Chapter 26

Firstly, because one of the United States Senators of Alabama, Mr. Clemens, was pleased to pronounce himself not only opposed to my principles, but hostile to my own humble self. I thank God for having well deserved the hatred of Czars and Emperors; and so may God bless me, as I will all my life try to deserve it still more; but I cannot equally say, that I have deserved the inclemency of Mr. Clemens, though it be not the least passionate of all. Well, ladies and gentlemen, after the spontaneous sympathy which I here so unexpectedly meet, I may be permitted to believe that it is not the State of Alabama, but Mr. Clemens only whom I have to count amongst my persecutors and my enemies.

Secondly, I must mention, that it is my good fortune not often to meet arguments opposed to my arguments, but only personal attacks. Well, that is the best acknowledgment which could have been paid to the justice of my cause. For even if I were all that my enemies would like to make me appear, would thereby the cause I plead and the principles I advocate be less just, less righteous, and less true? Now amongst those personal attacks there is one which says, that I am so impertinent as to dare appeal from the government to the people: and that _I try to sow dissension between the people and the government_. I declare in the most solemn manner, this imputation to be entirely unfounded and calumniatory. Who ever heard me say one single word of complaint or dissatisfaction against your national government? When have I spoken otherwise than in terms of gratitude, high esteem, and profound veneration about the Congress and Government of the United States? and how could I have spoken otherwise; being, as I am, indebted to Congress and Government, for my liberation, for the most generous protection, and for the highest honours a man was ever yet honoured with? And besides, I have full reason to say that _it is entirely false to insinuate that in political respects I had been disappointed with my visit to Washington City_,--no, it is not respect alone, but the intensest gratitude that I feel. The principles and sentiments of the Chief Magistrate of your great republic, expressed to the Congress in his official messages; the principles of your government so nobly interpreted by the Hon. Secretary of State, at the congressional banquet, confirming expressly the contents of his immortal letter to Mons. Hulsemann; the further private declarations, in regard to the practical applications of those governmental principles; all and everything could but impress my mind with the most consoling satisfaction and the warmest gratitude;--as may be seen in the letter of thanks which on the eve of my departure I sent to His Excellency the President and to both Houses of Congress.

That being my condition, who can charge me with sowing dissension between the people and the government, when I, accepting such opportunities, as you also have been pleased kindly to offer to me, plead the cause of my down-trodden country (for which both people and government of the United States have manifested the liveliest sympathy;) and advocate principles, entirely harmonizing with the official declarations of your government? And what is it I say to the people in my public addresses? I say, "the exigency of circumstances has raised the question of foreign policy to the highest standard of importance,--the question is introduced to the Congress, it must therefore be brought to a decision, it cannot be passed in silence any more. Your representatives in Congress take it for their noblest glory to follow the sovereign will of the people; but to be able to follow it, they must know it; yet they cannot know it without the people manifesting its opinion in a constitutional way; since they have not been elected upon the question of foreign policy, that question being then not yet discussed. I therefore humbly entreat the sovereign people of the United States to consider the matter, and to pronounce its opinion, in such a way as it is consistent with law, and with their constitutional duties and rights." May I not be tranquillized in my conscience, that in speaking thus I commit no disloyal act, and do in no way offend against the high veneration due from me to your constituted authorities?

If it be so, then the generous manifestation of your sympathy I am honoured with in Mobile, is again a highly valuable benefit to my cause, because it has such a character of spontaneity, that, here at least, no misrepresentation can charge me with having even endeavoured to elicit that high-minded manifestation from the metropolis of the State of Alabama.

So doubly returning my thanks for it, I beg leave to state what it is I humbly entreat.

Firstly, when the struggle which is to decide on the freedom of Europe has once broken out, Hungary has resources to carry it on: but she wants initial aid, because her finances are all grasped by our oppressors. You would not refuse to me, a houseless exile, _alms_ and commiseration if I begged for myself. Surely then you cannot refuse it for my bleeding fatherland, when I beg of you, as individuals, trifling sums, such as each can well spare, and the gift of which does not entangle your country in any political obligation.

Whatever may be my personal fate, millions would thank and coming generations bless it as a source of happiness to them, as once the nineteen million francs, 24,000 muskets, and thirty-eight vessels of war which France gave to the cause of your own independence, have been a source of happiness to you. I rely in that respect upon the republican virtue which your immortal Washington has bequeathed to you in his memorable address to M. Adet, the first French republican minister sent to Washington. "_My anxious recollections and my best wishes are irresistibly attracted whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banner of freedom_."

So spoke Washington; and so much for _private_ material aid; to which nothing is required but a little sympathy for an unfortunate people, which even Mr. Clemens may feel, whatever his personal aversion for the man who is pleading not his own, but his brave people's cause.

As to the _political_ part of my mission, I humbly claim that the United States may pronounce what is or should be the law of nations--such as they can recognize consistently with the basis upon which their own existence is established, and consistently with their own republican principles.

And what is the principle of such a law of nations, which you as republicans can recognize? Your greatest man, your first President, Washington himself, has declared in these words: "_Every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it may live most happy, and no government ought to interfere with the internal concerns of another._"

And according to this everlasting principle, proclaimed by your first President, your last President has again proclaimed in his last message to the Congress, that "_the United States are forbidden to remain indifferent to a case, in which the strong arm of a foreign power is invoiced to repress the spirit of freedom in any country."

It is this declaration that I humbly claim to be sanctioned by the sovereign will of the people of the United States, in support of that principle which Washington already has proclaimed. And in that respect, I frankly confess I should feel highly astonished, if the Southern States proved not amongst the first, and amongst the most unanimous to join in such a declaration. Because, of all the great principles guaranteed by your constitution, there is none to which the southern states attach a greater importance,--there is none which they more cherish,--than the principle of self-government; the principle that their own affairs are to be managed by themselves, without any interference from whatever quarter, neither from another state, though they are all estates of the same galaxy, nor from the central government, though it is an emanation of all the states, and represents the south as well as the north, and the east and the west; nor from any foreign power, though it be the mightiest on earth.

Well, gentlemen, this great principle of self-government, is precisely the ground upon which I stand. It is for the defence of this principle that my nation rose against a world in arms; to maintain this principle in the code of "nature and of nature's God," the people of Hungary spilt their blood on the battlefield and on the scaffold. It is this principle which was trodden down in Hungary by the centralization of Austria and the interference of Russia. It is the principle which, if Hungary is not restored to her sovereign independence, is blotted out for ever from the great statute book of the nations, from the common law of mankind.

Like a pestilential disease, the violation of the principle of self-government will spread over all the earth until it is destroyed everywhere, in order that despots may sleep in security, for they know that this principle is the strongest stronghold of freedom, and therefore it is hated by all despots and all ambitious men, and by all those who have sold their souls to despotism and ambition.

Gentlemen, you know well that the principle of self-government has two great enemies--CENTRALIZATION and FOREIGN INTERFERENCE. Hungary is a bleeding victim to both.

You have probably perceived, gentlemen, that the great misfortune of Europe is the spirit of centralization encroaching upon all municipal institutions and destroying self-government, not only by open despotism, but also under the disguise of liberty. Fascinated by this dangerous tendency, even republican France went on to sweep away all the traces of self-government, and this is the reason why all her revolutions could not assert liberty for her people, and why she lies now prostrate under the feet of a usurper, without glory, without merit, without virtue.

Blind to their interests, the nations abandoned their real liberty, the municipal institutions, for a nominal responsibility of ministers and for parliamentary omnipotence. Instead of clinging to the principle of self-government--the true breakwater against the encroachments of kings, of ministers, of parliaments--they abandoned the principle which enforces the real responsibility of ministers and raises the parliament to the glorious position of the people's faithful servant; they exchanged the real liberty of self-government for the fascinating phantom of parliamentary omnipotence, making the elected of the people the masters of the people, which, if it is really to be free, cannot have any master but God. The old Anglo-Saxon municipal freedom has even in England been weakened by this tendency; parliament has not only fought against the prerogative of the crown, but has conquered the municipal freedom of the country and of the borough. Green Erin sighs painfully under this pressure, and English statesmen begin to be alarmed. Hungary, my own dear fatherland, was the only country in Europe which, amidst all adversaries, amidst all attacks of foreign encroachment and all inducements of false new doctrines, remained faithful to the great principle of self-government, at which the perjurious dynasty of Austria has never ceased to aim deadly blows. To get rid of these incessant attacks we availed ourselves of the condition of Europe in 1848, and got our old national self-government guarantied in a legal way, with the sanction of our then king, by substituting _individual_ for collective responsibility of ministers; having experienced that a board of ministers, though responsible by law and composed of our own countrymen, was naturally and necessarily in practice irresponsible. When the tyrants of Austria, whom our forefathers had elected in an ill-fated hour to be our constitutional kings, saw that their designs of centralization were obstructed, they forsook their honour, they broke their oath, they tore asunder the compact by which they had become kings; the diadem had lost its brightness for them if it was not to be despotic.

They stirred up robbers and rebels against us: and when this failed, then with all the forces of the empire attacked Hungary unexpectedly, not thinking to meet with a serious opposition, because we had no army, no arms, no ammunition, no money, no friends. They therefore declared our constitution and our self-government, which we have preserved through the adversities of ten centuries, at once and for ever abolished.

But my heart could not bear this sacrilege. I and my political friends, we called our people to arms to defend the palladium of our national existence, the privilege of self-government, and that political, civil, and religious liberty, and those democratic institutions, which, upon the glorious basis of self-government, we had succeeded to assert for all the people of Hungary. And the people nobly answered my call. We struck down the centralizing tyrant to the dust; we drove him and his double-faced eagle out from our country; our answer to his impious treachery was the declaration of our independence and his forfeiture of the crown.

Were we right to do so, or not?

We were; and _we had accomplished already our lawful enterprise victoriously_; we had taken our competent seat amongst the independent nations on earth. But the other independent powers, and alas! even the United States, lingered to acknowledge our dearly but gloriously bought independence; and beaten Austria had time to take her refuge under the shelter of the other principle, hostile to self-government, of the sacrilegious principle of FOREIGN ARMED INTERFERENCE.

The Czar of Russia declared that the example of Hungary is dangerous to the interests of absolutism! He interfered, and aided by treason, he succeeded to crush freedom and self-government in Hungary, and to establish a centralized absolutism there, where, through all the ages of the past, the rule of despotism never had been established, and the United States let him silently accomplish this violation of the common law of nations.

Gentlemen, the law of nations, upon which you have raised the lofty hall of your independence, does not exist any more. The despots are united and leagued against national self-government. They declare it inconsistent with their divine (rather Satanic) rights; and upon this basis all the nations of the European Continent are held in fetters; the government of France is become a vanguard to Russia, St. Petersburg is transferred to Paris, and England is forced to arm and to prepare for self-defence at home.

These are the immediate consequences of the downfall of the principle of self-government in Hungary, by the violence of foreign interference. But if this great principle is not restored to its full weight by the restoration of Hungary's sovereign independence, then you will see yet other consequences in your own country. _Your_ freedom and prosperity is hated as dangerous to the despots of Europe. If you do not believe me, believe at least what the organs of your enemies openly avow themselves. Pozzo di Borgo, the great Russian diplomatist, and Hulsemann, the little Austrian diplomatist, repeatedly in 1817 and 1823, published that despotism is in danger, unless yourselves become a king-ridden people. If you study the history of the Hungarian struggle, you can also see the way by which the despots will carry their design. The secret power of foreign diplomacy will foster amongst you the principle of centralization; and, as is always the case, many who are absorbed in some special aims of your party politics will be caught by this snare; and when you, gentlemen of the south, oppose with energy this tendency, dangerous to your dear principle of self-government, the despots of Europe will first foment and embitter the quarrel and kindle the fire of domestic dissensions, and finally they will declare that your example is dangerous to order. Then foreign armed interference steps in for centralization here, as for monarchy in the rest of America.

Indeed, gentlemen, if there is any place on earth where this prospect should be considered with attention, with peculiar care, it is here in the southern states of this great union, because their very existence is based on the great principle of self-government.

But some say there is no danger for the United States, in whatever condition be the rest of the world. I am astonished to hear that objection in a country, which, by a thousand ties, is connected with and interested in the condition of the foreign world.

It is your own government which prophetically foretold in 1827, that _the absolutism of Europe will not be appeased until every vestige of human freedom has been obliterated even here_.

And is it upon the ruins of Hungary that the absolutist powers are now about to realize this prophecy?

You are aware of the fact that every former revolution in Europe was accompanied by some constitutional concessions, promised by the kings to appease the storm, but treacherously nullified when the storm passed. Out of this false play constantly new revolutions arose. It is therefore that Russian interference in Hungary was preceded by a proclamation of the Czar,--wherein he declares "that insurrection having spread in every nation with an audacity which has gained new force in proportion to the concessions of the governments," every concession must be withdrawn; not the slightest freedom, no political rights, and no constitutional aspirations must be left, but everything levelled by the equality of passive obedience and absolute servitude; he therefore takes the lead of the allied despots, to crush the spirit of liberty on earth.

It is this impious work, which was begun by the interference in Hungary, and goes on spreading in a frightful degree; it is this impious work which my people, combined with the other oppressed nations, is resolved to oppose. It is therefore no partial struggle which we are about to fight; it is a struggle of principles, the issues of which, according as we triumph or fall, must be felt everywhere, but nowhere more than here in the United States, because no nation on earth has more to lose by the all-overwhelming preponderance of the absolutist principle than the United States. If we are triumphant, the progress and development of the United States will go on peacefully, till your Republicanism becomes the ruling principle on earth (God grant it may soon become); but if we fail, the absolutist powers, triumphant over Europe, will and must fall with all their weight upon you, precisely because else you would grow to such a might as would decide the destinies of the world. And since the absolutistical powers, with Russia at their head, desire themselves to rule the world, it is natural for her to consider you as their most dangerous enemy, which they must try to crush, or else be crushed sooner or later themselves. The _Pozzo di Borgos_ tell you so: the _Hulsemanns_ tell you so: and it were indeed strange if the people of the United States, too proudly relying upon their power and their good luck, should indifferently regard the gathering of danger over their head, and hereby invite it to come home to them, forcing them to the immense sacrifices of war, whereas we now afford to them an opportunity to prevent that danger, without any entanglement, and without claiming from you any moral and material aid, except such as is not only consistent with, but necessary to your interests.

Allow me to make yet some remarks about the commercial interests as connected with the cause I plead. Nothing astonishes me more than to see those whose only guiding star is commerce, considering its interests only from the narrow view of a small momentary profit, and disregarding the threatening combination of next coming events.

Permit me to quote in this respect one part of the public letter which Mr. Calhoun, the son of the late great leader of the South, the inheritor of his fame, of his principles, and of his interests, has recently published. I quote it because I hope nobody will charge him with partiality in respect to Hungary.

Mr. Calhoun says:

"There is a universal consideration that should influence the government of the United States. The palpable and practical agricultural, manufacturing, commercial and navigating interests, the pecuniary interests of this country, will be promoted by the independence of Hungary more than by any other event that could occur in Europe. If Hungary becomes independent it will be her interest to adopt a liberal system of commercial policy. There are fifteen millions of people inhabiting what is or what was Hungary, and the country between her and the Adriatic. These people have not now, and never had, any commerce with the United States. Hungarian trade and commerce has been stifled by the 'fiscal barriers' of Austria that encircle her. She has used but few of American products. Your annual shipments of cotton and cotton manufactures to Trieste and all other Austrian ports, including the amount sent to Hungary, as well as Austria, has never exceeded nine hundred thousand dollars per annum. All other merchandize and produce sent by you to Austria and Hungary do not exceed one hundred thousand dollars a year. Hungary obtains all her foreign imports through Austrian ports. The import and transit duties levied by Austria are exceedingly onerous, and nearly prohibitory as to Hungary of your cotton and cotton goods." Hungary independent, and a market is at once opened for your cotton, rice, tobacco, and manufactures of immense value. That market is now closed to you, and has always been, by Austrian restrictions. And can it be doubted that besides supplying the fifteen millions of _industrious and intelligent_ people of Hungary (_and they are, as a people, perhaps, the most intelligent of any in Europe_), the adjacent and neighbouring countries, will not also be tempted to encourage trade with you? Hungary needs your cotton. She is rich in resources--mineral, agricultural, manufacturing, and of every kind. She is rich in products for which you can exchange your cotton, rice, &c. Will it, I ask, injuriously affect you if the English should compete with you and send their manufactures of cotton thither? Not, I presume, as long as the raw material is purchased from America; but in fact, your market will be extended through her. "If therefore those of our statesmen (says Mr. Calhoun), who can only be influenced by the almighty dollar, will cypher up the value of this trade--this new market for our products, worth perhaps twenty millions of dollars yearly--they may find an excuse for incurring even the tremendous and awful risk of a war with Austria, but which there is less danger of than there is with Governor Brigham Young, in Utah. They may find a substantial interest involved that is worth taking care of. Governor Kossuth may be assured it is of more consequence than sympathy. It is a wonderfully sensitive nerve in this country: it controls most of the others.--Sympathy, in this case, can take care of itself. It does not require any nursing. The interests involved should be attended to. It seems to me that this position as to our commerce with Hungary cannot be attacked in front, in rear, or on either flank. It is by far more forcible and powerful than the _ex post facto_ argument in favour of the Mexican war, that it got us California and its gold. So far as the general welfare of the country is concerned, free trade with independent Hungary, and its certain ultimate results, would be more invaluable than all the cargoes of gold that may be brought from the Pacific coast, if ten times the present amount."

That is the opinion of a distinguished American citizen, identified chiefly with the interests of the South.