Chapter 38

Yes, gentlemen, as long as the principles of Christian morality are not carried up into the international relations--as long as the fragile wisdom of political exigencies overrules the doctrines of Christ, there is no freedom on earth firm, and the future of no nation sure. But let a powerful nation like yours raise Christian morality into its public conduct, that nation will have a future against which the very gates of hell itself will never prevail. The morality of its policy will react upon the morality of its individuals, and preserve it from domestic vice, which, without that prop, ever yet has attended too much prosperity, and ever yet was followed by a dreadful fall. The morality of its policy will support justice and freedom on earth, and thus augmenting the number of free nations, all acting upon the same principle, its very future will be placed under the guarantee of them all, and preserve it from foreign danger--which is better to prevent than to repel. And its future will be placed under the guarantee of the Almighty himself, who, true to His eternal decrees, proved through the downfall of so many mighty nations, that He always punished the fathers in the coming generations; but alike bountiful as just, will not and cannot forsake those to whom He gave power to carry out His laws on earth, and who willingly answered His divine call. Power in itself never yet was sure. It is right which makes power firm; and it is community which makes right secure. The task of PETER'S apostolate is accomplished--the Churches are founded in the Christian world. The task of PAUL'S apostolate is accomplished--the abuses of fanaticism and intolerance are redressed. But the task of him whom the Saviour most loved, is not yet accomplished. The gospel of charity rules not yet the Christian world; and without charity, Christianity, you know, is "but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."

Oh! Charity, thou fairest gift of Heaven! thou family link between nations; thou rock of their security; thou deliverer of the oppressed; when comes thy realm? Where is the man whom the Lord has chosen to establish thy realm? Who is the man whom the Lord has chosen to realize the religion, the tenets of which the most beloved disciple of the Saviour has recorded from his divine lips? who is the man to reform, not Christian creeds, but Christian morality? Man! No; that is no task for a man, but for a nation. Man may teach a doctrine; but that doctrine of Charity is taught, and taught with such sublime simplicity, that no sectarist yet has disputed its truth. Historians have been quarrelling about mysteries, and lost empires through their disputes. The Greeks were controversially disputing whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone, or from the Father and Son; and Mahomet battered the walls of Byzantium, they heard it not; he wrested the cross from Santa Sophia; they saw it not, till the cimeter of the Turk stopped the rage of quarrel with the blow of death. In other quarters they went on disputing and deciding with mutual anathemas the question of transfiguration and many other mysteries, which, being mysteries, constitute the private dominion of belief; but the doctrine of charity none of them disputes; there they all agree; nay, in the idle times of scholastical subtility, they have been quarrelling about the most extravagant fancies of a scorched imagination. Mighty folios have been written about the problem, how many angels could dance upon the top of a needle without touching each other? The folly of subtility went so far as to profane the sacred name of God, by disputing if He, being omnipotent, has the power to sin? If, in the holy wafer, He be present dressed or undressed? If the Saviour would have chosen the incarnation in the shape of a gourd, instead of a man, how would he have preached, how acted miracles, and how had been crucified? And when they went to the theme of investigating if it was a whip or a lash with which the angels have whipped St. Jerome for trying to imitate in his writings the pagan Cicero, it was but after centuries that Abbot Cartaut dared to write that if St. Jerome was whipped at all, he was whipped for having _badly_ imitated Cicero. Still, the doctrine of Christian charity is so sublime in its simplicity, that not even the subtility of scholasticism dared ever to profane it by any controversy, and still that sublime doctrine is not executed, and the religion of charity not realized yet. The task of this glorious progress is only to be done by a free and powerful nation, because it is a task of action, and not of teaching. Individual man can but execute it in the narrow compass of the small relations of private life; it is only the power of a nation which can raise it to become a ruling law on earth; and before this is done, the triumph of Christianity is not arrived--and without that triumph, the freedom and prosperity even of the mightiest nation is not for a moment safe from internal decay, or from foreign violence.

Which is the nation to achieve that triumph of Christianity by protecting justice out of charity? Which shall do it, if not yours? Whom the Lord has blessed above all, from whom He much expects, because He has given her much.

Ye Ministers of the Gospel, who devote your lives to expound the eternal truths of the book of life, remember my humble words, and remind those who, with pious hearts, listen to your sacred words, that half virtue is no virtue at all, and that there is no difference in the duties of charity between public and private life.

Ye Missionaries, who devote your lives to the propagation of Christianity, before you embark for the dangers of far, inhospitable shores, remind those whom you leave, that the example of a nation exercising right and justice on earth by charity, would be the mightiest propagandism of Christian religion.

Ye Patriots, loving your country's future, and anxious about her security, remember the admonitions of history--remember that the freedom, the power, and the prosperity in which your country glories, is no new apparition on earth; others also had it, and yet they are gone. The prudence with which your forefathers have founded this commonwealth, the courage with which you develop it, other nations also have shown, and still they are gone.

And ye ladies; ye fairest incarnation of the spirit of love, which vivifies the universe, remember my words. The heart of man is given into your tender hands. You mould it in its infancy. You imprint the lasting mark of character upon man's brow, You ennoble his youth; you soften the harshness of his manhood; you are the guardian angels of his hoary age. All your vocation is love, and your life is charity. The religion of charity wants your apostolate, and requires your aid. It is to you I appeal, and leave the sublime topic of my humble reflections to the meditations of your Christian hearts.

And thus, my task of to-day is done. Man shall earn the means of life by the sweat of his brow. Thus shall my family. Your charity of to-day has opened the way to it. The school which my mother, if God spares her life, will superintend, and in which two of my sisters will teach, and the humble farm which my third sister and her family shall work, will be the gift of your charity to-day.

A stony weight of cares is removed from my breast. Oh! be blessed for it, be thanked for it, in the name of them all who have lost every thing, but not their trust to God, and not the benefit of being able to work. My country will forgive me that I have taken from her the time of one day's work--to give bread to my aged mother and to my homeless sisters, the poor victims of unrelenting tyranny. Returning to Europe, I may find my own little children in a condition that again the father will have to take the spade or the pen into his hand to give them bread.

And my fatherland will again forgive me, that that time is taken from her. That is all what I take from her; nothing else of what is given, or what belongs to her. And the day's work which I take from my country, I will restore it by a night's labour. To-day, the son and the brother has done his task; you have requited his labour by a generous charity; the son and brother thanks you for it, and the patriot, to resume his task, bids you a hearty, warm farewell.

APPENDICES TO KOSSUTH'S SPEECHES.

Appendix I.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Daily News,' dated January 17th, 1852_, by Sabbas Vucovics, _late Minister of Justice in Hungary, in answer to_ Count Casimir Bathyanyi.

So early as the commencement of the Serbian insurrection, the popular suspicion gained ground that the insurrection had been stirred up by the secret intrigues of the court, and confidence in the truth and good faith of the King disappeared accordingly. The nation, however, still indulged the hope that a weak King, though betrayed into ambiguous proceeding, would not permit himself to be carried away into a flagrant breach of the constitution. This was the time when the King, in the opinion of the people, was kept distinct from the Camarilla. But when the Austrian ministry openly attempted to deprive Hungary of its ministries of war and finance, when the base game of the degradation and restoration of Jellachich was played, and when the Hungarian army, fighting in the name of the King against the insurrections of the Serbians and Croats, became aware that the balls of that same King thinned their ranks from the hostile camp, the nation arrived at the universal conviction that the Hapsburg dynasty were only pursuing their old absolute tendencies, and that they wanted to force Hungary into self-defence, in order, under the pretext of rebellion, to deprive it of all its constitutional rights and guarantees. It needs no proof that a loud indignation, and even hatred of the dynasty, spread far and wide in the country, in consequence of these intrigues and proceedings. In spite of this natural excitement, and of the war itself, carried on by the nation with an increasing enthusiasm of hatred of the House of Austria, no party in the country urged a declaration of _déchéance_ or forfeiture against the dynasty. Even all the faithless acts recorded in the letter of Count Casimir Bathyanyi, and the cruelties committed in the name of that court in Lower Hungary and Transylvania, did not turn the scales in this direction. The Pragmatic Sanction was still considered as good in law; and the many precedents of our history, when the nation and its kings went to war with each other, and ultimately settled their disputes by solemn pacts confirming the constitution of the land, conveyed the notion that a reconciliation was even then not impossible.

Without these precedents and reminiscences of history, and only guided by the universal feeling of the country against the dynasty, the Hungarian parliament would have pronounced the forfeiture of the House of Austria so far back as October, 1848, when Jellachich was appointed absolute plenipotentiary of the King in Hungary, with discretionary power of life and death; or in December, 1848, when in Olmütz the succession of the Hungarian throne was changed and determined, without the concurrence of the nation through the Diet. To force the nation and its parliament to the last step in this momentous crisis, the court itself broke the dynastic tie.

This was done by the imposition of the constitution of the 4th of March, 1849, by which the House of Austria itself annihilated the Pragmatic Sanction, treating free and independent Hungary with the arrogance of a conqueror. The nation, more irritated by this act than by any preceding event, saw that the hour was come, beyond which further to defer the dethronement of the dynasty would be alike incompatible with the laws and the honour of Hungary. _All the channels of public opinion, the public press, the popular meetings, and even the head quarters of the army, resounded with emphatic declarations of the impossibility of reconciliation with the dynasty. The garrison of Komorn_--the most important fortress of the country--_petitioned the government for the declaration of forfeiture_. Most assuredly no party manoeuvres were wanted in this universal excitement, caused by the constitution of the 4th of March, to carry a parliamentary resolution of forfeiture.

When the proposition of forfeiture was made on the 14th of April, 1849, in the House of Representatives, only eight members voted against it, in a house never attended by less than from 220 to 240 members. The House of Magnates adopted this resolution without opposition. The press of all shades of opinion, though enjoying the most unlimited freedom, also declared for the resolution of the Diet. It was moreover received throughout the whole country with patriotic assent and determination. If there was a party opposed to the forfeiture, how came it that it did not hold it to be a duty to declare its opposition in the Diet or through the press?

When the intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Temeswar reached the Governor Kossuth, who was then in the fortress of Arad, he immediately summoned a council of the ministry to deliberate on measures of public safety still possible. At this council, in which all the ministers took part, it was resolved to invest Görgei, who stood alone at the head of an unconquered army, with full powers for negotiating a peace. It was, moreover, resolved to dissolve the government, which could not be carried on in any fixed place of safety under the existing circumstances. We did not, however, insert in the instrument investing Görgei with full power (and despatched to him immediately) the abdication of the government. On the same day--it was the 11th of August, 1849--Görgei declared in the presence of some of the ministers who had assembled at Csányi's (who was one of them), that he could not accept the commission because the resignation of the government was not contained in it, while he was sure that the enemy would enter into no negotiations with him, so long as Kossuth and his ministry were thought to be behind him. The ministers who were present, after a short deliberation, considering it to be their duty not to stand in the way of the negotiation which had been resolved on as necessary, accordingly sent their resignation to the governor, _whom they requested to resign as well_. The governor soon after sent his abdication for countersignature by these members of the ministry, and accordingly the government formally dissolved itself, after having done so _de facto_ in the previous council of ministers. I must mention the circumstance that _in the governor's instrument of abdication conditions were proscribed to Görgei, which were not inserted in the original instrument of authorization, issued by the full council_. These conditions were, the preservation of the nationality and the autonomy of Hungary. Four ministers took part in this resignation of the governor, as above stated, Aulich, Csányi, Horvath, and I. Two of the ministers, Szemere and [Casimir] Bathyanyi, were absent when the formal declaration of the abdication was discussed at Csányi's residence. I have not mentioned among the ministers our late colleague, the finance minister Dushek, because his treachery, which was afterwards brought to light, excludes him from our ranks. From all these circumstances, it will be manifest how unjust the reproaches of Count Casimir Bathyanyi are, that no new cabinet council was held.

It is notorious that Görgei abused the full powers with which he was entrusted, instead of procuring the preservation of Hungary by a negotiation for peace, by an ignominious treachery to his native country. From that very moment the power conferred on him by the above-mentioned instrument, and the conditional abdication of the government, consequently and legally reverted to him who had invested him with it. To deny this, would be to recognize in the foreign rule which crushed Hungary, in consequence of that treachery, legitimate right and lawful power.

I, however, perfectly agree with the noble count, that the nation, once more restored to its constitutional existence, and free from foreign yoke, will have the unlimited right to dispose of all the affairs of the country, and consequently of the executive power. To assert a contrary opinion would be a crime against the nation. Not over a liberated nation (which, of course, would have the right to choose whom it will), but over a nation crushed by an usurping power, the claims of Kossuth, as elected Governor of Hungary, are, I submit, lawful.

Republican principles have not been proclaimed at Kossuth's dictation as the aim of our national exertions. They were, during our struggle, the well-ascertained and deep-rooted sentiment of the country, and Kossuth could only faithfully represent the proclaimed will and feeling of the nation, by inscribing them on his banner. Immediately after the declaration of independence, all the manifestations of the national will were unanimous in the desire for a republic. The ministry, which was nominated by the Governor as a consequence of that legislative act, declared in both houses of the Diet, that its efforts would be directed to the establishment of a republic. Both houses joined in this declaration, and in the government no opposition whatever was manifested against it. One of the first acts of the new government was to remove the crown from all national scutcheons, and from the great seal of Hungary. The press in all its shades developed republican principles. The new semi-official paper bore the name of _The Republic_. It is true that the government was only provisional, for the war continued, and the definite decision of this question depended on unforeseen circumstances. We should have preferred almost any settlement to the necessity of a subjection to the Austrian dynasty; and at the price of emancipation from that detested power, the nation would even have been prepared, for the sake of aid, to choose a king from another race; but certainly if it had been the unaided victor in the struggle, never. Monarchical government would have been for us the resort of expediency. The government of our wishes and principles was "The Republic."

I do not feel at all convinced, as the noble count asserts, that the institutions and habits of Hungary are incompatible with a democratic republic. I find, on the contrary, traits in them which lead me to an opposite conclusion. The aggregate character of the numerous nobility which resigned its privileges in the Diet of 1847-48 of its own accord, and which was in its nature more a democratic than an aristocratic body, because neither territorial wealth nor rank interfered with or disturbed the equality of its rights,--the national antipathy to the system of an upper house, which was considered as a foreign institution, because it had been introduced under the Austrian dynasty,--the immemorial custom of periodically electing all officials, and even the judges,--the detestation in which bureaucracy and all the instruments of centralization were held in all ages, while the attachment to the municipal self-government was ineradicable,--the fact that, in consequence of the laws which had been sanctioned in April, 1848, the county authorities, formerly only elected from the "nobility," were democratically reconstituted, and exercised their functions in this form till the catastrophe of Világos, without the slightest collision between the different classes of society,--the peaceful election of the representatives of the last Diet conducted almost on the principle of universal suffrage,--all these facts unmistakeably prove that the germ of democracy lay in our institutions, and that these could receive a democratic development without any concussion. Those characteristic _traits_ of our nation, which have been so often misrepresented as signs of an aversion to a republic, and which may be more properly called civic virtues; as, for example, our respect for law, our antipathy to untried political theories, our attachment to traditional customs, and our pride in the history of our country, are no obstacles to, but rather guarantees, and even conditions of a republic, which is to be national and enduring. It would indeed be an unprecedented event in history, if staunch royalism could be the characteristic of a country which, like Hungary, has found in its kings for three hundred years the inexorable foes of its liberties, and which in that time, for its defence, had to wage six bloody wars against the dynasty.

As to the criticisms by the noble count of the personal character of Kossuth, I take leave to assert that a great majority of the Hungarian nation do not share his opinion. It is not my task to appear as a personal advocate, and I wish, therefore, to advert only to one point of his attack, which may seem to be based on facts. The noble count asserts that Kossuth has attained to power _by doubtful means_. I am amazed at this assertion, knowing, as I do, that Kossuth was proposed by Count Louis Bathyanyi, and nominated by the King, with the universal applause of the nation, to the Ministry of Finance. After the resignation of the first Hungarian ministry, he was freely and unanimously elected by the Diet to the Presidency of the Committee of Defence, and after the declared forfeiture of the dynasty to the Governorship of the country. I know no more honourable means by which a man can be raised to power.

S. VUKOVICS,

Late Minister of Justice of Hungary.

_London, January 17, 1852_.

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Appendix II.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Times,' dated December 9th, 1851, by_ Bartholomew Szemere, _late Minister of the Interior in Hungary; in answer to_ Prince Esterhazy.

I shall now proceed to give a succinct account of what took place from April 14, when the new acts received the Royal sanction, to December, 1848. You may be assured that I shall conceal nothing that tended to change the relations between Hungary and Austria.

The Prime Minister was already nominated when Jellachich was raised to the dignity of Ban of Croatia by a Royal decree which the Premier was not even asked to countersign. The Hungarian ministers, nevertheless, for the sake of peace, overlooked this irregular proceeding.

By a decree, dated June 10, 1848, the King made known to all whom it might concern, that all the troops stationed within the kingdom of Hungary, whether Hungarians or Austrians, were placed under the orders of the Hungarian Minister of War, and that all the Hungarian fortresses were under the jurisdiction of the said Minister. Yet at this very time officers of the Imperial and Royal army were taking an active part in the rebellion of the Serbs and Valachs, while General Mayerhofer was enlisting recruits in the principality of Servia, and sending them to assist the rebels. The people thus beheld with astonishment civil war break out, and saw with still greater astonishment that Imperial officers were fighting on both sides.

Jellachich, as a functionary of the Hungarian Crown, refused to obey the Hungarian ministry, and illegally summoned a Croatian Diet to meet at Agram on June 5. In consequence of these proceedings, Ferdinand V., by a decree dated June 10, 1848, deprived him, as a rebel, of all his civil and military offices and dignities, but at the same time sent him, through his Minister of War, Latour, field officers, artillery and ammunition.

The troubles increased daily. The Hungarian ministry requested the Archduke John to act us mediator. He accepted the office, but did nothing.