222 MISSION OF KOSSUTH. That is the mission with which I come to your shores; and believe me, gentlemen, that it is the key of that wonderful sympathy with which the people of this republic answers my humble appeal. There is blood from our blood in these noble American hearts; there is the great heart of mankind which pulsates in the American breast; there is the chord of liberty which vibrates to my sighs. Let ambitious fools, let the pigmies who live on the scanty food of personal envy, when the very earth quakes beneath their feet, let even the honest prudence of ordinary household times, measuring eternity with that thimble with which they are wont to measure the bubbles of small party interest, and, taking the dreadful roaring of the ocean for a storm in a water glass, let those who believe the weather to be calm because they have drawn a nightcap over their ears, and, burying their heads into pillows of domestic comfort, do not hear Satan sweeping in a hurricane over the earth; let envy, ambition, blindness, and the pettifogging wisdom of small times, artistically investigate the question of my official capacity, or the nature of my public authority; let them scrupulously discuss the immense problem whether I still possess, or possess no longer, the title of my once-Governorship; let them ask for credentials, discuss the limits of my commission as representative of Hungary. I pity all such frog-and-mouse fighting. 66 man 66 a I claim no official capacity-no public authority-no representation; boast of no commission, of no written and sealed credentials. I am nothing but what my generous friend, the Senator of Michigan, has justly styled me, private and banished man." But in that capacity I have a nobler credential for my mission than all the clerks of the world can write, the credential that I am a "the credential that I am a "patriot "--the credential that I love with all sacrificing devotion my oppressed fatherland and liberty; the credential that I hate tyrants, and have sworn everlasting hostility to them; the credential that I feel the strength to do good service to the cause of freedom; good service as perhaps few men can do, because I have the iron will, in this my breast, to serve faithfully, devotedly, indefatigably, that noble cause. CREDENTIALS OF KOSSUTH. 223 I have the credential that I trust to God in heaven, to justice on earth; that I offend no laws, but cling to the protection of laws. I have the credential of my people's undeniable confidence and its unshaken faith, to my devotion, to my manliness, to my honesty, and to my patriotism; which faith I will honestly answer without ambition, without interest, as faithfully as ever, but more skilfully, because schooled by adversities. And I have the credential of the justice of the cause I plead and of the wonderful sympathy, which, not my person, but that cause, has met and meets in two hemispheres. These are my credentials, and nothing else. To whom this is enough, he will help me, so far as the law permits and is his good pleasure. To whom these credentials are not sufficient, let him look for a better accredited man. I have too lively a sentiment of my own modest dignity, ever to condescend to polemics about my own personal merits or abilities. I believe my life has been public enough to appertain to the impartial judgment of history, but it may have perhaps interested you to hear, how, in a small and inconsiderable circle of the Hungarian emigration, the idea was started that I must be opposed, because I have declared against all compromise with the House of Austria or with royalty, and because by declaring that my direction will be in every case only republican, I make every arrangement, without revolution, impossible. That I should be thus attacked at this crisis, does look like an endeavour to check a benefit to my country. But I cannot forbear humbly to beseech you, do not therefore think less favourably of my nation and of the Hungarian emigration, for which I am sorry that I can do very little, because I devote myself and all the success I may meet with to a higher aim to my country's freedom and independence. Believe me, gentlemen, that my country and its exiled martyrsons are highly worthy of your generous sympathy, though some few of the number do not always act as they should. They are but few who do so, and it would be unjust to measure all of us by the faults of some few. Upon the whole, I am proud to say that the Hungarian emigration was scrupulous to merit generous sympathy, and to preserve the 224 SPEECH OF GOVERNOR WRIGHT. honour of the Hungarian name. Remember that though you are Republicans, still here in the very metropolis of Ohio a man was found to lecture for Russo-Austrian despotism, and to lecture with the astonishing boldness of an immense ignorance. But that good man I can dismiss with silence, the more because it is with high appreciation and warm gratitude that I saw an honourable gentleman, animated with the most generous sentiments of justice and right, take immediately upon himself the task of refutation. I may perhaps be permitted to remark that that learned and honourable gentleman, besides having nobly advocated the cause of freedom, justice, and truth, has also well merited of his co-religionaries, who belong together with himself, to the Roman Catholic Church. Gentlemen, I have but one word yet, and it is a sad onethe word of farewell. Cincinnati, Ohio, farewell! May the richest blessings of the Almighty rest upon thee! In every heart, and in the hearts of my people, thy name will for ever live, a glorious object for our everlasting love and gratitude. XXXIII.-HARMONY OF THE EXECUTIVE AND OF THE PEOPLE IN AMERICA. [Speech at Indianapolis.] KOSSUTH was received at the State House of Indianapolis by Governor Wright, who, in the course of his address, said: Although I participate with my fellow-citizens in the pleasure occasioned by your presence among us, yet it is not as an individual that I greet you with the words of welcome and hospitality. No, sir,-it is in the name of the people of the State, whom I represent, and whose warrant I feel that I have; and I bid you welcome to-day, and assure you not only of my own, but of their sympathy and encouragement in the great cause you so ably represent. He closed with the words : If it shall be your fortune to lead your countrymen again in the contest for liberty, be assured that the people of the BIRTH-ERAS OF CIVILIZATION. 225 United States, at least, will not be indifferent, nor, if need be, inactive spectators of a conflict that may involve, not only the independence of Hungary, but the freedom of the world. Again I bid you a most cordial welcome to the state of Indiana. Kossuth replied: GOVERNOR,-Amongst all that I have been permitted to see in the United States, nothing has more attracted my attention than that part of your democratic institutions which I see developed in the mutual and reciprocal relations between the people and the constituted public authorities. In that respect there is an immense difference between Europe and America, for the understanding of which we have to take into account the difference of the basis of the political organization, and together with it what the public and social life has developed in both hemispheres. The great misfortune of Europe is, that the present civilization was born in those cursed days when Republicanism set and Royalty rose. It was a gloomy change. Nearly twenty centuries have passed, and torrents of blood have watered the red-hot chains, and still the fetters are not broken; nay-it is our lot to have borne its burning heat—it is our lot to grasp with iron hand the wheels of its crushing car. Destiny-no: Providence-is holding the balance of decision the tongue is wavering yet: one slight weight more into the one, or into the other scale, will again decide the fate of ages, of centuries. : Upon this mischievous basis of royalty was raised the building of authority; not of that authority which commands spontaneous reverence by merit and the value of its services, but of that authority which oppresses liberty. Hence the authority of a public officer in unfortunate Europe consists in the power to rule and to command, and not in the power to serve his country well-it makes men oppressive downwards, while it makes them creeping before those who are above. Law is not obeyed out of respect, but out of fear. A man in public office takes himself to be better than his countrymen, and becomes arrogant and ambitious; and 226 DISCORDS IN EUROPE. because to hold a public office is seldom a claim to confidence, but commonly a reason to lose confidence; it is not a mark of civic virtue and of patriotic devotion, but a stain of civic apostacy and of venality; it is not a claim to be honoured, but a reason to be distrusted; so much so, that in Europe the sad word of the poet is indeed a still more sad fact. “When vice prevails and impious man bears sway, So was it even in my own dear fatherland. Before our unfortunate but glorious revolution of 1848, the principle of royalty had so much spoiled the nature and envenomed the character of public office, that (of course except those who derived their authority by election--which we for our municipal life conserved amongst all the corruption of European royalty through centuries) no patriot accepted an office in the government: to have accepted one was to have resigned patriotism. It was one of the brightest principles of our murdered Revolution—that public office was restored to the place of civic virtue, and opened to patriotism, by being raised from the abject situation of a tool of oppression, to the honourable position of serving the country well. Alas! that bright day was soon overpowered by the gloomy clouds of despotism, brought back to our sunny sky by the freezing gale of Russian violence. And on the continent of Europe there is night again. There is scarcely one country where the wishes and the will of the people are reflected in the government. There is no government which can say: My voice is the echo of the people's voice--I say what my people feels; I proclaim what my people wills; I am the embodiment of his principles, and not the controller of his opinion: the people and myself—we are one." No, on the continent of Europe people and governments are two hostile camps. What immense mischief, pregnant with oppression and with nameless woe, is encompassed within the circle of this single fact ! How different the condition of America! It is not men |