Select Speeches of Kossuth Part 25

Well, there is a just G.o.d in heaven, and there will yet be justice on earth;--the day of retribution will come!

Such being the sad tale of my fatherland, which, by a timely token of your brotherly sympathy might have been saved, and which now has lost everything except its honour, its trust in G.o.d, its hope of resurrection, its confidence in my patriotic exertions, and its steady resolution to strike once more the inexorable blow of retribution at tyrants and tyranny;--if the cause I plead were a particular cause, I would place it upon the ground of well-deserved sympathy, and would try to kindle into a flame of excitement the generous affections of your hearts: and I should succeed.

But since a great crisis, which is universally felt to be approaching, enables me to claim for my cause a universality not restricted by the geographical limits of a country or even of Europe itself, or by the moral limits of nationalities, but possessing an interest common to all the Christian world; it is calm, considerate conviction, and _not_ the pa.s.sing excitement of generous sentiments, which I seek. I hope therefore to meet the approbation of this intelligent a.s.sembly, when instead of pleasing you by an attempt at eloquence, for which, in my sick condition, I indeed have not sufficient freshness of mind--I enter into some dry but not unimportant considerations, which the citizens of Salem, claiming the glory of high commercial reputation, will kindly appreciate.

Gentlemen, I have often heard the remark, that if the United States do not care for the policy of the world, they will continue to grow internally, and will soon become the mightiest realm on earth, a Republic of a hundred millions of energetic freemen, strong enough to defy all the rest of the world, and to control the destinies of mankind.

And surely this is your glorious lot; but _only under the condition_, that no hostile combination, before you have in peace and in tranquillity grown so strong, arrests by craft and violence your giant-course; and this again is possible, only under the condition that Europe become free, and the league of despots become not sufficiently powerful to check the peaceful development of your strength. But Russia, too, the embodiment of the principle of despotism, is working hard for the development of _her_ power. Whilst you grow internally, her able diplomacy has spread its nets all over the continent of Europe.

There is scarcely a Prince there but feels honoured to be an underling of the great Czar; the despots are all leagued against the freedom of the nations: and should the principle of absolutism consolidate its power, and lastingly keep down the nations, then it must, even by the instinct of self-preservation, try to check the further development of your Republic. In vain they would have spilt the blood of millions, in vain they would have doomed themselves to eternal curses, if they allowed the United States to become the ruling power on earth. They crushed poor Hungary, because her example was considered dangerous. How could they permit you to become so mighty, as to be not only dangerous by your example, but by your power a certain ruin to despotism? They will, they must, do everything to check your glorious progress. Be sure, as soon as they have crushed the spirit of freedom in Europe, as soon as they command all the forces of the Continent, they will marshal them against you. Of course they will not lead their fleets and armies at once across the Ocean. They will first damage your prosperity by crippling your commerce. They will exclude America from the markets of Europe, not only because they fear the republican propagandism of your commerce, but also because Russia requires those markets for her own products.

[He proceeded to argue, that Russian policy, like that of the Magyars in their time of barbarism, is essentially encroaching and warlike; that to be _feared_, is often more important to Russia than to enjoy a particular market; that the Russian system of commerce is, and must be, prohibitory to republican traffic; that England alone in Europe has large commerce with America, and that the despots, if victorious on the continent, would make it their great object to damage, cripple, and ruin both these kindred const.i.tutional nations. He continued:]

The despots are scheming to muzzle the English lion. You see already how they are preparing for this blow--that Russia may become mistress of Constantinople, by Constantinople mistress of the Mediterranean, and by the Mediterranean of three-quarters of the globe. Egypt, Macedonia, Asia-Minor, the country and early home of the cotton plant, are then the immediate provinces of Russia, a realm with twenty million serfs, subject to its policy and depending on its arbitrary will.

Here is a circ.u.mstance highly interesting to the United States.

Constantinople is the key to Russia. To be preponderant, she knows it is necessary for her to be a maritime power. The Black Sea is only a lake, like Lake Leman; the Baltic is frozen five months in a year. These are all the seas she possesses. Constantinople is the key to the palace of the Czars. Russia is already omnipotent on the Continent; once master of the Mediterranean, it is not difficult to see that the power which already controls three-quarters of the world, will soon have the fourth quarter.

Whilst the victory of the nations of Europe would open to you the markets, till now closed to your products, the consolidation of despotism destroys your commerce unavoidably. If your wheat, your tobacco, your cotton, were excluded from Europe but for one year, there is no farm, no plantation, no banking-house, which would not feel the terrible shock of such a convulsion.

And hand-in-hand with the commercial restrictions you will then see an establishment of monarchies from Cape Horn to the Rio Grande del Norte.

Cuba becomes a battery against the mouth of the Mississippi; the Sandwich Islands a barrier to your commerce on the Pacific; Russian diplomacy will foster your domestic dissensions and rouse the South against the North, and the North against the South, the sea-coast against the inland States, and the inland States against the sea-coast, the Pacific interests against the Atlantic interests; and when discord paralyzes your forces, then comes at last the foreign interference, preceded by the declaration, that the European powers having, with your silent consent, inscribed into the code of international law, the principle that every foreign power has the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of any nation when these become a dangerous example, and your example and your republican principles being dangerous to the absolutist powers, and your domestic dissensions dangerous to the order and tranquillity of Europe, and therefore they consider it their "duty to interfere in America." And Europe being oppressed, you will have, single-handed, to encounter the combined forces of the world! I say no more about this subject. America will remember then the poor exile, if it does not in time enter upon that course of policy, which the intelligence of Ma.s.sachusetts, together with the young instinct of Ohio, are the foremost to understand and to advance.

A man of your own State, a President of the United States, John Quincy Adams, with enlarged sagacity, accepted the Panama Mission, to consider the action of the Holy Alliance upon the interests of the South American Republics.

Now, I beg you to reflect, gentlemen, how South America is different from Europe, as respects your own country. Look at the thousand ties that bind you to Europe. In Washington, a Senator from California, a generous friend of mine, told me he was _thirty_ days by steamer from the Seat of Government. Well, you speak of distance--just give me a good steamer and good sailors, and you will in _twenty_ days see the flag of freedom raised in Hungary.

I remember that when one of your glorious Stars (Florida, I think it was) was about to be introduced, the question of discussion and objection became, that the distance was great. It was argued that the limits of the government would be extended so far, that its duties could not be properly attended to. The President answered, that the distance was not too great, if the seat of government could be reached in thirty days. So far you have extended your territory; and I am almost inclined to ask my poor Hungary to be accepted as a Star in your glorious galaxy.

She might become a star in this immortal constellation, since she is not so far as thirty days off from you.

What little English I know, I learned from your Shakespeare, and I learned from him that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy." Who knows what the future may bring forth? I trust in G.o.d that all nations will become free, and that they will be united for the internal interests of humanity, and in that galaxy of freedom I know what place the United States will have.

One word more. When John Quincy Adams a.s.sumed for the United States the place of a power on earth, he was objected to, because it was thought possible that that step might give offence to the Holy Alliance. His answer was in these memorable words: "The United States must take counsel of their rights and duties, and not from their fears."

The Anglo-Saxon race represents const.i.tutional governments. If it be united for these, we shall have what we want, Fair Play; and, relying "upon our G.o.d, the justness of our cause, iron wills, honest hearts and good swords," my people will strike once more for freedom, independence, and for Fatherland.

XLV.--THE MARTYRS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

[_Lexington, May 11th_.]

Kossuth having been invited to visit the first battle fields of the Revolution, was accompanied by several members of the State Committee, on May 11th, to West Cambridge, Lexington, and Concord. He had already visited Bunker Hill on the 3d of May, but we have not in these pages found room for his speech there. At West Cambridge he was addressed by the Rev. Thomas Hill, and replied: at Lexington also he received two addresses, and the following was his reply:--

Gentlemen,--It has been often my lot to stand upon cla.s.sical ground, where the whispering breeze is fraught with wonderful tales of devoted virtue, bright glory, and heroic deeds. And I have sat upon ruins of ancient greatness, blackened by the age of centuries; and I have seen the living ruins of those ancient times, called men, roaming about the sacred ground, unconscious that the dust which clung to their boots, was the relic of departed demiG.o.ds--and I rose with a deep sigh. Those demiG.o.ds were but men, and the degenerate shapes that roamed around me, on the hallowed ground, were also not less than men. The decline and fall of nations impresses the mark of degradation on nature itself. It is sad to think upon--it lops the soaring wings of the mind, and chills the fiery arms of energy. But, however dark be the impression of such ruins of vanished greatness upon the mind of men who themselves have experienced the fragility of human fate, thanks to G.o.d, there are bright spots yet on earth, where the recollections of the past, brightened by present prosperity, strengthen the faith in the future of mankind's destiny. Such a spot is this.

Gentlemen, should the reverence which this spot commands allow a smile, I might feel inclined to smile at the eager controversy whether it was at Lexington or Concord that the fire of the British was first returned by Americans. Let it be this way or that way,--it will neither increase nor abate the merit of the martyrs who fell here. It is with their blood that the preface of your nation's history is written. Their death was, and always will be, the first b.l.o.o.d.y revelation of America's destiny; and Lexington, the opening scene of a revolution, of which Governor Boutwell was right to say, that it is destined to change the character of human governments, and the condition of the human race.

Should the Republic of America ever lose the consciousness of this destiny, that moment would be just so surely the beginning of America's decline, as the 19th of April, 1775, was the beginning of the Republic of America.

Prosperity is not always, gentlemen, a guarantee of the future, if it be not accompanied with a constant resolution to obey the call of the genius of the time. Nay, material prosperity is often the mark of real decline, when it either results in, or is connected with, a moral stagnation in the devoted attachment to principles. Rome was never richer, never mightier, than under Trajan, and still it had already the sting of death in its very heart.

To me, whenever I stand upon such sacred ground as this, the spirits of the departed appear like the prophets of future events. The language they speak to my heart is the revelation of Providence.

The struggle of America for independence was providential. It was a necessity. Those circ.u.mstances which superficial consideration takes for the motives of the glorious Revolution, were but accidental opportunities for it. Had those circ.u.mstances not occurred, others would have occurred, and might have presented perhaps a different opportunity; but the Revolution would have come. It was a necessity, because the colonies of America had attained that lawful age in the development of all the elements of national existence, which claims the right to stand by itself, and cannot any longer be led by a child's leading-strings, be the hand which leads it a mother's or a step-mother's. Circ.u.mstances and the connection of events were such, that this unavoidable emanc.i.p.ation had to pa.s.s the violent concussion of severe trials. The immortal glory of your forefathers was, that they did not shrink to accept the trial, and were devoted and heroic to sacrifice themselves to their country's destiny. And the monuments you erect to their memory, and the religious reverence with which you cherish the memory, are indeed well deserved tributes of grat.i.tude.

But allow me to say, there is a tribute which those blessed spirits are still more eager to claim from you as the happy inheritance of the fruits they have raised for you; it is, the tribute of always remaining _true to their principle_; devoted to the destiny of your country, which destiny is to become the corner-stone of LIBERTY on earth. Empires can be only maintained by the same virtue by which they have been founded. Oh! let me hope that, while the recollections connected with this hallowed ground, inspire the heart of a wandering exile with consolation, with hope, and with perseverance (from the very fact that I have stood here, brought with the anxious prayers and expectations of the Old World's oppressed millions), you will see the finger of G.o.d pointing out the appropriate opportunity to act your part in America's destiny, by maintaining the laws of _Nature and of Nature's G.o.d_, for which your heroes fought and your martyrs died; and to regenerate the world.

"Proclaiming freedom in the name of G.o.d,"

till--to continue in the beautiful words of your Whittier--

----"Its blessings fall Common as dew and sunshine over all."

[From Lexington Kossuth proceeded to Concord, and was there addressed by the well-known author, Ralph Waldo Emerson. His reply was at greater length, and on the same subject as at Lexington; yet a part of it may here be printed.]

Kossuth said:--

In my opinion, there is not a single event in history so distinctly marked to be providential--and providential with reference to all humanity--as the colonization, revolution, and republicanism of the now United States of America.

This immense continent being peopled with elements of European civilization, could not remain a mere appendix to Europe. But when it is connected with Europe by a thousand social, moral, and material ties, by blood, religion, language, science, civilization, and commerce, to believe that it can rest isolated in politics from Europe, would be just such a fault as it was that England did not believe in time the necessity of America's independence. Yes, gentlemen, this is so sure to me, that I would pledge life, honour, and everything dear to man's heart and honourable to man's memory, that either America must take her becoming part in the political regeneration of Europe, or she herself must yield to the pernicious influence of European politics. There was never yet a more fatal mistake, than it would be to believe, that by not caring about the political condition of Europe, America may remain unaffected by the condition of Europe. I could perhaps understand such an opinion, if you would or could be entirely isolated from Europe; but as you are not isolated, as you cannot be, as you cannot even have the will to be (for that very will would be a paradox, a logical absurdity, impossible to be carried out, being contrary to the eternal laws of G.o.d, which he for n.o.body's sake will change); therefore to believe that you can go on to be connected with Europe in a thousand respects, and still remain unaffected by its social and political condition, would be indeed a fatal delusion.

You stretch out your gigantic hands a thousandfold every day over the waves; your relations with Europe are not only commercial as with Asia, they are also social, moral, spiritual, intellectual; you take Europe every day by the hand. How then could you believe, that if that hand of Europe, which you grasp every day, remains dirty, you can escape from soiling your own hands? The cleaner they are, all the more will the filth of old Europe stick to them. There is no possible means to escape from being soiled, than to help us, Europeans, to wash the hands of our old world.

You have heard of the ostrich, that when persecuted by an enemy, it is wont to hide its head, leaving its body exposed; it believes that by not regarding it, it will not be seen by the enemy. That curious aberration is worthy of reflection. It is _typical_.

Yes, gentlemen, either America will _re_generate the condition of the old world, or it will be _de_generated by the condition of the old world.

Sir, I implore you (Mr. Emerson), give me the aid of your philosophical _a.n.a.lysis_, to impress the conviction upon the public mind of your nation that the Revolution, to which CONCORD was the preface, is full of a higher destiny--of a destiny broad as the world, broad as humanity itself. Let me entreat you to apply the a.n.a.lytic powers of your penetrating intellect, to disclose the character of the American Revolution, as you disclose the character of self-reliance, of spiritual laws, of intellect, of nature, or of politics. Lend the authority of your judgment to the truth, that the destiny of American revolution is not yet fulfilled; that the task is not yet completed; that to stop half way, is worse than would have been not to stir: repeat those words of deep meaning which once you wrote about the monsters that looked backward, and about the walking with reverted eye, while the voice of the Almighty says, "_up and onward for ever more_," while moreover the instinct of your people, which never fails to be right, answered the call of destiny by taking for its motto the word _ahead_.

Indeed, gentlemen, the monuments you raised to the heroic martyrs who fertilized with their hearts' blood the soil of liberty--these monuments are a fair tribute of well-deserved grat.i.tude, gratifying to the spirits who are hovering around us and honourable to you. Woe to the people which neglect to honour its great and good men; but believe me, gentlemen, those blessed spirits would look down with saddened brows to this free and happy land, if ever they were doomed to see that the happy inheritors of their martyrdom imagined that the destiny to which that martyr blood was consecrated, is accomplished, and its price fully paid in the already achieved results, because the living generation dwells comfortably and makes TWO DOLLARS out of _one_.

No, gentlemen, the stars in the sky have a higher aim than merely to illumine the night-path of some lonely wanderer. The course your nation is called to run, is not yet half performed. Mind the fable of Atalanta: it was a golden apple thrown into her way which made her fall short in her race.

Two things I have met here in these free and mighty United States, which I am at a loss how to make concord. The two things I cannot harmonize are:--First, that all your historians, all your statesmen, all your distinguished orators, who wrote or spoke, characterize it as AN ERA in mankind's history, destined to change the condition of the world, upon which it will rain an everflowing influence. And secondly, in contradiction to this universally adopted creed, I have met in many quarters a propensity to believe that it is conservative wisdom not to take any active part in the regulation of the outward world.

These two things do not agree. If that be the destiny of America, which you all believe to be, then that destiny can never be fulfilled by acting the part of pa.s.sive spectators, and by this very pa.s.sivity granting a charter to ambitious Czars to dispose of the condition of the world.

I have met distinguished men trusting so much to the operative power of your inst.i.tutions and of your _example_, that they really believe they will make their way throughout the world merely by their _moral influence_. But there is one thing those gentlemen have disregarded in their philanthropic reliance; and that is, that the ray of the sun never yet made its way by itself through well-closed shutters and doors--they must be drawn open, that the blessed rays of the sun may get in. I have never yet heard of a despot who yielded to the moral influence of liberty. The ground of Concord itself is an evidence of it; the doors and shutters of oppression must be opened by bayonets, that the blessed rays of your inst.i.tutions may penetrate into the dark dwelling-house of oppressed humanity.

There are men who believe the position of a power on earth will come to you by itself; but oh! do not trust to this fallacy; a position never comes by itself; it must be taken, and taken it never will be by pa.s.sivity.

The martyrs who have hallowed by their blood the ground of Concord, trusted themselves and occupied the place Divine Providence a.s.signed them. Sir, the words are yours which I quote. You have told your people that they are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same destiny, that they are not minors and invalids in a protected corner; but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, advancing on chaos and on the dark.

I pray G.o.d to give to your people the sentiment of the truth you have taught.

Your people, fond of its prosperity, loves peace. Well, who would not love peace; but allow me again, sir, to repeat with all possible emphasis, the great word you spoke, "Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."

XLVI.--CONDITION OF EUROPE.