Select Speeches of Kossuth - Kossuth
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Without these precedents and reminiscences of history, and only guided
by the universal feeling of the country against the dynasty, the
Hungarian parliament would have pronounced the forfeiture of the House
of Austria so far back as October, 1848, when Jellachich was appointed
absolute plenipotentiary of the King in Hungary, with discretionary
power of life and death; or in December, 1848, when in Olmuetz the
succession of the Hungarian throne was changed and determined, without
the concurrence of the nation through the Diet. To force the nation and
its parliament to the last step in this momentous crisis, the court
itself broke the dynastic tie.
This was done by the imposition of the constitution of the 4th of March,
1849, by which the House of Austria itself annihilated the Pragmatic
Sanction, treating free and independent Hungary with the arrogance of a
conqueror. The nation, more irritated by this act than by any preceding
event, saw that the hour was come, beyond which further to defer the
dethronement of the dynasty would be alike incompatible with the laws
and the honour of Hungary. _All the channels of public opinion, the
public press, the popular meetings, and even the head quarters of the
army, resounded with emphatic declarations of the impossibility of
reconciliation with the dynasty. The garrison of Komorn_--the most
important fortress of the country--_petitioned the government for the
declaration of forfeiture_. Most assuredly no party manoeuvres were
wanted in this universal excitement, caused by the constitution of the
4th of March, to carry a parliamentary resolution of forfeiture.
When the proposition of forfeiture was made on the 14th of April, 1849,
in the House of Representatives, only eight members voted against it, in
a house never attended by less than from 220 to 240 members. The House
of Magnates adopted this resolution without opposition. The press of all
shades of opinion, though enjoying the most unlimited freedom, also
declared for the resolution of the Diet. It was moreover received
throughout the whole country with patriotic assent and determination. If
there was a party opposed to the forfeiture, how came it that it did not
hold it to be a duty to declare its opposition in the Diet or through
the press?
When the intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Temeswar reached the
Governor Kossuth, who was then in the fortress of Arad, he immediately
summoned a council of the ministry to deliberate on measures of public
safety still possible. At this council, in which all the ministers took
part, it was resolved to invest Goergei, who stood alone at the head of
an unconquered army, with full powers for negotiating a peace. It was,
moreover, resolved to dissolve the government, which could not be
carried on in any fixed place of safety under the existing
circumstances. We did not, however, insert in the instrument investing
Goergei with full power (and despatched to him immediately) the
abdication of the government. On the same day--it was the 11th of
August, 1849--Goergei declared in the presence of some of the ministers
who had assembled at Csanyi's (who was one of them), that he could not
accept the commission because the resignation of the government was not
contained in it, while he was sure that the enemy would enter into no
negotiations with him, so long as Kossuth and his ministry were thought
to be behind him. The ministers who were present, after a short
deliberation, considering it to be their duty not to stand in the way of
the negotiation which had been resolved on as necessary, accordingly
sent their resignation to the governor, _whom they requested to resign
as well_. The governor soon after sent his abdication for
countersignature by these members of the ministry, and accordingly the
government formally dissolved itself, after having done so _de
facto_ in the previous council of ministers. I must mention the
circumstance that _in the governor's instrument of abdication
conditions were proscribed to Goergei, which were not inserted in the
original instrument of authorization, issued by the full council_.
These conditions were, the preservation of the nationality and the
autonomy of Hungary. Four ministers took part in this resignation of the
governor, as above stated, Aulich, Csanyi, Horvath, and I. Two of the
ministers, Szemere and [Casimir] Bathyanyi, were absent when the formal
declaration of the abdication was discussed at Csanyi's residence. I
have not mentioned among the ministers our late colleague, the finance
minister Dushek, because his treachery, which was afterwards brought to
light, excludes him from our ranks. From all these circumstances, it
will be manifest how unjust the reproaches of Count Casimir Bathyanyi
are, that no new cabinet council was held.
It is notorious that Goergei abused the full powers with which he was
entrusted, instead of procuring the preservation of Hungary by a
negotiation for peace, by an ignominious treachery to his native
country. From that very moment the power conferred on him by the
above-mentioned instrument, and the conditional abdication of the
government, consequently and legally reverted to him who had invested
him with it. To deny this, would be to recognize in the foreign rule
which crushed Hungary, in consequence of that treachery, legitimate
right and lawful power.
I, however, perfectly agree with the noble count, that the nation, once
more restored to its constitutional existence, and free from foreign
yoke, will have the unlimited right to dispose of all the affairs of the
country, and consequently of the executive power. To assert a contrary
opinion would be a crime against the nation. Not over a liberated nation
(which, of course, would have the right to choose whom it will), but
over a nation crushed by an usurping power, the claims of Kossuth, as
elected Governor of Hungary, are, I submit, lawful.
Republican principles have not been proclaimed at Kossuth's dictation as
the aim of our national exertions. They were, during our struggle, the
well-ascertained and deep-rooted sentiment of the country, and Kossuth
could only faithfully represent the proclaimed will and feeling of the
nation, by inscribing them on his banner. Immediately after the
declaration of independence, all the manifestations of the national will
were unanimous in the desire for a republic. The ministry, which was
nominated by the Governor as a consequence of that legislative act,
declared in both houses of the Diet, that its efforts would be directed
to the establishment of a republic. Both houses joined in this
declaration, and in the government no opposition whatever was manifested
against it. One of the first acts of the new government was to remove
the crown from all national scutcheons, and from the great seal of
Hungary. The press in all its shades developed republican principles.
The new semi-official paper bore the name of _The Republic_. It is
true that the government was only provisional, for the war continued,
and the definite decision of this question depended on unforeseen
circumstances. We should have preferred almost any settlement to the
necessity of a subjection to the Austrian dynasty; and at the price of
emancipation from that detested power, the nation would even have been
prepared, for the sake of aid, to choose a king from another race; but
certainly if it had been the unaided victor in the struggle, never.
Monarchical government would have been for us the resort of expediency.
The government of our wishes and principles was "The Republic."
I do not feel at all convinced, as the noble count asserts, that the
institutions and habits of Hungary are incompatible with a democratic
republic. I find, on the contrary, traits in them which lead me to an
opposite conclusion. The aggregate character of the numerous nobility
which resigned its privileges in the Diet of 1847-48 of its own accord,
and which was in its nature more a democratic than an aristocratic body,
because neither territorial wealth nor rank interfered with or disturbed
the equality of its rights,--the national antipathy to the system of an
upper house, which was considered as a foreign institution, because it
had been introduced under the Austrian dynasty,--the immemorial custom
of periodically electing all officials, and even the judges,--the
detestation in which bureaucracy and all the instruments of
centralization were held in all ages, while the attachment to the
municipal self-government was ineradicable,--the fact that, in
consequence of the laws which had been sanctioned in April, 1848, the
county authorities, formerly only elected from the "nobility," were
democratically reconstituted, and exercised their functions in this form
till the catastrophe of Vilagos, without the slightest collision between
the different classes of society,--the peaceful election of the
representatives of the last Diet conducted almost on the principle of
universal suffrage,--all these facts unmistakeably prove that the germ
of democracy lay in our institutions, and that these could receive a
democratic development without any concussion. Those characteristic
_traits_ of our nation, which have been so often misrepresented as
signs of an aversion to a republic, and which may be more properly
called civic virtues; as, for example, our respect for law, our
antipathy to untried political theories, our attachment to traditional
customs, and our pride in the history of our country, are no obstacles
to, but rather guarantees, and even conditions of a republic, which is
to be national and enduring. It would indeed be an unprecedented event
in history, if staunch royalism could be the characteristic of a country
which, like Hungary, has found in its kings for three hundred years the
inexorable foes of its liberties, and which in that time, for its
defence, had to wage six bloody wars against the dynasty.
As to the criticisms by the noble count of the personal character of
Kossuth, I take leave to assert that a great majority of the Hungarian
nation do not share his opinion. It is not my task to appear as a
personal advocate, and I wish, therefore, to advert only to one point of
his attack, which may seem to be based on facts. The noble count
asserts that Kossuth has attained to power _by doubtful means_. I
am amazed at this assertion, knowing, as I do, that Kossuth was proposed
by Count Louis Bathyanyi, and nominated by the King, with the universal
applause of the nation, to the Ministry of Finance. After the
resignation of the first Hungarian ministry, he was freely and
unanimously elected by the Diet to the Presidency of the Committee of
Defence, and after the declared forfeiture of the dynasty to the
Governorship of the country. I know no more honourable means by which a
man can be raised to power.
S. VUKOVICS,
Late Minister of Justice of Hungary.
_London, January 17, 1852_.
* * * * *
Appendix II.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Times,' dated December
9th, 1851, by_ Bartholomew Szemere, _late Minister of the Interior
in Hungary; in answer to_ Prince Esterhazy.
I shall now proceed to give a succinct account of what took place from
April 14, when the new acts received the Royal sanction, to December,
1848. You may be assured that I shall conceal nothing that tended to
change the relations between Hungary and Austria.
The Prime Minister was already nominated when Jellachich was raised to
the dignity of Ban of Croatia by a Royal decree which the Premier was
not even asked to countersign. The Hungarian ministers, nevertheless,
for the sake of peace, overlooked this irregular proceeding.
By a decree, dated June 10, 1848, the King made known to all whom it
might concern, that all the troops stationed within the kingdom of
Hungary, whether Hungarians or Austrians, were placed under the orders
of the Hungarian Minister of War, and that all the Hungarian fortresses
were under the jurisdiction of the said Minister. Yet at this very time
officers of the Imperial and Royal army were taking an active part in
the rebellion of the Serbs and Valachs, while General Mayerhofer was
enlisting recruits in the principality of Servia, and sending them to
assist the rebels. The people thus beheld with astonishment civil war
break out, and saw with still greater astonishment that Imperial
officers were fighting on both sides.
Jellachich, as a functionary of the Hungarian Crown, refused to obey the
Hungarian ministry, and illegally summoned a Croatian Diet to meet at
Agram on June 5. In consequence of these proceedings, Ferdinand V., by a
decree dated June 10, 1848, deprived him, as a rebel, of all his civil
and military offices and dignities, but at the same time sent him,
through his Minister of War, Latour, field officers, artillery and
ammunition.
The troubles increased daily. The Hungarian ministry requested the
Archduke John to act us mediator. He accepted the office, but did
nothing.
The Diet met on July 2. The Palatine, as the representative of the
Sovereign in the speech from the Throne, said that, as several districts
were in a state of open rebellion, the principal objects to which, in
the name of His Majesty, he should direct the attention of the Diet were
the finances and the defences of the country, and that bills relating to
these objects would be brought in by the Ministers. He then proceeded as
follows:--"His Majesty has learned with painful feelings, that although
he only followed the dictates of his own gracious inclination, when, at
the request of the faithful Hungarian people, he gave his sovereign
sanction to the laws enacted by the last Diet--laws which the common
weal, according to the exigencies of the present age, rendered
imperatively necessary--there are, nevertheless, a number of seditious
agitators, especially in the annexed territories and the Hungarian
districts of the Lower Danube, who, by false reports and terrorism, have
excited the different religious sects and races speaking different
languages against each other, and, by mendaciously affirming that the
above-mentioned laws are not the free expressions of His Majesty's Royal
will, have stirred up the people to offer an armed opposition to the
execution of the law, and to the legally constituted authorities. And,
moreover, that some of these agitators have even proceeded so far in
their iniquitous course as to spread the report that this armed
opposition has been made in the interests of the dynasty, and with the
knowledge, and connivance of His Majesty or of the members of His
Majesty's Royal house. I therefore, in order that all the inhabitants of
the kingdom, without distinction as to creed or language, may have their
minds set at rest, hereby declare, in conformity with the sovereign
behest of His Majesty our most gracious King, and in his sovereign name
and person, that it is His Majesty's firm and steadfast determination to
defend with all his Royal power and authority the unity and integrity of
His Royal Hungarian crown against every attack from without, and every
attempt at disruption and separation that may be made within the
kingdom, and at the same time inviolably to maintain the laws which have
received the Royal sanction. And while His Majesty will not suffer any
one to curtail the liberties assured to all classes by the law, His
Majesty, as well as all the members of His Royal dynasty, strongly
condemns the audacity of those who venture to affirm that any illegal
act whatsoever or any disrespect of the constituted authorities can be
reconcileable with His Majesty's sovereign will, or at all compatible
with the interests of the Royal dynasty."
It thus clearly appears that the King acknowledged the validity and the
inviolability of the acts passed by the Diet of 1847-8 three months
after they had been sanctioned.
Relying on the sincerity of the Royal asseverations, the Diet humbly
requested that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to render the
country happy by his presence. It was, in fact, the general wish that
the King should come to Hungary; even the most radical journals loudly
declared that if he came he would be received with enthusiasm bordering
on madness.
Meanwhile the rebellion of the Croats, Serbs, and Valachs, was spreading
daily, and that, too, _in the name of the Sovereign_. Generals,
colonels, and other field officers of the Imperial army were at the head
of it, without any one of them being summoned by the King to answer for
his conduct. The eyes of the too credulous natives were now opened, and
still more when the King refused to sanction the acts for the levying of
troops and raising of funds for the suppression of the rebellion,
although the Diet had been convened chiefly for this purpose.
I must here observe that at this period nothing whatever had occurred
that could serve as a pretext for the dynasty to support the rebellion.
The Diet, it is true, would not consent that the troops that were to be
levied should be draughted into the old regiments; but it was obviously
impossible for the Diet to consent to any such measures at a period when
the rebels were everywhere led by Imperial officers, when the Austrian
troops stationed in Hungary, although they had been placed under the
orders of the Hungarian Ministry, refused to fight against those rebels,
and the commanders of fortresses to receive orders from the Hungarian
War-office.
On the 8th of September a deputation from the Hungarian Diet earnestly
entreated His Majesty to sanction two acts relating to the levying of
troops and taxes. The King refused; but in his answer to the address of
the deputation said, "I trust that no one will hereby suppose that I
have the intention to set aside or infringe the existing laws. This, I
repeat, is far from my intention. On the contrary, it is my firm and
determined will to maintain, in conformity with my coronation oath, the
laws, the integrity, and the rights of the kingdom, under my Hungarian
crown."
The King made this solemn declaration on the 8th of September, and on
the 9th of September Jellachich crossed the Drave with 48,000 men to
wage war in the King's name on the Hungarian Diet and Ministry. The King
had, moreover, on _the 4th of September_, affixed his sign manual
to a letter or Royal mandate addressed to Jellachich, and revoking the
decree by which he had been deprived of his civil and military offices
and dignities. His Majesty, in this letter, also expressed his high
approbation of the Ban's conduct. By a Royal decree, dated October 3,
the constitution was suspended, martial law proclaimed, and Jellachich,
the rebel, appointed His Majesty's Plenipotentiary Commissary for the
kingdom of Hungary, and invested with unlimited authority to act, in the
name of His Majesty, within the said kingdom.
Hungary, so far from commencing the revolution, was not even prepared to
meet the invasion of the Croatian Ban. He was defeated near
Stuhlweissenburg by the Landsturm. The Hungarian Government only began
to organize regular troops in October.
That the Diet did not recognize a decree that suspended the constitution
and invested Jellachich with the dictatorship, will be found quite
natural, if not by you, at least by every Englishman who cherishes
constitutional freedom, the more so as its proceedings on this occasion
were founded on legal right, viz., on act 4, sect. 6, of 1847-8, which
expressly ordains that "the annual session of the Diet shall not be
closed, nor the Diet itself dissolved, before the budget for the ensuing
year has been voted."
From this short but faithful account of what actually occurred, it
clearly appears that the Hungarian nation had not recourse to arms until
the Ban of Croatia entered the Hungarian territory with an
Austrian-Croatian army. It is also an undeniable fact that until the
promulgation of the Austrian Charter in March, 1849--by which, with a
stroke of the pen, the independence of Hungary was destroyed, its
constitution abolished, and its territories dismembered--the Hungarian
nation never demanded anything else than the maintenance of the laws and
institutions which its Sovereign had sanctioned and sworn to maintain
inviolate. It was however precisely for the purpose of destroying these
laws and institutions that the dynasty began the war. This, of course,
they did not venture to avow. It was necessary to conceal the real
motives of their perfidious conduct from the civilized world. Hence in
their public proclamations they always alleged some pretext or
other--all of them equally groundless. At the commencement they said
that it was only an insignificant faction they had to deal with; but
when they saw that the whole nation was arrayed in arms against them,
they declared it was for the suppression of demagogueism, propagated by
foreigners, chiefly Poles, that their armies had entered Hungary; and to
give a colour to this pretext they industriously spread the report that
there were 20,000 Poles in the ranks of the Hungarians. When however it
became notorious that no more than 1,000 Poles were fighting under our
national standard, the Austrian dynasty appeared as the
_soi-disant_ champion and judge of the various nationalities or
races. This answered well enough until the system of centralization
showed too clearly that an attempt would be made to Germanize these
nationalities; when the dynasty again veered about, and, leaving
"nationalities" in the lurch, took up the peasantry. We consequently
find the Austrian Government assuring the Washington Cabinet (in the
note of July 4, 1851) that they had waged war on Hungary in order to
crush a turbulent aristocracy that "preach democracy with their tongues,
while their whole lives consist in the daily exercise over their
fellow-men of arbitrary power in the most repugnant form." This last
pretext, so ostentatiously put forth, loses, however, even its
plausibility when contrasted with the policy of the dynasty in 1848, for
it is an undoubted fact that, although the reforms effected in our
_political_ institutions at that period were consented to by the
dynasty without much hesitation, it required the most energetic
remonstrances on the part of the Diet to obtain the Royal sanction to
the act for the liberation of the peasants from feudal bondage.
It is precisely to the fact of all classes, without distinction, being
equally aware of the cabals of the dynasty, that may be ascribed the
success of the Hungarian insurrection. It was not _one_ man, nor a
party, nor a conspiracy, nor terrorism, that awakened that spontaneous
enthusiasm with which the people rushed to arms. Kossuth may have been
the rallying cry; but he was not the cause of the war. For several
months the people had witnessed the equivocal conduct of the dynasty;
had seen that its words were belied by its deeds; had seen that the
rebels were everywhere led by Imperial officers; and finally beheld
Jellachich, a high functionary of the Hungarian Crown, invade the
country at the head of an Austro-Croatian army. It was then, and not
till then, that the nation cried, as with one voice--_the King is a
traitor_. From that day began the Hungarian revolution. On that day
the monarchical feeling was extinguished. What no one had thought it
possible to accomplish was accomplished by the dynasty itself.
* * * * *
APPENDIX III.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Daily News,' in
February, 1852, by a_, "HUNGARIAN EXILE," _in reply to a Letter
from_ SZEMERE, _to the 'London Examiner_.'
[I am personally acquainted with the accomplished and intelligent
"Exile;" but as he is absent from England, I cannot obtain permission to
publish his name.]
It was more than two months after the civil war had been raging in the
Banat and Transylvania that the question of giving fresh troops for the
suppression of the Italian war was brought before the Assembly at Pesth,
July 22, 1846. Now, what are the accusations M. Szemere brings forth
against Kossuth in reference to the Italian question? The pith of M.
Szemere's reasoning is, that the ministry agreed, in the protocol of
July 5, upon construing the Pragmatic Sanction as binding Hungary to
protect the integrity of Austria; "yet that Kossuth, as the organ of the
ministry, spoke in a way as if he did not approve of the policy, and
sought to make the public believe that the protocol was merely a moral
demonstration:" further, that when the opposition denied the obligation
of Hungary to defend Austria, the ministry refused to enter into any
discussion on an acknowledged principle of constitutional law.
In order to show the utter hollowness of this attack, it may be
sufficient to look at the date and circumstances M. Szemere talks of.
The protocol in question was agreed upon on July 5th, the day when the
parliament met to provide for the defence of the country. The members,
inexperienced in foreign politics and ignorant of the cabals of courts,
although presuming that the civil war was kindled in Vienna, were at
first blinded by the royal convocation of the Diet to provide for the
safety of the country; putting, moreover, implicit confidence in the
sagacity and goodwill of the ministry. When however Kossuth opened the
debate on the Italian question, July 22, affairs looked quite different
from what they appeared to be when the protocol was drawn up. The
treachery of the dynasty broke upon the mind of the most careless, and
its connexions with the leaders of the rebellious tribes had become
undeniable facts. It was during that short time, from July 5 to July 22,
that our national forces met in the Serbian entrenchments of St. Thomas,
Foeldvar, and Turia, regular Austrian soldiers: Meyerhofe, the Austrian
consul at Belgrade, was openly recruiting bands of Servians to reinforce
the insurgents; nay, it became even evident that General Bechtold,
appointed by His Majesty to lead the faithful Hungarians against the
rebellious Serbs, led them on in order to get them the sooner decimated
and broken. Some members of the opposition, headed by General Perczel,
declaimed loudly against the cowardly and fallacious policy of the
ministry, resolving to compel ministers to resign or to induce them to
take some more efficacious measures. In short, during this space of
time, the government and people found themselves in quite a new
position. Kossuth, in concert with the ministry, moved a levy of 200,000
men (July 11), which motion the Assembly hailed with unparalleled
enthusiasm, and which the people witnessed with approval, as affording a
guarantee of their liberties. It was in the midst of these moments of
excitement and temporary distress that Kossuth, as the most popular
member of the cabinet, was pointed out as the person most fitted to
undertake the very difficult task of speaking on the Italian question
alluded to by M. Szemere. Public opinion, aided by the opposition of the
house, was convinced that Austria, after having subjugated the
Lombard-Venetians with Hungarian troops, would then turn to Hungary, the
enslavement of which might more easily be executed by the country's
being bereft of a number of stout arms indispensable to her own defence.
Kossuth therefore, as a man of true liberal principles, while
acknowledging the ground to be right upon which the opposition moved,
professed in the speech alluded to that he had agreed then with his
colleagues in respect to the Italian question, on the ground that the
moral power of the protocol would suffice, although as a private
individual he could not help rejoicing at the victories of the Italian
people. Now, I submit it to every enlightened Englishman to decide
whether Kossuth evinced a want of civic virtue in declaring that, as a
man who wished freedom for himself, he could not rejoice in the sending
of troops to subjugate another people struggling against the same
tyrant?