong; it desires us to do good. The doctrine of Jesus Christ
is sublime in its majestic simplicity. "Thou shalt love God above all,
and love thy neighbour as thou lovest thyself."
This sublime doctrine is the religion of love. It is the religion of
charity. "Though I speak with the tongues of angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Though I
have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge, and have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and
have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to
feed the poor, and give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it
profiteth me nothing." Thus speaks the Lord, and thus speaking He gives
the law, "Do unto others as thou desirest others to do unto thee." Now,
in the name of Him who gave this law to humanity, to build up the
eternal bliss and temporal happiness of mankind, in the name of that
Eternal Legislator, I ask, is in that _charity_, in that
fundamental law of Christianity, any limit of distinction drawn in man
in his personal, and man in his national capacity? Is it but a law for a
man where he is alone, and can do but little good? Is it no law more
where two are together, and can do more good? No law more when millions
are together? Am I in my personal adversities; is my aged mother in her
helpless desolation; are my homeless sisters whom you feed to-day, that
they may work to-morrow; are we your neighbours, unto whom you do as you
would others in a similar position do unto yourself? And is every one of
my down-trodden people a neighbour to every one of you? but all my
people collectively, is it _not_ a neighbour to you? And is my
nation not a neighbour to your nation? Is my down-trodden land not a
neighbour to your down-trodden land? Oh! my God, men speak of the
Christian religion and style themselves Christians, and yet make a
distinction between virtue in private life and virtue in public life; as
if the divine law of Charity would have been given only for certain
small relations, and not for all the relations between men and men.
"There he is again, with his eternal complaints about his country's
wrongs;" may perhaps somebody remark: "This is an assembly of charity,
assembled to ease his private woes of family; and there he is again
speaking of his country's wrongs, and alluding to our foreign policy,
about which he knows our views to be divided." Thus I may be charged.
My "private family woes!" But all my woes and all the woes of my family,
are concentrated in the unwarrantable oppression of my fatherland. You
are an assembly of charity, it is true, and the Almighty may requite you
for it; but being a charitable assembly, can you blame me that the
filial and fraternal devotion of my heart, in taking with gratitude the
balm of consolation which your charity pours into the bleeding wounds of
my family, looks around to heal those wounds, the torturing pains of
which you ease, but which cannot be cured but by justice and charity
done to my fatherland. Shall this sad heart of mine be contented by
leaving to my homeless mother and sisters the means to have their bread
by honest labour, their daily bread salted with the bitter tears of
exile; and shall I not care to leave them the hope that their misfortune
will have an end; that they will see again their beloved home; that they
will see it independent and free, and live where their fathers lived,
and sleep the tranquil sleep of death in that soil with which the ashes
of their fathers mingle? Shall I not care to give the consolation to my
aged mother, that when her soon departing soul, crowned with the garland
of martyrdom, looks down from the home of the blessed, the united joy of
the heavens will thrill through her immortal spirit, seeing her dear,
dear Hungary free? Your views are divided on the subject, it may be;
but can your views be divided upon the subject that it is the command of
God to love your neighbours as you love yourselves? That it is the duty
of Christians, that it is the fundamental principle of the Christian
religion, to do unto others as you desire others to do unto you? And if
there is, if there can be no difference of opinion in regard to the
principle; if no one in this vast assembly--whatever be the platform of
his party--ever would disclaim this principle, will any one blame me
that in the name of Christ I am bold to claim the application of that
principle? I should not speak of politics! Well, I have spoken of
Christianity. Your politics either agree with the Law of Christ, or they
do not agree with it. If they don't agree, then your politics are not
Christian; and if they agree, then I cause no division among you.
And I shall not speak of my people's wrongs! Oh! my people--thou heart
of my heart, thou life of my life--to thee are bent the thoughts of my
mind, and they will remain bent to thee, though all the world may frown.
To thee are pledged all the affections of my heart, and they will be
pledged to thee as long as one drop of blood throbs within this heart.
Thine are the cares of my waking hours; thine are the dreams of my
restless sleep. Shall I forget thee, but for a moment! Never! Never!
Cursed be the moment, and cursed be I in that moment, in which thou
wouldst be forgotten by me!
Thou art oppressed, O my fatherland! because the principles of
Christianity have not been executed in practice; because the duties of
Christianity have not been fulfilled; because the precepts of
Christianity have not been obeyed; because the law of Christianity did
not control the policy of nations; because there are many impious
governments to offend the law of Christ, but there was none to do the
duties commanded by Christ.
Thou art fallen, O my country, because Christianity has yet to come; but
it is not yet come--nowhere! Nowhere on earth! And with the sharp eye of
misfortune piercing the dark veil of the future, and with the tongue of
Cassandria relating what I see, I cry it out to high Heaven, and shout
it out to the Earth--"Nations, proud of your momentary power; proud of
your freedom; proud of your prosperity--your power is vain, your freedom
is vain, your industry, your wealth, your prosperity are vain; all these
will not save you from sharing the mournful fate of those old nations,
not less powerful than you, not less free, not less prosperous than
you--and still fallen, as you yourself will fall--all vanished as you
will vanish, like a bubble thrown up from the deep! There is only the
law of Christ, there are only the duties of Christianity, which can
secure your future, by securing at the same time humanity."
Duties must be fulfilled, else they are an idle word. And who would
dispute that there is a positive duty in that law, "Love thy neighbour
as thou lovest thyself. Do unto others as thou wouldst that others do
unto thee." Now, if there are duties in that law comprised, who shall
execute them, if free and powerful nations do not execute them? No
government can meddle with the private relations of its millions of
citizens so much as to enforce the positive virtue of Christian charity,
in the thousand-fold complications of private life. That will be
impossible; and our Saviour did not teach impossibilities. By
commanding charity toward fellow-men in human relations, He commanded it
also to governments. It is in their laws toward their own citizens; it
is in their policy toward other nations, that governments and nations
can fulfil those duties of Christianity; and what they can, that they
should. How could governments hope to see their own citizens and other
nations observing toward them the positive duties of Christian morality,
when they themselves do not observe them against others; when oppressed
nations, the victims, not of their own faults, but of the grossest
violation of the law of Christ, look in vain around to find out a nation
among Christian nations, and a government among Christian governments,
doing unto them, in the hour of their supreme need, as the Saviour said
that it is duty to do unto others in every case?
Yes, gentlemen, as long as the principles of Christian morality are not
carried up into the international relations--as long as the fragile
wisdom of political exigencies overrules the doctrines of Christ, there
is no freedom on earth firm, and the future of no nation sure. But let a
powerful nation like yours raise Christian morality into its public
conduct, that nation will have a future against which the very gates of
hell itself will never prevail. The morality of its policy will react
upon the morality of its individuals, and preserve it from domestic
vice, which, without that prop, ever yet has attended too much
prosperity, and ever yet was followed by a dreadful fall. The morality
of its policy will support justice and freedom on earth, and thus
augmenting the number of free nations, all acting upon the same
principle, its very future will be placed under the guarantee of them
all, and preserve it from foreign danger--which is better to prevent
than to repel. And its future will be placed under the guarantee of the
Almighty himself, who, true to His eternal decrees, proved through the
downfall of so many mighty nations, that He always punished the fathers
in the coming generations; but alike bountiful as just, will not and
cannot forsake those to whom He gave power to carry out His laws on
earth, and who willingly answered His divine call. Power in itself never
yet was sure. It is right which makes power firm; and it is community
which makes right secure. The task of PETER'S apostolate is
accomplished--the Churches are founded in the Christian world. The task
of PAUL'S apostolate is accomplished--the abuses of fanaticism and
intolerance are redressed. But the task of him whom the Saviour most
loved, is not yet accomplished. The gospel of charity rules not yet the
Christian world; and without charity, Christianity, you know, is "but
sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."
Oh! Charity, thou fairest gift of Heaven! thou family link between
nations; thou rock of their security; thou deliverer of the oppressed;
when comes thy realm? Where is the man whom the Lord has chosen to
establish thy realm? Who is the man whom the Lord has chosen to realize
the religion, the tenets of which the most beloved disciple of the
Saviour has recorded from his divine lips? who is the man to reform, not
Christian creeds, but Christian morality? Man! No; that is no task for
a man, but for a nation. Man may teach a doctrine; but that doctrine of
Charity is taught, and taught with such sublime simplicity, that no
sectarist yet has disputed its truth. Historians have been quarrelling
about mysteries, and lost empires through their disputes. The Greeks
were controversially disputing whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the
Father alone, or from the Father and Son; and Mahomet battered the walls
of Byzantium, they heard it not; he wrested the cross from Santa Sophia;
they saw it not, till the cimeter of the Turk stopped the rage of
quarrel with the blow of death. In other quarters they went on disputing
and deciding with mutual anathemas the question of transfiguration and
many other mysteries, which, being mysteries, constitute the private
dominion of belief; but the doctrine of charity none of them disputes;
there they all agree; nay, in the idle times of scholastical subtility,
they have been quarrelling about the most extravagant fancies of a
scorched imagination. Mighty folios have been written about the problem,
how many angels could dance upon the top of a needle without touching
each other? The folly of subtility went so far as to profane the sacred
name of God, by disputing if He, being omnipotent, has the power to sin?
If, in the holy wafer, He be present dressed or undressed? If the
Saviour would have chosen the incarnation in the shape of a gourd,
instead of a man, how would he have preached, how acted miracles, and
how had been crucified? And when they went to the theme of investigating
if it was a whip or a lash with which the angels have whipped St. Jerome
for trying to imitate in his writings the pagan Cicero, it was but after
centuries that Abbot Cartaut dared to write that if St. Jerome was
whipped at all, he was whipped for having _badly_ imitated Cicero.
Still, the doctrine of Christian charity is so sublime in its
simplicity, that not even the subtility of scholasticism dared ever to
profane it by any controversy, and still that sublime doctrine is not
executed, and the religion of charity not realized yet. The task of this
glorious progress is only to be done by a free and powerful nation,
because it is a task of action, and not of teaching. Individual man can
but execute it in the narrow compass of the small relations of private
life; it is only the power of a nation which can raise it to become a
ruling law on earth; and before this is done, the triumph of
Christianity is not arrived--and without that triumph, the freedom and
prosperity even of the mightiest nation is not for a moment safe from
internal decay, or from foreign violence.
Which is the nation to achieve that triumph of Christianity by
protecting justice out of charity? Which shall do it, if not yours? Whom
the Lord has blessed above all, from whom He much expects, because He
has given her much.
Ye Ministers of the Gospel, who devote your lives to expound the eternal
truths of the book of life, remember my humble words, and remind those
who, with pious hearts, listen to your sacred words, that half virtue is
no virtue at all, and that there is no difference in the duties of
charity between public and private life.
Ye Missionaries, who devote your lives to the propagation of
Christianity, before you embark for the dangers of far, inhospitable
shores, remind those whom you leave, that the example of a nation
exercising right and justice on earth by charity, would be the mightiest
propagandism of Christian religion.
Ye Patriots, loving your country's future, and anxious about her
security, remember the admonitions of history--remember that the
freedom, the power, and the prosperity in which your country glories, is
no new apparition on earth; others also had it, and yet they are gone.
The prudence with which your forefathers have founded this commonwealth,
the courage with which you develop it, other nations also have shown,
and still they are gone.
And ye ladies; ye fairest incarnation of the spirit of love, which
vivifies the universe, remember my words. The heart of man is given into
your tender hands. You mould it in its infancy. You imprint the lasting
mark of character upon man's brow, You ennoble his youth; you soften the
harshness of his manhood; you are the guardian angels of his hoary age.
All your vocation is love, and your life is charity. The religion of
charity wants your apostolate, and requires your aid. It is to you I
appeal, and leave the sublime topic of my humble reflections to the
meditations of your Christian hearts.
And thus, my task of to-day is done. Man shall earn the means of life by
the sweat of his brow. Thus shall my family. Your charity of to-day has
opened the way to it. The school which my mother, if God spares her
life, will superintend, and in which two of my sisters will teach, and
the humble farm which my third sister and her family shall work, will be
the gift of your charity to-day.
A stony weight of cares is removed from my breast. Oh! be blessed for
it, be thanked for it, in the name of them all who have lost every
thing, but not their trust to God, and not the benefit of being able to
work. My country will forgive me that I have taken from her the time of
one day's work--to give bread to my aged mother and to my homeless
sisters, the poor victims of unrelenting tyranny. Returning to Europe, I
may find my own little children in a condition that again the father
will have to take the spade or the pen into his hand to give them bread.
And my fatherland will again forgive me, that that time is taken from
her. That is all what I take from her; nothing else of what is given, or
what belongs to her. And the day's work which I take from my country, I
will restore it by a night's labour. To-day, the son and the brother has
done his task; you have requited his labour by a generous charity; the
son and brother thanks you for it, and the patriot, to resume his task,
bids you a hearty, warm farewell.
APPENDICES TO KOSSUTH'S SPEECHES.
Appendix I.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Daily News,' dated
January 17th, 1852_, by Sabbas Vucovics, _late Minister of Justice
in Hungary, in answer to_ Count Casimir Bathyanyi.
So early as the commencement of the Serbian insurrection, the popular
suspicion gained ground that the insurrection had been stirred up by the
secret intrigues of the court, and confidence in the truth and good
faith of the King disappeared accordingly. The nation, however, still
indulged the hope that a weak King, though betrayed into ambiguous
proceeding, would not permit himself to be carried away into a flagrant
breach of the constitution. This was the time when the King, in the
opinion of the people, was kept distinct from the Camarilla. But when
the Austrian ministry openly attempted to deprive Hungary of its
ministries of war and finance, when the base game of the degradation and
restoration of Jellachich was played, and when the Hungarian army,
fighting in the name of the King against the insurrections of the
Serbians and Croats, became aware that the balls of that same King
thinned their ranks from the hostile camp, the nation arrived at the
universal conviction that the Hapsburg dynasty were only pursuing their
old absolute tendencies, and that they wanted to force Hungary into
self-defence, in order, under the pretext of rebellion, to deprive it of
all its constitutional rights and guarantees. It needs no proof that a
loud indignation, and even hatred of the dynasty, spread far and wide in
the country, in consequence of these intrigues and proceedings. In spite
of this natural excitement, and of the war itself, carried on by the
nation with an increasing enthusiasm of hatred of the House of Austria,
no party in the country urged a declaration of _decheance_ or
forfeiture against the dynasty. Even all the faithless acts recorded in
the letter of Count Casimir Bathyanyi, and the cruelties committed in
the name of that court in Lower Hungary and Transylvania, did not turn
the scales in this direction. The Pragmatic Sanction was still
considered as good in law; and the many precedents of our history, when
the nation and its kings went to war with each other, and ultimately
settled their disputes by solemn pacts confirming the constitution of
the land, conveyed the notion that a reconciliation was even then not
impossible.