Select Speeches of Kossuth Part 4

The laws which we succeeded to carry in 1848, of course altered nothing in that old chartered condition of Hungary. We transformed the peasantry into freeholders, and abolished feudal inc.u.mbrances. We replaced the political privileges of aristocracy by the common liberty of the whole people; gave to the people at large representation in the legislature; transformed our munic.i.p.alities into democratic corporations; introduced equality before the law for the whole people in rights and duties, and abolished the immunity of taxation which had been enjoyed by the cla.s.s called _n.o.ble_; secured equal religious liberty to all, secured liberty of the press and of a.s.sociation, provided for public gratuitous instruction of the whole people of every confession and of whatever tongue. In all this we did no wrong. All these were, as you see, internal reforms which did not at all interfere with our allegiance to the king and were carried lawfully in peaceful legislation _with the king's own sanction_. Besides this there was one other thing which was carried. We were formerly governed by a Board of Council, which had the express duty to govern according to our laws, and be responsible for doing so; but we found by long experience that a Corporation cannot really be responsible; and that this was the reason why the absolutist tendency of the dynasty succeeded in encroaching upon our liberty. So we replaced the Board of Council by Ministers; the empty responsibility of a Board by the individual responsibility of men--and _the king consented to it_. I myself was named by him Minister of the Treasury. That is all. But precisely here was the rub. The dynasty could not bear the idea that we would not give to its ambition the life sweat of our people; it was not contented with the 1,500,000 dollars which were generously appropriated to it yearly. It dreaded that it would be disabled in future from using our brave army, against our will, to crush the spirit of freedom in the world. Therefore it resorted to the most outrageous conspiracy, and attacked us by arms, and upon receiving a false report of a great victory this young usurper issued a proclamation declaring that Hungary shall no more exist--that its independence, its const.i.tution, its very existence is abolished, and it shall be absorbed, like a farm or fold, into the Austrian Empire. To all this Hungary answered, "Thou shalt not exist, tyrant, but we will;" and we banished him, and issued the declaration of the deposition of his dynasty, and of our separate independence.

So you see, gentlemen, that there is a very great difference between your declaration and ours--it is in our favour. There is another difference; you declared your independence of the English crown when it was yet very doubtful whether you would be successful. We declared our independence of the Austrian crown only after we, in legitimate defence, were already victorious; when we had actually beaten the pretender, and had thus already proved that we had strength to become an independent power. One thing more: our declaration of independence was not only overwhelmingly voted in our Congress, but every county, every munic.i.p.ality, solemnly declared its consent and adherence to it; so it became sanctioned, not by mere representatives, but by the whole nation positively, and by the fundamental inst.i.tutions of Hungary. And so it still remains. Nothing has since happened on the part of the nation contrary to this declaration. One thing only happened,--a foreign power, Russia, came with its armed bondsmen, and, aided by treason, has overthrown us for a while. Now, I put the question before G.o.d and humanity to you, free sovereign people of America, can this violation of international law abolish the legitimate character of our declaration of independence? If not, then here I take my ground, because I am in this very manifesto entrusted with the charge of Governor of my fatherland. I have sworn, before G.o.d and my nation, to endeavour to maintain and secure this act of independence. And so may G.o.d the Almighty help me as I will--I will, until my nation is again in the condition to dispose of its government, which I confidently trust,--yea, more, I know,--will be republican. And then I retire to the humble condition of my former private life, equalling, in one thing at least, your Washington, not in merits, but in honesty. That is the only ambition of my life. Amen.

Here, then, is my THIRD humble wish: that the people of the United States would, by all const.i.tutional means of its wonted public life, declare that, acknowledging the legitimacy of our independence, it is anxious to greet Hungary amongst the independent powers of the earth, and invites the government of the United States to recognize this independence _at the earliest convenient time_. That is all. Let me see the principle announced: the rest may well be left to the wisdom of your government, with some confidence in my own respectful discretion also.

So much for the people of the United States, in its public and political capacity. But if that sympathy which I have the honour to meet with is really intended to become beneficial, there is one humble wish more which I entertain: it is a respectful appeal to generous feeling.

Gentlemen, I would rather starve than rely, for myself and family, on foreign aid; but for my country's Freedom, I would not be ashamed to go begging from door to door. I have taken the advice of some kind friends whether it be lawful to express such a humble request, for I feel it an honourable duty neither to offend nor to evade your laws. I am told it is lawful. There are two means to see this my humble wish accomplished.

The first is, by spontaneous subscription; the second is, by a loan. The latter may require private consultation in a narrower circle. As to subscriptions, the idea was brought home to my mind by a plain but very generous letter, which I had the honour to receive, and which I beg to read. It is as follows:--

CINCINNATI, O., Nov. 14, 1851.

M. LOUIS KOSSUTH, Governor of Hungary:--Sir--I have authorized the office of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, in New York, to honour your draft on me for one thousand dollars. Respectfully yours, W.

SMEAD.

I beg leave here publicly to return my most humble thanks to the gentleman, for his ample aid, and the delicate manner in which he offered it; and it came to my mind, that where one individual is ready to make such sacrifices to my country's cause, there may perhaps be many who would give their small share to it, if they were only apprised that it will be thankfully accepted, however small it may be. And it came to my mind, that millions of drops make an ocean, and the United States number many millions of inhabitants, all warmly attached to liberty. A million dollars, paid singly, would be to me far _more_ precious than paid in one single draft; for it would practically show the sympathy of the people at large. Would I were so happy as your Washington was, when he also, for your glorious country's sake, in the hours of your need, called to France for money.

Sir, I have done. I came to your sh.o.r.es an exile: you have poured upon me the triumph of a welcome such as the world has never yet seen. And why? Because you took me for the representative of that principle of liberty which G.o.d has destined to become the common benefit of all humanity. It is glorious to see a free and mighty people so greet the principle of freedom, in the person of one who is persecuted and helpless. Be blessed for it! Your generous deed will be recorded; and as millions of Europe's oppressed nations will, even now, raise their thanksgiving to G.o.d for this ray of hope, which by this act you have thrown on the dark night of their fate; even so, through all posterity, oppressed men will look to your memory as to a token of G.o.d that there is a hope for freedom on earth, since there is a people like you to feel its worth and to support its cause.

VIII.--ON NATIONALITIES.

[_Speech at the Banquet of the Press, New York_.]

At this Banquet, Mr. Bryant, the poet, presided, and numerous speeches were delivered, among which was one by the well-known author, Mr.

Bancroft, lately amba.s.sador in England. This gentleman closed by saying, that when the ill.u.s.trious Governor of Hungary uttered the solemn truth, that Europe had no hope but in republican inst.i.tutions--that was a renunciation to the world that the Austrian monarchy was sick and dying, and that vitality remained in the people alone. And as he uttered that truth, not his own race only--not the Magyars only, but every nationality of Hungary, all the fifteen or twenty millions within its limits--all cried out that he was the representative of their convictions--that he was the man of their affections, that he was the utterer of truths on which they relied.

Our guest crosses the Atlantic, and he is received; and what is the great fact that const.i.tutes his reception? He finds there the military arranged to do him honour. And among those who, on that day, bore arms, were men of every tongue that is spoken between the steppes of Tartary, eastward, towards the Pacific ocean. The great truth that was p.r.o.nounced on that occasion--I do not fear to utter it--was, let who will cavil, _la solidarite des peuples_--the sublime truth that all men are brothers--that all nations, too, are brethren, and are responsible for one another.

The chairman also spoke eloquently in introducing the third toast, which was briefly, LOUIS KOSSUTH. As Mr. Bryant p.r.o.nounced his name, Kossuth rose, and was received with multifarious demonstrations of enthusiasm.

At last he proceeded as follows:--

Gentlemen.--I know that in your hands the Independent Republican Press is a weapon to defend truth and justice, a torch lit at the fire of immortality, a spark of which glisters in every man's soul and proves its divine origin: and as the cause of my country is just and true, and wants nothing but light to secure support from every friend of freedom, every n.o.ble-minded man,--for this reason I address you with joy, gentlemen.

Though it is sorrowful to see how Austrian intrigues, distorting plain open history into a tissue of falsehood, find their way even into the American press, I am proud and happy that the immense majority of you, conscious of your n.o.ble vocation and instinct with the generosity of freedom, protect our sacred rights against the dark plots of tyranny.

Your Independent Press has likewise proved that its freedom is the most efficient protection even against calumny; a far better one than restrictive prevention, which condemns the human intellect to eternal minority.

I address you, gentlemen, with the greater joy, because through you I have the invaluable benefit of reaching the whole of your great, glorious, and free people.

Eighty years ago the immortal Franklin's own press was almost the only one in the colonies: now you have above three thousand newspapers, with a circulation of five millions of copies. I am told that the journals of New York State alone exceed in number those of all the rest of the world outside of your great Union, and that the circulation of the newspapers of this city alone nearly reaches that of the whole empire of Great Britain! But, what is more,--I boldly declare that, except in the United States, there is scarcely anywhere a practical freedom of the press.

Indeed, concerning Norway I am not quite aware. But throughout the European continent you know how the press is fettered. In France, under nominally republican government, all the fruits of victorious revolutions are nipt by the blasting grip of _centralized_ power,--legislative and administrative omnipotence. The independence of the French press is crushed; the government cannot bear the free word of public opinion; and in a republic, the shout "Vive la republique" is become almost a crime. This is a mournful sight, but is an efficient warning against centralization. It is chiefly Great Britain which boasts of a free press; and a.s.suredly in one sense the freedom is almost unlimited: for I saw placards with the printer's name stating that Queen Victoria is no lawful queen, and all those who rule ought to be hanged; but men only laughed at the foolish extravagance. Nevertheless, I hope the generous people of Great Britain will not be offended when I say that their press is not practically free. Its freedom is not real, for it is not a _common benefit_ to all: it is but a particular benefit, that is, a _privilege_. Taxation there forbids the use of newspapers to the poor. Absence of taxation enables your journals to be published at one tenth, or even one twentieth, of the English price: hence several of your daily papers reach from thirty to sixty thousand readers, while in England one paper alone is on this scale,--the London 'Times,' which circulates thirty thousand, perhaps. Such being the condition of your press, in addressing you I address a whole people; nor only so, but a whole intelligent people.

The wide diffusion of intelligence among you is in fact proved by the immense circulation of your journals. It is not solely the cheap price which renders your press a common benefit, and not a mere privilege to the richer; but it is the universality of public instruction. It is glorious to know that in this flourishing young city alone nearly a hundred thousand children receive public education annually. Do you know, gentlemen, what I consider to be your most glorious monument? if it be, as I have read, that, when your engineers draw geometrical lines to guide your wandering squatters in the solitudes where virgin Nature adores her Lord, they place on every thirty-sixth square of the district marked out to be a township, a modest wooden pole with the glorious mark, POPULAR EDUCATION. This is your proudest monument. In my opinion, not your geographical situation, not your material power, not the bold enterprizing spirit of your people, is the chief guarantee of their future; but the universality of education: for a whole people, once become intelligent, never can consent not to be free. You will always be willing to be free, and you are great and powerful enough to be as good as your will.

My humble prayers in my country's cause I address to your entire nation: but you, gentlemen, are the engineers through whom my cause must reach them. It is therefore highly gratifying to me to see, not isolated men, but the powerful complex of the great word PRESS, granting me this important manifestation of generous sentiment. I beg you to consider, that whatever and wherever I speak, is _always_ spoken to the press; and for all the imperfections of my language let me plead for your indulgence, as one of your professional colleagues: for indeed such I have been.

Yes, gentlemen; I commenced my public career as a journalist. You, under your happy inst.i.tutions, know not the torment of writing with hands fettered by an Austrian censor. To sit at the desk, with a heart full of the necessity of the moment, a conscience stirred with righteous feeling, a mind animated with convictions and principles, and a whole soul warmed by a patriot's fire;--to see before your eyes the scissors of the censor ready to lop your ideas, maim your arguments, murder your thoughts, render vain your laborious days and sleepless nights;--to know that the people will judge you, not by what you have felt, thought, written, but by what the censor will let you say;--to perceive that the prohibition has no rule or limit but the arbitrary pleasure of a man who is doomed by profession to be a coward and a fool;--oh! his little scissors suspended over one are a worse misery than the sword of Damocles. Oh! to go on, day by day, in such a work of Sisyphus, believe me, is no small sacrifice of any intelligent man to fatherland and humanity. And this is the present condition of the press, not in Hungary only, but in all countries cursed by Austrian rule. Indeed, our recent reforms gave freedom of the press, not to my fatherland only, but indirectly to Vienna, Prague, Lemberg; in a word, to the whole empire of Austria and this must ensure your sympathy to us. Contrariwise, the interference of Russia has crushed the press on the whole European continent. Freedom of the press is incompatible with the preponderance of Russia, and with the very existence of the Austrian dynasty, the sworn enemy of every liberal thought. This must engage your generous support to sweep away those tyrants, and to raise liberty where now foul oppression rules.

Some time back there appeared in certain New York papers systematic falsehoods, which went so far as to state that we, the Hungarians, had struggled for oppression, while it was the Austrian dynasty which stood up for liberty! Such effrontery astonishes even one who has seen Russian treacheries. We may be misrepresented, scorned, jeered at, censured. Our martyrs, whose blood cries for revenge, may be laughed at as fools. Heroes, who will command the veneration of history, may be called Don Quixotes. But that among freemen and professed republicans even the honour of an unfortunate nation, in its most mournful suffering, should not be sacred,--that is indeed a sorrowful page in human history.

You cannot expect me to enter into a special refutation of this compound of calumnies. I may reserve it for my pen. But inasmuch as the basis of all the calumnies lies in general ignorance concerning the relation of the Magyars to other races of Hungary, permit me to speak on the question of NATIONALITIES, a false theory of which plays so mischievous a part in the destinies of Europe. No word has been more misrepresented than the word Nationality, which is become in the hands of absolutism a dangerous instrument against liberty.

Let me ask you, gentlemen: are you, the people of the United States, a _nation_, or not? Have you a _national_ government, or not?

You answer, yes: and yet you are not all of one blood, nor of one language. Millions of you speak English; others French, German, Italian, Spanish, Danish, and even several Indian dialects: yet you are a nation.

Neither your central government, nor those of separate states, nor your munic.i.p.alities, legislate or administer in every language spoken among you; yet you have a national government.

Now, suppose many of you were struck with the curse of Babel, and exclaimed, "This union is an oppression! our laws, our inst.i.tutions, our state and city governments, are an oppression! What is union to us? what are rights? what avail laws? what is freedom? what is geography? what is community of interests to us? They are all nothing; LANGUAGE is everything. Let us divide the Union, divide the states, divide the very cities, divide the whole territory, according to languages. Let the people of every language become a separate state: for every nation has a right to national life, and to us, the language, and nothing else, is the nationality. Unless the state is founded upon language, its organization is tyranny."

What then would become of your great Union? What of your const.i.tution, the glorious legacy of your greatest man? What of those immortal stars on mankind's moral sky? What would become of your country itself, whence the spirit of freedom soars into light, and rising hope irradiates the future of humanity? What would become of this grand, mighty complex of your republic, should her integrity ever be rent by the fanatics of language? Where now she walks among the rising temples of liberty and happiness, she soon would tread upon ruins, and mourn over human hopes. But happy art then, free nation of America, founded on the only solid basis,--liberty! a principle steady as the world, eternal as the truth, universal for every climate, for every time, like Providence. Tyrants are not in the midst of you to throw the apple of discord and raise hatred in this national family, hatred of _races_, that curse of humanity, that venomous ally of despotism.

Glorious it is to see the oppressed of diverse countries,--diverse in language, history, habits,--wandering to these sh.o.r.es, and becoming members of this great nation, regenerated by the principle of common liberty.

If language alone makes a nation, then there is no great nation on earth: for there is no country whose population is counted by millions, but speaks more than one language. No! It is not language only.

Community of interests, of rights, of duties, of history, but chiefly community of inst.i.tutions; by which a population, varying perhaps in tongue and race, is bound together through daily intercourse in the towns, which are the centres and home of commerce and industry:--besides these, the very mountain-ranges, the system of rivers and streams,--the soil, the dust of which is mingled with the mortal remains of those ancestors who bled on the same field, for the same interests, the common inheritance of glory and of woe, the community of laws and inst.i.tutions, common freedom or common oppression:--all this enters into the complex idea of Nationality.

That this is instinctively felt by the common sense of the people, nowhere is more manifestly shown than at this very moment in my native land. Hungary was declared by Francis Joseph of Austria _no more to exist_ as a Nation, no more as a State. It was and is put under martial law. Strangers, aliens to our laws and history as well as to our tongue, rule now, where our fathers lived and our brothers bled. To be a Hungarian is become almost a crime in our own native land. Well: to justify before the world the extinction of Hungary, the part.i.tion of its territory, and the reincorporating of the dissected limbs into the common body of servitude, the treacherous dynasty was anxious to show that the Hungarians are in a minority in their own land. They hoped that intimidation and terrorism would induce even the very Magyars to disavow their language and birth. They ordered a census of races to be made.

They performed it with the iron rule of martial law; and dealt so arbitrarily that thousands of women and men, who professed to be Magyars, who professed not to know any other language than the Magyar, were, notwithstanding all their protestation, put down as Sclaves, Serbs, Germans, or Wallachians, because their names had not quite a Hungarian sound. And still what was the issue of this malignant plot?

That of the twelve millions of inhabitants of Hungary proper, the Magyars turned out to be more than eight millions, some two millions more than we know the case really is. The people instinctively felt that the tyrant had the design through the pretext of language to destroy the existence of the complex nation, and it met the tyrannic plot as if it answered, "We are, and must be, a nation; and if the tyrant takes language only for the mark of nationality, then we are all Magyars." And mark well, gentlemen! this happened, not under my governorship, but under the rule of Austrian martial law. The Cabinet of Vienna became furious; it thought of a new census, but prudent men told them that a new census would give the whole twelve millions as Magyars; thus no new census was taken.

But on the European continent there unhappily has grown up a school, which bound the idea of nationality to the idea of language only, and joined political pretensions to it. There are some who advocate the theory that existing States must cease, and the territories of the world be divided anew by languages and nations, separated by tongues.

You are aware that this idea, if it were not impracticable, would be a curse to humanity--a deathblow to civilization and progress, and throw back mankind by centuries. It would be an eternal source of strife and war: for there is a holy, almost religious tie, by which man's heart is bound to his home, and no man would ever consent to abandon his native land only because his neighbours speak another language than himself.

His heart claims that sacred spot where the ashes of his fathers lie--where his own cradle stood--where he dreamed the happy dreams of youth, and where nature itself bears a mark of his manhood's toil. The idea were worse than the old migration of nations was. Nothing but despotism would rise out of such a fanatical strife of all mankind.

And really it is very curious. n.o.body of the advocates of this mischievous theory is willing to yield to it for himself--but others he desires to yield to it. Every Frenchman becomes furious when his Alsace is claimed to Germany by the right of language--or the borders of his Pyrenees to Spain--but there are some amongst the very men who feel revolted at this idea, who claim of Germany that it should yield up large territory because one part of the inhabitants speak a different tongue, and would claim from Hungary to divide its territory, which G.o.d himself has limited by its range of mountains and the system of streams, as also by all the links of a community of more than a thousand years; to cut off our right hand, Transylvania, and to give it up to the neighbouring Wallachia, to cut out like Shylock one pound of our very breast--the Banat--and the rich country between the Danube and Theiss--to augment by it Turkish Serbia and so forth. It is the new ambition of conquest, but an easy conquest not by arms, but by language.

So much I know, at least, that this absurd idea cannot, and will not, be advocated by any man here in the United States; which did not open its hospitable sh.o.r.es to humanity, and greet the flocking millions of emigrants with the right of a citizen, in order that the Union may be cut to pieces, and even your single States divided into new-framed, independent countries according to languages.

And do you know, gentlemen, whence this absurd theory sprang up on the European Continent? It was the idea of Panslavismus--that is the idea that the mighty stock of Sclavonic races is called to rule the world, as once the Roman did. It was a Russian plot--it was a dark design to make out of national feelings a tool to Russian preponderance over the world.

Perhaps you are not aware of the historical origin of this plot. It was after that most immortal act of tyranny, the third division of Poland, that the chance of fate brought the Prince Czartorinsky, to the Court of Catherine of Russia. He subsequently became minister of Alexander the Czar. It was in this quality that, with the n.o.ble aim to benefit his fallen fatherland, he claimed from the young Czar the restoration of Poland, suggesting for equivalent the idea of Russian preponderance over all nations of the old Sclavonic race. I believe his intention was sincere; I believe he did not mean to overlook those natural borders, which, besides the affinity of language, G.o.d himself has drawn between the nations. But he forgot that he might be no longer able to master the spirits which he would raise, and that an undesired fanaticism might force sundry fantastical shapes into his framework, by which the frame itself must burst in pieces. He forgot that Russian preponderance cannot be propitious to liberty; he forgot that it cannot be favourable even to the development of the Sclave nationality, because Sclavonic nations would by this idea be degraded into mere Russians, that is, absorbed by despotism.

Russia got hold of the fanciful idea very readily! May be that young Alexander had in the first moment n.o.ble inclinations; the warm heart of youth is susceptible to n.o.ble instincts. It is not common in history to find young princes so premature in tyranny as Francis-Joseph of Austria.

But a few years of power were sufficient to extinguish every spark of n.o.ble sentiment, if there was one, in Alexander's heart. Upon the throne of the Romanoffs the man is soon absorbed by the Autocrat. The traditional policy of St. Petersburg is not an atmosphere in which the plant of regeneration can grow, and the fanciful idea became soon a weapon of oppression and of Russian preponderance--Russia availed herself of the idea of Panslavism to break Turkey down, and to make an obedient satellite out of Austria. Turkey still withstands her, but Austria has fallen into the snare. Russia sent out its agents, its moneys, its venomous secret diplomacy; it whispered to the Sclave nations about hatred against foreign dominion--about independence of religion connected with nationality under its own supremacy; but chiefly it spoke to them of Panslavism under the protectorate of the Czar. The millions of his large empire also, all oppressed--all in servitude--all a tool to his ambition; them too he flattered with the idea of becoming rulers of the world, in order that they might not think of liberty: he knew that man's breast cannot maintain in ascendancy two great pa.s.sions at once. He gave them ambition and excluded the spirit of liberty. This ambition got hold of all the Sclave nations through Europe; so Panslavism became the source of a movement, not of nationality, but of the dominion of languages. That word "language" replaced every other sentiment, and so it became a curse to the development of liberty.

Only one part of the Sclavonic races saw the matter clear, and withstood the current of this dark Russian plot. These were the Polish Democrats--the only ones who understood that to fight for liberty is to fight for nationality. Therefore they fought in our ranks, and were willing to flock in thousands upon thousands to aid us in our struggle; but we could not arm them, so I would not accept them. We ourselves had a hundredfold more hands ready to fight than arms--and there was n.o.body in the world to supply us with arms.

Now let me see what was the condition of Hungary under these circ.u.mstances.

Eight hundred and fifty years ago, when the first King of Hungary, St.

Stephen, becoming Christian himself, converted the Hungarian nation to Christianity, it was the Roman Catholic clergy of Germany whom he invited to a.s.sist him in his pious work. They did a.s.sist him, but the a.s.sistance, as happens with human nature, was accompanied by some worldly designs. Hungary offered a wide field to the ambition of foreigners, and they persuaded the King to adopt a curious principle, which he laid down in his last Will and Testament--that it is not good for the people of a country to be but of one extraction and speak but one tongue. A second rule was, to adopt the language of the Church--Latin--for the language of government, legislature, law and all public proceedings. This is the origin of that fatality, that Democracy did not grow up for centuries in Hungary. The public proceedings being in Latin, the laws given in Latin, public instruction carried on in Latin, the great ma.s.s of the people, who were agriculturists, did not partake in any of this; and the few who in the ranks of the people partook in it, became severed and alienated from the people's interests.

This dead Latin language, introduced into the public life of a living nation, was the most mischievous barrier against liberty. The first blow to it was stricken by the Reformation. The Protestant Church, introducing the national language into the divine services, became a medium to the development of the spirit of liberty, and so our ancient struggles for religious liberty were always connected with the maintenance of political rights. But still, Latin public life went on down to 1780. At that time, Joseph of Hapsburg, aiming at centralization, replaced the Latin by the German tongue. This roused the national spirit of Hungary; and our forefathers seeing that the dead Latin language, excluding the people from the public concerns, cannot be propitious to liberty, and anxious to oppose the design of the Viennese Cabinet to Germanize Hungary, and _so melt it into the common absolutism of the Austrian dynasty_--I say, anxious to oppose this design by a cheerful public life of the people itself, from the year 1790 began to pa.s.s laws in the direction that by-and-by, step by step, the Latin language should be replaced in the public proceedings of the Legislature and of the Government by a living language familiar to the people itself. And what was more natural, than that, being in the necessity to choose one language, they choose the Magyar? the more so, since those who spoke Hungarian were not only more than those who spoke any one of the other languages, but were if not more than, at least equal to, all those who spoke several other languages together.

Be so kind to mark well, gentlemen; no other language was oppressed--the Hungarian language was enforced upon n.o.body. Wherever another language was in use even in public life; of whatever Church--whatever popular school--whatever community--it was not replaced by the Hungarian language. It was only the dead Latin, which by-and-by became eliminated from the diplomatic public life, and replaced by the living Hungarian in Hungary.

In Hungary, I say. Gentlemen, be pleased to mark: never was this measure extended into the munic.i.p.al life of Croatia and Sclavonia, which, though belonging for 800 years to Hungary, still were not Hungary, but a race with distinct local inst.i.tutions.

The Croatians and Sclavonians themselves repeatedly urged us in the common parliament to afford them opportunity to learn the Hungarian language, that, having the right, they might also enjoy the benefit, of being employed in the government offices of our common Hungary. This opportunity was afforded to them, but n.o.body was forced to make use of it; while neither with their own munic.i.p.al and public life, nor with the domestic, social, religious life, of any other people in Hungary itself, did the Hungarian language ever interfere. It replaced only the Latin language, which no people spoke, and which was contrary to liberty, because it excluded the millions from public life. Willing to give freedom to the people, we expelled that Latin tongue; which was an obstacle to its future. We did what every other nation in the old world has done, clearing by it the way to the universal liberty.

Your country is happy even in that respect. Being a young nation, you did not find the Latin tongue in your way when you established this Republic; so you did not want a law to eject it from your public life.