Select Speeches of Kossuth Part 19

I therefore say that a war side by side with England against the leagued despots, if war should become a necessity, is not an idea to look on in advance with aversion. You have united with England on a far less important occasion. And should England _not_ yield to the despots, I most confidently ask whoever in the United States inclines to judge matters according to the true interests of his country and not by private pa.s.sion, whether you _could_ remain indifferent in a struggle, the issue of which either would make England omnipotent on earth, or crush liberty down throughout the world, leave America exposed to the pressure of victorious despotism, and before all, exclude republican America from every political and commercial relation with all Europe. Should England see that she will not stand alone in protesting against interference, she will, she must protest against it, because it is the condition of her own future. But if the United States should again adhere to the policy of indifference (which is no policy at all), then indeed England may perhaps yield to the threatening att.i.tude of the absolutist powers. The policy of the United States may now decide the direction of the policy of England, and thus prevent immense mischief, incalculable in its consequences, even for the future of the United States themselves.

It is here I take the opportunity briefly to refer to an a.s.sertion of an American statesman, who holds a high place in your affections and in my respect. He advances the theory, that, should, you now take the course which I humbly claim, the despots of Europe would be provoked by your example to interfere with your inst.i.tutions and turn upon you in the hour of your weakness and exhaustion, because you have set an example of interference.

I indeed am at a loss to understand that. Is it interference I claim?

No; precisely the contrary, if you now declare "that your very existence being founded on that principle of the eternal laws of nature and of nature's G.o.d--that every nation has the independent right to regulate its domestic concerns, to fix its inst.i.tutions and its government"--you cannot contemplate with indifference that the absolutist powers form a league of mutual support against this principle of mankind's common law.

You therefore protest against this principle of "foreign interference."

I indeed cannot understand by what logic such a protest could be taken up by the despotic powers as a pretext for interference in your domestic concerns. My logic is entirely different. It runs thus; If your country remains an indifferent spectator of the violation of the laws of nations by foreign interference, _then_ it has established a precedent--it has consented that the principle of interference become interpolated into the book of international law, and you will see the time when the league of despots commanding the whole force of oppressed Europe will remind you thus:

"Russia has interfered in Hungary, because it considered the example set up by Hungary dangerous to Russia. America has silently recognized the right of that interference. France has interfered in Rome, because the example of the Roman democracy was dangerous to Prance. America has silently agreed. The absolutist governments, in protection of their divine right, have leagued in a saintly alliance, with the openly avowed purpose to aid one another by mutual interference against the spirit of revolution and the anarchy of republicanism. America has not protested against it; therefore the principle of foreign interference against every dangerous example has, by common consent of every power on earth--contradicted by none, not even by America--become an established international law."

And reminding you thus, they will speak to you in the very words of that distinguished statesman to whom I respectfully allude.

"You have quitted the ground upon which your national existence is founded. You have consented to the alteration of the laws of nations--the existence of your republic is dangerous to us; _we therefore, believing that your anarchical (that is, republican) doctrines are destructive of, and that monarchical principles are essential to, the peace and security and happiness of our subjects, will obliterate the bed which has nourished such noxious weeds; we will crush you down as the propagandists of doctrines too destructive to the peace and good order of the world."_

I have quoted the very words, very unexpectedly given to publicity,--words, which I out of respect and personal affection, did not answer then, precisely because I took the interview for a private one. Even now I refrain from entering into further discussion, out of the same considerations of respect, though I am challenged by this unlooked for publicity. I will say nothing more. But after having quoted the very words, I leave to the public opinion to judge whether their authority is against or for a national protest against the principle of foreign interference.

Let once the principle become established with your silent consent and you will soon see it brought home to you, and brought home in a moment of domestic discord, which Russian secret diplomacy and Russian gold will skilfully mix. You may be sure of it; and this mighty Union will be shaken by that very principle of foreign interference which you silently let be established as an uncontroverted rule for the despots of the earth.

Great countries are under the necessity of holding the position of a power on earth. If they do not thus, foreign powers dispose of their most vital interests. Indifference to the condition of the foreign world is a wilful abdication of their duty, and of their independence.

Neutrality, as a constant rule, is impossible to a great power. Only small countries, as Switzerland and Belgium, can exist upon the basis of neutrality.

Great powers may remain neutral in a particular case, but they cannot take neutrality for a constant principle, and they chiefly cannot remain neutral in respect to principles.

Great powers can never play with impunity the part of no power at all.

Neutrality when taken _as a principle_ means indifference to the condition of the world.

Indifference of a great power to the condition of the world is a chance given to foreign powers to regulate the interests of that indifferent foreign power.

Look in what light you appear before the world with your policy of indifference. Look at the instructions of your navy in the Mediterranean, recently published, forbidding American officers even to speak politics in Europe. Look at the correspondences of your commodores and consuls, frightened to their very souls that a poor exile on board an American ship is cheered by the people of Italy and France, and charging him for the immense crime of having met sympathy without any provocation on his part. Look at the cry of astonishment of European writers, that Americans in Europe are so little republican. Look how French Napoleonist papers frown indignantly at the idea that the Congress of the United States dare to honour my humble self. Look how they consider it almost an insult, that an American Minister, true to his always professed principles, dares to speak about European politics.

Look how one of my aristocratical antagonists, who quietly keeps house in France, where I was not permitted to pa.s.s, and who, a tool in other hands, would wish to check my endeavours to benefit my country, because he would like to get home in some other way than by a revolution and into a republic--look how he, from Paris in London papers, dares to scorn the idea that America could pretend to weigh anything in the scale of European events.

Do you like this position, free republicans of America? And yet that is your position in the world now, and that position is the consequence of your adhering to your policy of indifference, at a time when you needed to act like a power on earth.

Remember the Sibylline books. The first three were burned when you silently let Russian interference be accomplished in Hungary, and did not give us your recognition when we had achieved and declared our independence.

Six books yet remain. The spirit of the age, the Sibylla of opportunity, holds a second three books over the fire. Do not allow her to burn them--else only the last three remain, and I fear you will have, without profit, more to pay for them than would have bought all the nine, and with them the glory and happiness of an _eternal, mighty Republic!_

Gentlemen, I humbly thank you for your kindness, and bid you an affectionate farewell.

x.x.xV.--CATHOLICISM _VERSUS_ JESUITISM.

[_At St. Louis, (Missouri.)_]

Mr. Ka.s.son addressed Kossuth in an ample speech; in which he said:--

Everywhere have the untrammelled ma.s.ses of this people, as you pa.s.sed, lifted up their hands and voices, and supplicated the Almighty to give to you blessing, and to your country redemption. Let this be some recompense for the privations you have encountered, while, like Aeneas, you have been wandering an exile from your native, captured, prostrate Troy.

I should not do my whole duty without saying, in behalf of the thousands a.s.sembled here, that we have an unshaken confidence in Hungary's chosen leader. We are not so blind that we cannot observe how no envenomed shaft was fixed to the bow-string against him, in England and America, while he was yet a helpless and powerless refugee, within Turkish hospitality. But when the people were gathering around him in free countries, shoulder to shoulder--when even the hearts of statesmen began to open to him, and hope dawned in the Hungarian sky once more, then it was these arrows of detraction darkened the air, shot from the Court of the French Usurper, or from the pensioners of autocratic bounty. Your patient labours and forbearance in your country's cause, while thus a.s.sailed, have won for you, sir, our sincere respect, and another wreath at the hand of the Muse of History.

Kossuth replied:

Gentlemen,--During my brief sojourn in your hospitable city, I have heard so much local pettiness and so much hypocritical tactics of men imported from Austria to advocate the cause of Russo-Austrian despotism in Republican America, and chiefly in your city here, that indeed I began to long for the pure air where the merry sunshine, as well as the melancholy drop of rain, the roaring of the thunder storm, equally as the sigh of the breeze, tell to the oppressors and their tools, and not only to the oppressed, that there is a G.o.d in heaven who rules the universe by eternal laws; the Almighty Father of humanity, omnipotent in wisdom, bountiful in His omnipotence, just in His judgment, and eternal in His love; the Lord who gave strength to the boy David against Goliath, who often makes out of humble individuals efficient instruments to push forward the condition of mankind towards that destiny which His merciful will has a.s.signed to it--His will, against which neither the proud ambition of despots, nor the skill of their obsequious tools can prevail--in Him I put my trust and go cheerfully on in my duties. I am in the right way to benefit the cause, n.o.ble and just and great, to which I devoted my life; for if there were no success in what I am engaged, the despots would neither fear, nor hate, nor persecute me.

Their persecution imparts more hope to my breast than all your kindness; and I give you my word that if I have the consciousness of having well merited in my past the hatred and the fear of tyrants and their instruments, so may G.o.d bless me as I will do all a mortal man can do to merit that hatred and that fear still more.

Why? Am I not standing on the banks of the Mississippi, cheered, welcomed, and supported, as warmly and as heartily as when I stepped first upon your glorious sh.o.r.es? Opposition, hostility, venomous calumny, have exhausted all means to check the sympathy of the people.

And has that sympathy subsided? has it abated? is it checked? No, it rolls on swelling as I advance--here I have again an imposing evidence before my eyes, here in St. Louis, my namesake city, where so much, and that so perseveringly, was done to prevent this evidence.

Yes, it rolls, and will roll on, swelling till it will finally submerge all endeavours to mislead the instincts of freemen, to fetter the energies of the nation, to stifle its spirit, and to check the growing aspirations of the people's upright heart.

When the struggle is about principles, indifference is suicide. Nay, indifference is impossible: for indifference about the fate of that principle upon which your national existence and all your future rests--is pa.s.sive submission to the opposite principle--it is almost equivalent to an alliance with the despots. _He who is not for freedom is against freedom_. There is no third choice.

The people's instinct feels the danger of losing an irreparable opportunity, and hence the fact, never yet met in history, that a homeless exile becomes an object of such sympathy, rolling on like a sea, in spite of all the pa.s.sionate rage of my enemies, and all the Christian tolerance of the Reverend Father Jesuits, which they in such an evident manner show to me. It is time to advertise them by a few remarks that I am aware of their hostility, and ready to meet it openly.

I make this advertis.e.m.e.nt by design here, because it is not my custom to attack from behind or in the dark. Mine is not the famous doctrine, _that the end sanctifies the means_. I like to meet the enemy face to face--a fair field and fair arms.

And in one thing more I will not imitate my reverend opponents. I will never indulge in any personalities, never act otherwise than becoming to a gentleman. If they choose to pursue a different course, let them do so, and let them earn the fruits of it.

My humble person I entirely submit to the good pleasure of their pa.s.sion. If they tell you, gentlemen, that I am no great man, they speak the truth. Being on good terms with my conscience, I do not much care to be on bad terms with Czars and Emperors, their obedient servants, and the reverend father Jesuits. Nay, if I were on good terms with them, I scarcely could remain on good terms with my conscience. So much for myself--now a few words as to the question between us.

I am claiming moral and material aid against that Czar of Russia who is the most b.l.o.o.d.y persecutor of Roman Catholics. The present Pope himself, before the revolution, when he was yet more of a High Priest than of an Italian Despot, and cared more about spiritual than temporal business, openly and bitterly complained in the councils of the Cardinals against that b.l.o.o.d.y persecution which the Roman Catholics have suffered from the Czar of Russia. Now, considering that I plead for republican principles, to which the Reverend Father Jesuits should be _here_ warmly attached, if they are willing to have the reputation of good citizens, and not to be traitors to your Republic, which affords to them not only the protection of its laws, but also the full enjoyment of all the privileges of your republican freedom;--it is indeed a strange, striking fact, to see these reverend fathers here in a Republic so warmly advocating the cause of despotism, and so pa.s.sionately persecuting the cause I humbly plead, which at the same time is the cause of political freedom and religious liberty for numerous millions of Roman Catholics throughout Europe.

As I am somewhat acquainted with the terrible history of that Order, I thought to find the explanation of this striking fact, in the historical ambition of that Order to rule the world--this, their everlasting standard idea, to which they in all times sacrificed everything, and misused even the holiest of all religion, as an instrument to that ambition. But here in St. Louis I got hold of a definite circ.u.mstance which makes the matter quite clear.

I hold in my hand the printed Catalogue of the Society of Jesuits in the province of Missouri, as they term your state. Herein I see that amongst the thirty-five members officiating in the college of the Father Jesuits, in St. Louis, there are not less than _eight_ Reverend Father Jesuits imported from Austria. Now you see why I am so persecuted here. This plain fact tells the story of a big book.

But amongst all that the reverend gentlemen oppose to me there are only two considerations to which the honour of my cause and of my nation forces me to answer in a few remarks. They charge against me that my cause is hostile to the Roman Catholic religion, and to get the Irish citizens to side with them for the support of Russo-Austrian despotism they charge me that I am no friend of Ireland.

I. As to the Catholic religion--I indeed am a Protestant, not only by birth, but also by conviction; and warmly penetrated by this conviction, I would delight to see the same shared by the whole world. But before all, I am mortally opposed to intolerance and to sectarism. I consider religion to be a matter of conscience which every man has to arrange between G.o.d and himself. And therefore I respect the religious conviction of every man. I claim religious liberty for myself and my nation, and must of course respect in others the right I claim for myself. There is nothing in the world capable to rouse a greater indignation in my breast than religious oppression. But particularly I respect the Catholic religion, as the religion of some seven millions of my countrymen, to whom I am bound in love, in friendship, in home recollections, in grat.i.tude, and in brotherhood, with the most sacred ties. And I am proud to say, that as in general it is a pre-eminent glory of my country, to be attached to the principle of full religious liberty without any restriction, for all to all, so it is the particular glory of my Roman Catholic countrymen not to be second to any in the world, on the one side in attachment to their own religion, and on the other side in toleration for other religions.

The Austrian dynasty having been continually encroaching upon the chartered right of Protestantism, who were those who struggled in the first rank for our rights? Our Roman Catholic countrymen! It was a glorious sight, almost unparalleled in history, but was also fully appreciated by the Hungarian Protestants. All of us, man by man, would rather sacrifice life, and blood, and goods, than to allow that a hair's breadth should be crushed from the religious liberty of our Roman Catholic countrymen.

Now, what position took the Roman Catholics of Hungary in our past struggle? There was not only no difference between them and the Protestants in their devotion for our country's freedom and independence, but they, according to the importance of their number, took in the struggle a very pre-eminent part. The Roman Catholic Bishops of Hungary protested against the perjurious treachery of the dynasty; many of them suffer even now for their devotion to justice, liberty, and right; and who is the Jesuit who dares to affirm that he is more devoted to the Catholic religion than the Bishops of Hungary? Our battalions were filled with Roman Catholic volunteers; Catholic priests led their faithful flocks to the battle field; our National Convention was composed in majority of Catholics--all the Catholic population, without any exception, consented to and cheered enthusiastically my being elected Governor of Hungary, though I am a Protestant. I had and I have their friendship, their devotion, their support; and when I formed the first Ministry of Independent Hungary, not only a full half of the new Ministry I entrusted to Roman Catholics, but especially I nominated a Roman Catholic Bishop to be Minister of public instruction, and all the Protestants of my country hailed the nomination with applause. Such is the cause of Hungary. Who dares now to charge me that that cause is hostile to the Roman Catholic religion?

But I am allied with Mazzini, with the Romans, and with the Italians; thus goes on the charge: and these cursed Italians are enemies to the Pope. Not to the Pope as High Priest of the Roman Catholic Church, but as despotic sovereign of Rome and his corrupted temporal government--the worst of human inventions. How long has it been a principle of the Roman Catholic religion, that the Romans should not be Republicans? and that the high priest of the Roman church should be a despotic sovereign over the Roman nation? and in that capacity be a devoted ally and obedient servant to the Czar of Russia, the sworn enemy and b.l.o.o.d.y persecutor of Roman Catholicism? Why, when in 1849, the French Republic sent an army against the Roman Republic to restore the Pope, not to his spiritual authority, because that was by n.o.body contradicted, but to his temporal despotism, the whole danger could have been averted by the Romans by becoming, _en ma.s.se_, Protestants. The idea was p.r.o.nounced in Rome and not a single Roman accepted it. They preferred to struggle without hope of victory--they preferred to bleed and to die rather than to abandon their faith.

Now, who can dare to insult that people--who can dare to insult the Roman Catholics of Hungary, Croatia, Italy, Germany, Poland, France--who can dare to insult the thousands of thousands of Roman citizens of the United States--Senators, Governors, Judges--men of all public and private positions--who can dare to insult them, as hostile to their own religion, because they unite to support that cause which I plead? And because they side with republican freedom, with civil and religious liberty, against Russo-Austrian despotism?

Who can dare to affirm that he represents the Catholic religion, if three millions of Catholic Romans do not represent it? The Reverend Father Jesuits perhaps!

I take the liberty to say in a few words: They are that society which Clement XIV, the high priest of the Roman Catholic Church, abolished as dangerous to the Roman Catholic religion; they are those whom every Roman Catholic King excluded from his territories as dangerous to religion and social order; they are those, the ascendancy of whom has always been a period of disaster and confusion to the Roman Catholic church; they are those who now make an alliance or rather a compact of submission with the Czar of Russia, like that which evil-doers, according to the superst.i.tion of past ages, made with the evil spirit.

And here, in free republican America, they plead the cause of Russian despotism; the cause of that Czar, who is the relentless persecutor of Catholicism; who forced the United Greek Catholics, in the Polish Provinces, by every imaginable cruelty, to abjure their connection with Rome, and carried out, at a far greater expense of human life than Ferdinand and Isabella or Louis XIV, the most stupendous proselytism which violence has yet achieved. More than a hundred thousand human beings had died of misery, or under the lash, as the Minsk nuns were proved to have been killed, before he terrified these unhappy millions into a submission against which their consciences revolted. Yet with this man, red with Catholic blood, and d.a.m.ned with the million curses of their co-religionists, the Rev. Father Jesuits are in alliance; and why?

Because it is a characteristic of that Order, to be ambitious to rule the world. To achieve this, they have now made the Pope the obedient satrap of the Czar. Into the enormity of this, enlightened Catholics see clearly. Roman Catholics of Hungary, of Poland, of Italy, Germany, and France have understood this. Is it possible that those of this republic should less understand it? Why, in Italy and Rome itself, a majority of the Catholic clergy are hostile to the temporal authority of the Pope, and sympathize with Mazzini so generally, that of _seventeen_ conspirators recently arrested for conspiring in favour of the Republic against Austria, _sixteen_ were _priests_ belonging to the humbler orders of the clergy.

Gentlemen, I am sorry to have to argue such a question in the United States. If it be indeed true, that amongst the Roman Catholics here an opposition is got up against our cause, let them remember that in opposing me, they oppose the independence and freedom of millions of Hungarian Catholics,--of Catholic Italy,--of the Catholic half of Germany, and of Catholic France; they are supporting the Czar, the most b.l.o.o.d.y enemy of their religion. Yet I am glad to be able to say, that not all the Roman Catholics here are opposed to me. I have warm friends and kind protectors among them. The gallant General Shields,--Mr. Downs, the Senator from Louisiana,--the warm-hearted Governor of Maryland,--Judge Le Grand at Baltimore, and many other of my kindest friends, are Roman Catholics. From New York onward, mult.i.tudes of Roman Catholics have shared the general sympathy. And why not? surely freedom is a treasure to every religious denomination whatsoever.[*]