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Mr. President, I feel proud at the accident, that in my person public honours have been restored to that on which alone they ought to be bestowed-righteousness and a just cause; whereas, until now, honours were lavished only upon success. I consider this as a highly important fact, which cannot fail to encourage the resolution of devoted patriots, who, though not afraid of death, may be excused for recoiling before humiliation.

Senators, Representatives of Ohio, I thank you for it in the name of all who may yet suffer for having done the duty of a patriot. You may yet see many a man, who, out of your approbation, will draw encouragement to noble deeds; for there are many on earth ready to meet misfortune for a noble aim, but not so many ready to meet humiliation and indignity. Besides, in honouring me, you have approved what my nation has done. You have honoured all Hungary by it, and I pledge my word to you that we will yet do what you have approved. The approbation of our conscience we have-the sympathy of your generous people has met us-and it is no idle thing, that sympathy of the people of Ohio-it weighs as the sovereign will of two millions of free men. You have added to it the sanction of your authority. Your people's sympathy you have framed into a law, sacred and sure in all consequences, on which humanity may rely.

But, sir, high though be the value of this noble approbation, it becomes an invaluable benefit to humanity by those resolutions by which the General Assembly of Ohio, acknowledging the justice of those principles which it is my mission to plead in my injured country's name, declares that the mighty and flourishing commonwealth of Ohio is resolved to restore the eternal laws of nations to their due sway, too long contemned by arbitrary power.

It was indeed a sorrowful sight to see how nations bled, and how freedom withered in the iron grasp of despotisms, leagued for universal oppression of humanity. It was a sorrowful sight to see that there was no power on earth ready to maintain those eternal laws, without which there is no security for any nation on earth. It was a sorrowful sight to see all nations isolating themselves in defence, while despots were leagued in offence.

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The view has changed. A bright lustre is spreading over the dark sky of humanity. The glorious galaxy of the United States rises upon oppressed nations, and the bloody star of despotism fading at your very declaration, will soon vanish from the sky like a meteor.

Legislators of Ohio, it may be flattering to ambitious vanity to act the part of an execrated conqueror, but it is a glory unparalleled in history to protect rights and freedom on earth. The time draws near, when, by virtue of such a declaration as yours, shared by your sister States, Europe's liberated nations will unite in a mighty choir of hallelujahs, thanking God that his paternal cares have raised the United States to the glorious position of a first-born son of freedom. on earth.

Washington prophesied, that within twenty years the Republic of the United States would be strong enough to defy The State of Ohio was any power on earth in a just cause. not yet born when the wisest of men and purest of patriots uttered that prophecy; and God the Almighty has made the prophecy true, by annexing, in a prodigiously short period, more stars to the proud constellation of your Republic, and increasing the lustre of every star more powerfully, than Washington could have anticipated in the brightest moments of his patriotic hopes.

Dutch hero, De

Rejoice, O my nation, in thy very woes! Wipe off all thy tears, and smile amidst thy tortures, like the Wytt. There is a Providence which rules. Thou wast, O my nation, often the martyr, who by thy blood didst redeem. the Christian nations on earth. Even thy present nameless woes are providential. They were necessary, that the starspangled banner of America should rise over a new Sinai— the Mountain of Law for all nations. Thy sufferings were necessary, that the people of the United States, powerful by their freedom and free by the principle of national independence, that common right of all humanity, should stand up, a new Moses upon the new Sinai, and shout out with the thundering voice of its twenty-five millions-"Hear, ye despots of the world, henceforward this shall be law, in the name of the Lord your God and our God.

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Ye shall not kill nations.

Ye shall not steal their freedom.

And ye shall not covet what is your neighbour's.'

Ohio has given its vote by the resolutions I had the honour to hear. It is the vote of two millions, and it will have its constitutional weight in the councils of Washington City, where the delegates of the people's sovereignty find their glory in doing the people's will.

Sir, it will be a day of consolation and joy in Hungary when my bleeding nation reads these resolutions, which I will send to her. They will flash over the gloomy land; and my nation, unbroken in courage, steady in resolution, and firm in confidence, will draw still more courage, more resolution from them, because it is well aware that the legislature of Ohio would never pledge a word to which the people of Ohio will not be true in case of need.

Sir, I regret that my illness has disabled me to express my fervent thanks in a manner more becoming to this Assembly's dignity. I beg to be excused for it; and humbly beg you to believe, that my nation for ever, and I for all my life, will cherish the memory of this benefit.

XXVIII.-THE MISERIES AND THE STRENGTH OF HUNGARY.

[Columbus, Feb. 7th, to the Association of Friends of Hungary.] On Feb. 7th was held the first regular meeting of the Ohio Association of the Friends of Hungary, in the City Hall of Columbus. Governor Wood addressed the Association, as its President; and in the course of his speech, said :

:-

This a cause in which the people of the United States feel much interest. Much has been said on the doctrine of intervention and non-intervention. There was a time when, if I ventured to speak a word on any question in this State, it was received with authority. The opinions I now express have been formed with the same deliberation as those I expressed with authority in another capacity. There has seemed to be a combined effort on the part of despots in Europe to put down

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ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR WOOD.

free institutions. It is the duty of freemen to oppose this effort to resist the principle that every civil community has not a right to regulate its own affairs. Whenever one nation interferes with the internal concerns of another, it is a direct insult to all other nations.

There is a combined effort in Continental Europe to overthrow all free and liberal institutions. This accomplished, what next?—The efforts of tyrants will be directed to our institutions. It will be their aim to break us down. Must not we prevent this event-peaceably if we can-forcibly if we must? No power will prevail with tyrants and usurpers but the power of gunpowder or steel.

Kossuth in reply, turning to Governor Wood, said: Before addressing the assembly, I humbly entreat your excellency to permit me to express, out of the very heart of my heart, my gratitude and fervent thanks for those lofty, generous principles which you have been pleased now to pronounce. I know those principles would have immense value even if they were only an individual opinion; but when they are expressed by him who is the elect of the people of Ohio, they doubly, manifoldly increase in weight.

The restoration of Hungary to its national independence is my aim, to which I the more cheerfully devote my life, because I know that my nation, once master of its own destiny, can make no other choice, in the regulation of its institutions and of its government, than that of a Republic, founded upon democracy and the great principle of municipal self-government, without which, as opposed to centralization, there is no practical freedom possible.

Other nations enjoying a comparatively tolerable condition under their existing governments—though aware of their imperfections, may shrink from a revolution of which they cannot anticipate the issue, while they know that in every case it is attended with great sacrifices and great sufferings for the generation which undertakes the hazard of the change. But that is not the condition of Hungary. My poor native land is in such a condition that all the horrors of a revolution, even without the hopes of happiness to be gained by it, are preferable to what it lives to endure now. The very life on a

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bloody battle field, where every whistling musket-ball may bring death--affords more security, more ease, and is less alarming than that life which the people of Hungary has to suffer now. We have seen many a sorrowful day in our past. We have been by our geographical position, destined as the breakwater against every great misfortune, which in former centuries rushed over Europe from the East. It is not only the Turks, when they were yet a dangerous, conquering race, which my nation had to stay, by wading to the very lips in its own heroic blood. No. The still more terrible invasion of Batu Khan's (the Mongol) raging millions, poured down over Europe from the Steppes of Tartary,-who came not to conquer but to destroy, and therefore spared not nature, not men, not the child in its mother's womb. It was Hungary which had to stay its flood from devouring the rest of Europe. Nevertheless all which Hungary has ever suffered is far less than it has to suffer now from the tyrant of Austria, himself in his turn nothing but the slave of ambitious Russia.

Oh! it is a fair, beautiful land, my beloved country, rich in nature's blessings as perhaps no land is rich on earth! When the spring has strewn its blossoms over it, it looks as the garden of Eden may have looked, and when the summer ripens nature's ocean of crops over its hills and plains, it looks like a table dressed for mankind by the Lord himself; and still it was here in Columbus that I read the news that a terrible dearth, that famine is spreading over the rich and fertile land. How should it not? Where life-draining oppression weighs so heavily, that the landowner offers the use of all his lands to the Government, merely to get free from the taxation-where the vintager cuts down his vineyard—the gardener his orchard, and the farmer burns his tobacco seed to be rid of the duties, and their vexations-there of course must dearth prevail, and famine raise its hideous head. Yet the tyrant adds calumny to oppression by attributing the dearth to a want of industry, after having created it by oppression. There exists no personal security of property. Nor is the verdict "not guilty," when pronounced by an Austrian court, sufficient to ensure security against prison, nay, against death by the executioner-through a new trial ordered to find