'Let this precedent, belonging to the intelligence not of to-day only—let those words become now considered of particular interest to both countries, and it would be of the greatest benefit to mankind. There is nothing more necessary to secure the freedom of Europe than consent to act together, on the part of the United States and England.
It is not necessary to say how far they will go, but only necessary to say they will do as much as their interests allow, and what may be necessary that the law of nations should be protected and not abandoned.
When I was in England nothing gave me more delight than to hear delegations addressing me, mention your Washington, and confess themselves sorry that he had to manifest his greatness in contending against England; but they were more proud to see the greatness of such a man, than not to have been opposed by him. They entrusted me to bring word to the United States, that they wished to be united to you for the benefit of all Humanity.
I was charged particularly by one hundred men connected with commerce at Manchester—the least wealthy of whom wasworth, as they express it in England, £10,000 a year—these gentlemen told me it would be a great result of my mission in the United States, if I could convince Americans that Englishmen thought all differences had vanished; and they desired to go hand in hand with the people of the United States, as regards foreign policy. Now, I have observed in New England less objection to the policy of an alliance with England than in many other parts of the United States, and I take it for an evidence of the intelligence and liberality of the people.
I know, gentlemen, you have been pleased to honour me, not for myself (for the people of Massachusetts are not man-worshippers, but reverence principles only)—therefore I cannot better express my thanks than to pledge my word, relying, as on another occasion of deep interest I said,upon the justice of our cause, the blessing of God, iron wills, stout arms, and good swords—and upon your generous sympathy, to do all in my power, with my people, for my country and for humanity; for which indeed in my heart, though, it is somewhat old, there is yet warmth.
After many other toasts, President Wilson called on Judge Hoar to speak. The reply of the Judge had several striking sentences. He closed by saying to Kossuth:
"It is because you, Sir, have learned the truth thatPeace is the first interest of no people,—that there are other things more sacred than human life,—that without Justice and Freedom life is only a mockery, and peace a delusion and a burden,—it isbecause, when tyranny had terminated every duty of a subject, you too[*] have dared to become the MOST NOTORIOUS REBEL of our time,thereforedoes Massachusetts welcome you to the home of Hancock and of Adams, and the majestic spirit of Washington sheds its benediction upon the scene."
[Footnote *: The Judge alludes to Hancock and Adams, who were excepted by name as "notorious rebels," from General Gage's proclamation of amnesty.]
* * * * *
[Salem, May 6.]
Ladies and gentlemen,—When four years ago, the tidings of our struggle made the scarcely before known name of Hungary familiar to you, sympathy for a nobly defended noble cause moved your hearts to rejoice at our victories, to feel anxiety about our dangers. Yet, so long as our struggle was but a domestic contest, a resistance against oppression by a perjurious king, you had no reason to think that the sympathy you felt for us, being a generous manifestation of the affections of free men, was at the same time an instinctive presentiment of a policy, which you in your national capacity will be called upon by circumstances, not only to consider, but, as I firmly believe, also to adopt.
You were far from anticipating that the issue of our struggle would become an opportunity for your country to take that position which Divine Providence has evidently assigned to you; I mean the position of a power, not restricted in its influence to the Western Hemisphere, but reaching across the earth. You had not thought that it is the struggle of Hungary which will call on you to fulfil the prophecy of Canning; who comprehended, that it is the destiny of the New World to redress the balance of power in the Old.
The universal importance of our contest has been but late revealed. It has been revealed by the interference of Russia, by our fall, and by its more threatening results.
Now, it has become evident to all thinking men, that the balance of power cannot be redressed unless Hungary is restored to national independence. Consequently if it be your own necessity to weigh in the scale of the powers on earth, if it be your destiny to redress the balance of power, the cause of Hungary is the field where this destiny will have to be fulfilled.
And it is indeed your destiny. Russian diplomacy could never boast of a greater and more fatal victory than it had a right to boast, should it succeed to persuade the United States not to care about her—Russia accomplishing her aim to become the ruling power in Europe; the ruling power in Asia; the ruling power of the Mediterranean sea. That would be indeed a great triumph to Russian diplomacy, greater than her triumph over Hungary; a triumph dreadful to all humanity, but to nobody more dreadful than to your own future.
All sophistry is in vain, gentlemen; there can be no mistake about it. Russian absolutism and Anglo-Saxon constitutionalism are not rival but antagonist powers. They cannot long continue to subsist together. Antagonists cannot hold equal position; every additional strength of the one is a comparative weakening of the other. One or the other must yield. One or the other must perish or become dependent on the other's will.
You may perhaps believe that that triumph of diplomacy is impossible in America. But I am sorry to say, that it has a dangerous ally, in the propensity to believe, that the field of American policy is limited geographically; that there is a field for American, and there is a field for European policy, and that these fields are distinct, and that it is your interest to keep them distinct.
There was a time in our struggle, when, if a man had come from America, bringing us in official capacity the tidings of your brotherly greeting, of your approbation and your sympathy, he would have been regarded like a harbinger of heaven. The Hungarian nation, tired out by the hard task of dearly but gloriously bought victories, was longing for a little test, when the numerous hordes of Russia fell upon us in the hour of momentary exhaustion. Indignation supplied the wanted rest, and we rose to meet the intruding foe; but it was natural that the nation looked around with anxiety, whether there be no power on earth raising its protesting voice against that impious act of trampling down the law of nations, the common property of all humanity? no power on earth to cheer us by a word of approbation of our legitimate defence? Alas! no such word was heard. We stood forsaken and alone! It was upon that ground of forsakenness that treason spread its poison into our ranks. They told my nation, "Your case is hopeless. Kossuth has assured you that if you drive out the Austrians from your territory, and declare your independence, it perhaps will be recognized by the French Republic, probably by England, and certainly by America; but look! none has recognized you; not even the United States, though with them it was from the time of Washington always a constant principle to recognize every government. You are not recognized. You are forsaken by the whole world. Kossuth has assured you, that it is impossible the constitutional powers of the world should permit without a word of protest Russia to interfere with the domestic concerns of Hungary; and look! Russia has interfered, the laws of nations are broken, the political balance of power is upset. Russia has assumed the position of a despotic arbiter of the condition of the world, and still nobody has raised a single word of protest in favour of Hungary's just and holy cause." Such was the insinuation, which Russian diplomacy, with its wonted subterraneous skill, instilled drop by drop into my brave people's manly heart; and alas! I could not say that the insinuation was false.The French Republic, instead of protesting against the interference of Russia,followed its example and interfered itself at Rome.Great Britain, instead of protesting,checked Turkey in her resolution to oppose that new aggrandizement of Russia; andthe United States of Americaremained silent, instead of protesting against the violation of those "laws of nature and of nature's God," in the maintenance of which nobody can be more interested than the great Republic of America.
In short, it was by our feeling forsaken, that the skill of our enemies spread despondency through our ranks; and this despondency, not the arms of Russia, caused us to fall. Self-confidence lost is more than half a defeat. Had America sent a diplomatic agent to Hungary, greeting us amongst the independent powers on earth, recognizing our independence, and declaring Russian interference to be contrary to the laws of nations, that despondency, that loss of self-confidence, had never gained ground among us; without this, treason would have been impossible, and without treason all the disposable power of Russia would never have succeeded to overcome our arms;—never! I should rather have brought the well-deserved punishment home to her, should have shaken her at home. Poland—heroic, unfortunate Poland would now be free, Turkey delivered from the nightmare now pressing her chest, and I, according to all probability, should have seen Moscow in triumph, instead of seeing Salem in exile!
Well, there is a just God in heaven, and there will yet be justice on earth;—the day of retribution will come!
Such being the sad tale of my fatherland, which, by a timely token of your brotherly sympathy might have been saved, and which now has lost everything except its honour, its trust in God, its hope of resurrection, its confidence in my patriotic exertions, and its steady resolution to strike once more the inexorable blow of retribution at tyrants and tyranny;—if the cause I plead were a particular cause, I would place it upon the ground of well-deserved sympathy, and would try to kindle into a flame of excitement the generous affections of your hearts: and I should succeed.
But since a great crisis, which is universally felt to be approaching, enables me to claim for my cause a universality not restricted by the geographical limits of a country or even of Europe itself, or by the moral limits of nationalities, but possessing an interest common to all the Christian world; it is calm, considerate conviction, andnotthe passing excitement of generous sentiments, which I seek. I hope therefore to meet the approbation of this intelligent assembly, when instead of pleasing you by an attempt at eloquence, for which, in my sick condition, I indeed have not sufficient freshness of mind—I enter into some dry but not unimportant considerations, which the citizens of Salem, claiming the glory of high commercial reputation, will kindly appreciate.
Gentlemen, I have often heard the remark, that if the United States do not care for the policy of the world, they will continue to grow internally, and will soon become the mightiest realm on earth, a Republic of a hundred millions of energetic freemen, strong enough to defy all the rest of the world, and to control the destinies of mankind. And surely this is your glorious lot; butonly under the condition, that no hostile combination, before you have in peace and in tranquillity grown so strong, arrests by craft and violence your giant-course; and this again is possible, only under the condition that Europe become free, and the league of despots become not sufficiently powerful to check the peaceful development of your strength. But Russia, too, the embodiment of the principle of despotism, is working hard for the development ofherpower. Whilst you grow internally, her able diplomacy has spread its nets all over the continent of Europe. There is scarcely a Prince there but feels honoured to be an underling of the great Czar; the despots are all leagued against the freedom of the nations: and should the principle of absolutism consolidate its power, and lastingly keep down the nations, then it must, even by the instinct of self-preservation, try to check the further development of your Republic. In vain they would have spilt the blood of millions, in vain they would have doomed themselves to eternal curses, if they allowed the United States to become the ruling power on earth. They crushed poor Hungary, because her example was considered dangerous. How could they permit you to become so mighty, as to be not only dangerous by your example, but by your power a certain ruin to despotism? They will, they must, do everything to check your glorious progress. Be sure, as soon as they have crushed the spirit of freedom in Europe, as soon as they command all the forces of the Continent, they will marshal them against you. Of course they will not lead their fleets and armies at once across the Ocean. They will first damage your prosperity by crippling your commerce. They will exclude America from the markets of Europe, not only because they fear the republican propagandism of your commerce, but also because Russia requires those markets for her own products.
[He proceeded to argue, that Russian policy, like that of the Magyars in their time of barbarism, is essentially encroaching and warlike; that to befeared, is often more important to Russia than to enjoy a particular market; that the Russian system of commerce is, and must be, prohibitory to republican traffic; that England alone in Europe has large commerce with America, and that the despots, if victorious on the continent, would make it their great object to damage, cripple, and ruin both these kindred constitutional nations. He continued:]
The despots are scheming to muzzle the English lion. You see already how they are preparing for this blow—that Russia may become mistress of Constantinople, by Constantinople mistress of the Mediterranean, and by the Mediterranean of three-quarters of the globe. Egypt, Macedonia, Asia-Minor, the country and early home of the cotton plant, are then the immediate provinces of Russia, a realm with twenty million serfs, subject to its policy and depending on its arbitrary will.
Here is a circumstance highly interesting to the United States. Constantinople is the key to Russia. To be preponderant, she knows it is necessary for her to be a maritime power. The Black Sea is only a lake, like Lake Leman; the Baltic is frozen five months in a year. These are all the seas she possesses. Constantinople is the key to the palace of the Czars. Russia is already omnipotent on the Continent; once master of the Mediterranean, it is not difficult to see that the power which already controls three-quarters of the world, will soon have the fourth quarter.
Whilst the victory of the nations of Europe would open to you the markets, till now closed to your products, the consolidation of despotism destroys your commerce unavoidably. If your wheat, your tobacco, your cotton, were excluded from Europe but for one year, there is no farm, no plantation, no banking-house, which would not feel the terrible shock of such a convulsion.
And hand-in-hand with the commercial restrictions you will then see an establishment of monarchies from Cape Horn to the Rio Grande del Norte. Cuba becomes a battery against the mouth of the Mississippi; the Sandwich Islands a barrier to your commerce on the Pacific; Russian diplomacy will foster your domestic dissensions and rouse the South against the North, and the North against the South, the sea-coast against the inland States, and the inland States against the sea-coast, the Pacific interests against the Atlantic interests; and when discord paralyzes your forces, then comes at last the foreign interference, preceded by the declaration, that the European powers having, with your silent consent, inscribed into the code of international law, the principle that every foreign power has the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of any nation when these become a dangerous example, and your example and your republican principles being dangerous to the absolutist powers, and your domestic dissensions dangerous to the order and tranquillity of Europe, and therefore they consider it their "duty to interfere in America." And Europe being oppressed, you will have, single-handed, to encounter the combined forces of the world! I say no more about this subject. America will remember then the poor exile, if it does not in time enter upon that course of policy, which the intelligence of Massachusetts, together with the young instinct of Ohio, are the foremost to understand and to advance.
A man of your own State, a President of the United States, John QuincyAdams, with enlarged sagacity, accepted the Panama Mission, to considerthe action of the Holy Alliance upon the interests of the South AmericanRepublics.
Now, I beg you to reflect, gentlemen, how South America is different from Europe, as respects your own country. Look at the thousand ties that bind you to Europe. In Washington, a Senator from California, a generous friend of mine, told me he wasthirtydays by steamer from the Seat of Government. Well, you speak of distance—just give me a good steamer and good sailors, and you will intwentydays see the flag of freedom raised in Hungary.
I remember that when one of your glorious Stars (Florida, I think it was) was about to be introduced, the question of discussion and objection became, that the distance was great. It was argued that the limits of the government would be extended so far, that its duties could not be properly attended to. The President answered, that the distance was not too great, if the seat of government could be reached in thirty days. So far you have extended your territory; and I am almost inclined to ask my poor Hungary to be accepted as a Star in your glorious galaxy. She might become a star in this immortal constellation, since she is not so far as thirty days off from you.
What little English I know, I learned from your Shakespeare, and I learned from him that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy." Who knows what the future may bring forth? I trust in God that all nations will become free, and that they will be united for the internal interests of humanity, and in that galaxy of freedom I know what place the United States will have.
One word more. When John Quincy Adams assumed for the United States the place of a power on earth, he was objected to, because it was thought possible that that step might give offence to the Holy Alliance. His answer was in these memorable words: "The United States must take counsel of their rights and duties, and not from their fears."
The Anglo-Saxon race represents constitutional governments. If it be united for these, we shall have what we want, Fair Play; and, relying "upon our God, the justness of our cause, iron wills, honest hearts and good swords," my people will strike once more for freedom, independence, and for Fatherland.
* * * * *
[Lexington, May 11th.]
Kossuth having been invited to visit the first battle fields of the Revolution, was accompanied by several members of the State Committee, on May 11th, to West Cambridge, Lexington, and Concord. He had already visited Bunker Hill on the 3d of May, but we have not in these pages found room for his speech there. At West Cambridge he was addressed by the Rev. Thomas Hill, and replied: at Lexington also he received two addresses, and the following was his reply:—
Gentlemen,—It has been often my lot to stand upon classical ground, where the whispering breeze is fraught with wonderful tales of devoted virtue, bright glory, and heroic deeds. And I have sat upon ruins of ancient greatness, blackened by the age of centuries; and I have seen the living ruins of those ancient times, called men, roaming about the sacred ground, unconscious that the dust which clung to their boots, was the relic of departed demigods—and I rose with a deep sigh. Those demigods were but men, and the degenerate shapes that roamed around me, on the hallowed ground, were also not less than men. The decline and fall of nations impresses the mark of degradation on nature itself. It is sad to think upon—it lops the soaring wings of the mind, and chills the fiery arms of energy. But, however dark be the impression of such ruins of vanished greatness upon the mind of men who themselves have experienced the fragility of human fate, thanks to God, there are bright spots yet on earth, where the recollections of the past, brightened by present prosperity, strengthen the faith in the future of mankind's destiny. Such a spot is this.
Gentlemen, should the reverence which this spot commands allow a smile, I might feel inclined to smile at the eager controversy whether it was at Lexington or Concord that the fire of the British was first returned by Americans. Let it be this way or that way,—it will neither increase nor abate the merit of the martyrs who fell here. It is with their blood that the preface of your nation's history is written. Their death was, and always will be, the first bloody revelation of America's destiny; and Lexington, the opening scene of a revolution, of which Governor Boutwell was right to say, that it is destined to change the character of human governments, and the condition of the human race.
Should the Republic of America ever lose the consciousness of this destiny, that moment would be just so surely the beginning of America's decline, as the 19th of April, 1775, was the beginning of the Republic of America.
Prosperity is not always, gentlemen, a guarantee of the future, if it be not accompanied with a constant resolution to obey the call of the genius of the time. Nay, material prosperity is often the mark of real decline, when it either results in, or is connected with, a moral stagnation in the devoted attachment to principles. Rome was never richer, never mightier, than under Trajan, and still it had already the sting of death in its very heart.
To me, whenever I stand upon such sacred ground as this, the spirits of the departed appear like the prophets of future events. The language they speak to my heart is the revelation of Providence.
The struggle of America for independence was providential. It was a necessity. Those circumstances which superficial consideration takes for the motives of the glorious Revolution, were but accidental opportunities for it. Had those circumstances not occurred, others would have occurred, and might have presented perhaps a different opportunity; but the Revolution would have come. It was a necessity, because the colonies of America had attained that lawful age in the development of all the elements of national existence, which claims the right to stand by itself, and cannot any longer be led by a child's leading-strings, be the hand which leads it a mother's or a step-mother's. Circumstances and the connection of events were such, that this unavoidable emancipation had to pass the violent concussion of severe trials. The immortal glory of your forefathers was, that they did not shrink to accept the trial, and were devoted and heroic to sacrifice themselves to their country's destiny. And the monuments you erect to their memory, and the religious reverence with which you cherish the memory, are indeed well deserved tributes of gratitude.
But allow me to say, there is a tribute which those blessed spirits are still more eager to claim from you as the happy inheritance of the fruits they have raised for you; it is, the tribute of always remainingtrue to their principle; devoted to the destiny of your country, which destiny is to become the corner-stone of LIBERTY on earth. Empires can be only maintained by the same virtue by which they have been founded. Oh! let me hope that, while the recollections connected with this hallowed ground, inspire the heart of a wandering exile with consolation, with hope, and with perseverance (from the very fact that I have stood here, brought with the anxious prayers and expectations of the Old World's oppressed millions), you will see the finger of God pointing out the appropriate opportunity to act your part in America's destiny, by maintaining the laws ofNature and of Nature's God, for which your heroes fought and your martyrs died; and to regenerate the world.
"Proclaiming freedom in the name of God,"
till—to continue in the beautiful words of your Whittier—
——"Its blessings fallCommon as dew and sunshine over all."
[From Lexington Kossuth proceeded to Concord, and was there addressed by the well-known author, Ralph Waldo Emerson. His reply was at greater length, and on the same subject as at Lexington; yet a part of it may here be printed.]
Kossuth said:—
In my opinion, there is not a single event in history so distinctly marked to be providential—and providential with reference to all humanity—as the colonization, revolution, and republicanism of the now United States of America.
This immense continent being peopled with elements of European civilization, could not remain a mere appendix to Europe. But when it is connected with Europe by a thousand social, moral, and material ties, by blood, religion, language, science, civilization, and commerce, to believe that it can rest isolated in politics from Europe, would be just such a fault as it was that England did not believe in time the necessity of America's independence. Yes, gentlemen, this is so sure to me, that I would pledge life, honour, and everything dear to man's heart and honourable to man's memory, that either America must take her becoming part in the political regeneration of Europe, or she herself must yield to the pernicious influence of European politics. There was never yet a more fatal mistake, than it would be to believe, that by not caring about the political condition of Europe, America may remain unaffected by the condition of Europe. I could perhaps understand such an opinion, if you would or could be entirely isolated from Europe; but as you are not isolated, as you cannot be, as you cannot even have the will to be (for that very will would be a paradox, a logical absurdity, impossible to be carried out, being contrary to the eternal laws of God, which he for nobody's sake will change); therefore to believe that you can go on to be connected with Europe in a thousand respects, and still remain unaffected by its social and political condition, would be indeed a fatal delusion.
You stretch out your gigantic hands a thousandfold every day over the waves; your relations with Europe are not only commercial as with Asia, they are also social, moral, spiritual, intellectual; you take Europe every day by the hand. How then could you believe, that if that hand of Europe, which you grasp every day, remains dirty, you can escape from soiling your own hands? The cleaner they are, all the more will the filth of old Europe stick to them. There is no possible means to escape from being soiled, than to help us, Europeans, to wash the hands of our old world.
You have heard of the ostrich, that when persecuted by an enemy, it is wont to hide its head, leaving its body exposed; it believes that by not regarding it, it will not be seen by the enemy. That curious aberration is worthy of reflection. It istypical.
Yes, gentlemen, either America will _re_generate the condition of the old world, or it will be _de_generated by the condition of the old world.
Sir, I implore you (Mr. Emerson), give me the aid of your philosophicalanalysis, to impress the conviction upon the public mind of your nation that the Revolution, to which CONCORD was the preface, is full of a higher destiny—of a destiny broad as the world, broad as humanity itself. Let me entreat you to apply the analytic powers of your penetrating intellect, to disclose the character of the American Revolution, as you disclose the character of self-reliance, of spiritual laws, of intellect, of nature, or of politics. Lend the authority of your judgment to the truth, that the destiny of American revolution is not yet fulfilled; that the task is not yet completed; that to stop half way, is worse than would have been not to stir: repeat those words of deep meaning which once you wrote about the monsters that looked backward, and about the walking with reverted eye, while the voice of the Almighty says, "up and onward for ever more," while moreover the instinct of your people, which never fails to be right, answered the call of destiny by taking for its motto the wordahead.
Indeed, gentlemen, the monuments you raised to the heroic martyrs who fertilized with their hearts' blood the soil of liberty—these monuments are a fair tribute of well-deserved gratitude, gratifying to the spirits who are hovering around us and honourable to you. Woe to the people which neglect to honour its great and good men; but believe me, gentlemen, those blessed spirits would look down with saddened brows to this free and happy land, if ever they were doomed to see that the happy inheritors of their martyrdom imagined that the destiny to which that martyr blood was consecrated, is accomplished, and its price fully paid in the already achieved results, because the living generation dwells comfortably and makes TWO DOLLARS out ofone.
No, gentlemen, the stars in the sky have a higher aim than merely to illumine the night-path of some lonely wanderer. The course your nation is called to run, is not yet half performed. Mind the fable of Atalanta: it was a golden apple thrown into her way which made her fall short in her race.
Two things I have met here in these free and mighty United States, which I am at a loss how to make concord. The two things I cannot harmonize are:—First, that all your historians, all your statesmen, all your distinguished orators, who wrote or spoke, characterize it as AN ERA in mankind's history, destined to change the condition of the world, upon which it will rain an everflowing influence. And secondly, in contradiction to this universally adopted creed, I have met in many quarters a propensity to believe that it is conservative wisdom not to take any active part in the regulation of the outward world.
These two things do not agree. If that be the destiny of America, which you all believe to be, then that destiny can never be fulfilled by acting the part of passive spectators, and by this very passivity granting a charter to ambitious Czars to dispose of the condition of the world.
I have met distinguished men trusting so much to the operative power of your institutions and of yourexample, that they really believe they will make their way throughout the world merely by theirmoral influence. But there is one thing those gentlemen have disregarded in their philanthropic reliance; and that is, that the ray of the sun never yet made its way by itself through well-closed shutters and doors—they must be drawn open, that the blessed rays of the sun may get in. I have never yet heard of a despot who yielded to the moral influence of liberty. The ground of Concord itself is an evidence of it; the doors and shutters of oppression must be opened by bayonets, that the blessed rays of your institutions may penetrate into the dark dwelling-house of oppressed humanity.
There are men who believe the position of a power on earth will come to you by itself; but oh! do not trust to this fallacy; a position never comes by itself; it must be taken, and taken it never will be by passivity.
The martyrs who have hallowed by their blood the ground of Concord, trusted themselves and occupied the place Divine Providence assigned them. Sir, the words are yours which I quote. You have told your people that they are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same destiny, that they are not minors and invalids in a protected corner; but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, advancing on chaos and on the dark.
I pray God to give to your people the sentiment of the truth you have taught.
Your people, fond of its prosperity, loves peace. Well, who would not love peace; but allow me again, sir, to repeat with all possible emphasis, the great word you spoke, "Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."
* * * * *
[Last Speech in Boston.]
On May 14th, Kossuth, in obedience to a distinct invitation, delivered, in Faneuil Hall, the following ample Speech or Lecture, on the present condition of Europe.
Ladies and gentlemen,—The gigantic struggle of the first French Revolution associated the name of FRANCE so much with the cause of freedom in Europe, that all the world got accustomed to see it take the lead in the struggle for European liberty; and to look to it as a power entrusted by Providence with the initiation of revolutions; as a power, without the impulse of which, no liberal movement had any hope on the European continent.
I, from my earliest days, never shared that opinion. I felt always more sympathy with the Anglo-Saxon character and Anglo-Saxon institutions, which raised England, notwithstanding its monarchy and its aristocracy, to a position prouder than Rome ever held in its most glorious days: and which, free from monarchical and aristocratical elements here in America, lie at the foundation of a political organization, upon which the first true democratic Republic was consolidated and developed into freedom, power, and prosperity, in such a short time, as to make it a living wonder to the contemporary age, and a book full of instruction to the coming generations.
However, that opinion about the French initiative prevailed in Europe, and it was a great misfortune; for you know that France has always as yet forsaken the movement which it raised in Europe, and the other nations acting not spontaneously, but only following the impulse which the French had imparted to them, faltered and stopped at once, as soon as the French failed them. With that opinion of the French supremacy, no revolution in Europe could have a definite, happy issue.
Freedom never yet was given to nations as a gift, but only as a reward, bravely earned by one's own exertions, own sacrifices, and own toil; and never will, never shall it be attained otherwise.
I speak therefore out of profound conviction, when I say that, though the heart of the philanthropist must feel pained at the new hard trials to which the French nation is, and will yet be exposed, by the momentary success of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte's inglorious usurpation, still that very fact will prove advantageous to the ultimate success of liberty in Europe. Louis Napoleon'scoup d'état, much against his will, has emancipated Europe from its reliance upon France. The combined initiative of nations has succeeded to the initiative of France; spontaneity and self-reliance have replaced the depending on foreign impulse and reliance upon foreign aid. France is reduced to the level amongst nations, obliged to join general combinations, instead of regulating them; and this I take for a very great advantage. Many have wondered at the momentary success of Louis Napoleon, and are inclined to take it for an evidence that the French nation is either not capable or not worthy to be free. But that is a great fallacy. The momentary success of Louis Napoleon is rather an evidence that France isthoroughly democratic. All the revolutions in France have resulted in the preponderance of that class which bears the denomination ofbourgeoisie. Amongst all possible modifications of oppression, none is more detested by the people than oppression by an Assembly. The National Assembly of France was the most treacherous the world has ever yet known. Issued from universal suffrage, it went so far as to abolish universal suffrage, and every day of its existence was a new blow stricken at democracy for the profit of the bourgeoisie. Louis Napoleon has beaten asunder that Assembly, which the French democracy had so many reasons to hate and to despise, and the people applauded him as the people of England applauded Cromwell when he whipped out the Rump Parliament.
But by what means was Louis Napoleon permitted to do even what the people liked to see done? By no other means, but by flattering the principle of Democracy; he restored the universal suffrage; it is an execrable trick, to be sure—it is a shadow given for reality; but still it proves that the democratic spirit is so consolidated in France, that even despotic ambition must flatter it. Well, depend upon it, this democracy, which the victorious usurper feels himself constrained to flatter in the brightest moments of his triumph—this democracy will either make out of Louis Napoleona tool, which in spite of itself serves the democracy, or it will crush him.
France is the country of sudden changes, and of unthought of accidents. I therefore will not presume to tell the events of its next week, but one alternative I dare to state: Louis Napoleon either falls or maintains himself. The fall of Louis Napoleon, even if brought about by the old monarchical parties, can have no other issue than a Republic—a Republic more faithful to the community of freedom in Europe than all the former Revolutions have been. Or if Louis Napoleon maintains himself, he can do so only either by relying upon the army, or by flattering the feelings and interests of the masses. If he relies upon the army, he must give to it glory and profit, or, in other words, he must give to it war. Well, a war of France, against whomsoever it be, or for whatever purposes, is the best possible chance for the success of a European Revolution. Or if Louis Napoleon relies upon the feelings of the masses—as indeed he appears willing to do—in that case, in spite of himself, he becomes a tool in the hands of democracy; and if, by becoming such, he forsakes the allegiance of his masters—the league of absolutistical powers—well, he will either be forced to attack them, or be attacked by them.
So much for France; now as to ITALY.
Italy! the sunny garden of Europe, whose blossoms are blighted by the icy north wind from St. Petersburg—Italy, that captured nightingale, placed under a fragrant bush of roses, beneath an ever blue sky! Italy was always the battlefield of the contending principles, since, hundreds of years ago, the German emperors, the kings of Spain, and the kings of France, fought their private feuds, their bloody battles on her much coveted soil; and by their destructive influence, kept down all progress, and fostered every jealousy. By the recollections of old, the spirit of liberty was nowhere so dangerous for European absolutism as in Italy. And this spirit of republican liberty, this warlike genius of ancient Rome, was never extinguished between the Alps and the Faro.
We are taught by the scribes of absolutism to speak of the Italians as if they were a nation of cowards, and we forget that the most renowned masters of the science of war, the greatest generals up to our day, were Italians,—Piccolomini, Montecucculi, Farnese, Eugene of Savoy, Spinola, and Bonaparte—a galaxy of names whose glory is dimmed only by the reflection that none of them fought for his own country. As often as the spirit of liberty awoke in Italy, the servile forces of Germany, of Spain, and of France poured into the country, and extinguished the glowing spark in the blood of the people, lest it should once more illumine the dark night of Europe. Frederic Barbarossa destroyed Milan to its foundations, when it attempted to resist his imperial encroachments by the league of independent cities; and led the plough over the smoking ruins. Charles the Fifth had to gather all his powers around him to subdue Florence, when it declared itself a democratic republic. Napoleon extinguished the last remnants of republican self-government by crushing the republics of Venice, Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, and left only, to ridicule republicanism, the commonwealth of San Marino untouched. The Holy Alliance parted the spoils of Napoleon, riveted afresh the iron fetters which enslave Italy, and forged new spiritual fetters; prevented the extension of education, and destroyed the press, in order that the Italians should not remember their past.
Every page, glorious in their history for twenty-five centuries, is connected with the independence of Italy; every stain upon their honour is connected with foreign rule. And the burning minds of the Italians, though all spiritual food is denied to them, cannot be taught not to remember their past glory and their present degradation. Every stone speaks of the ancient glory; every Austrian policeman, every French soldier, of the present degradation. The tyrants have no power to unmake history, and to silence the feelings of the nation. And amongst all the feelings powerful to stir up the activity of mankind, there is none more penetrating than unmerited degradation, which impels us to redeem our lost honour. What is it therefore that keeps those petty tyrants of Italy, who are jealous of one another, on their tottering thrones, divided as they are among themselves, whilst the revolutionizing spirit of liberty unites the people? It is only the protection of Austria, studding the peninsula with her bayonets and with her spies. And Austria herself can dare this, only because she relies upon the assistance of Russia. She can send her armies to Italy, because Russia guards her eastern dominions. Let Russia stand off, and Austria is unable to keep Italy in bondage; and the Italians, united in the spirit of independence, will easily settle their account with their own weak princes. Keep off the icy blast which blows from the Russian snows, and the tree of freedom will grow up in the garden of Europe; though cut down by the despots, it will spring anew from the roots in the soil, which was always genial for the tree. Remember that no insurrection of Italians has been crushed by their own domestic tyrants without foreign aid; remember that one-third of the Austrian army which occupies Italy are Hungarians who have fought against and triumphed over the yellow-black flag of Austria—under the same tri-colour which, having the same colours for both countries, show emblematically that Hungary and Italy are but two wings of the same army, united against a common enemy. Remember that even now neither the Pope nor the little Princes of middle Italy can subsist without an Austrian and a French garrison; and remember that Italy is a half isle, open from three sides to the friendship of all who sympathize with civil and religious liberty on earth; but from the sea not open to Russia and Austria, because they are not maritime powers; and so long as England is conscious of the basis of its power, and so soon as America gets conscious of the condition upon which its future depends, Austria and Russia will never be allowed to become maritime powers.
And when you feel instinctively that the heart of the Roman must rage with fury when he looks back into the mirror of his past,—that the Venetian cannot help to weep tears of fire and of blood from the Rialto;—when you feel all this, then look back how the Romans have fought in 1849, with a heroism scarcely paralleled in the most glorious day of ancient Rome. And let me tell, in addition, upon the certainty of my own positive knowledge, that the world never yet has seen such complete and extensive revolutionary organization as that of Italy to-day—ready to burst out into an irresistible storm at the slightest opportunity, and powerful enough to make that opportunity, if either foreign interference is checked, or the interfering foreigners occupied at home. The revolution of 1848 has revealed and developed the warlike spirit of Italy. Except a few wealthy proprietors, already very uninfluential, the most singular unanimity exists, both as to aim and to means. There is no shade of difference of opinion, either to what is to be done or how to do it. All are unanimous in their devotion to the Union and Independence of Italy. With France or against France, by the sword, at all sacrifices, without compromise, they are bent on renewing the battle over and over again, with the confidence that, even without aid, they will triumph in the long run.
The difficulty in Italy is not how to make a revolution, but how to prevent its untimely outbreak; and still even in that respect there is such a complete discipline as the world never yet has seen. In Rome, Romagna, Lombardy, Venice, Sicily, and all the middle Italy, there exists an invisible government, whose influence is everywhere discernible. It has eyes and hands in all departments of public service, in all classes of society—it has its taxes voluntarily paid—its organized force, its police, its newspapers regularly printed and circulated, though the possession of a single copy would send the holder to the galleys. The officers of the existing government convey the missives of the invisible government, the diligences transport its agents. One line from one of these agents opens to you the galleries of art, on prohibited days—gives you the protection of uniformed officials.
That this is the condition of all Italy is shown on one side, in the fact that there the King of Naples holds fettered in dungeons 25,000 patriots, and Radetzky has sacrificed nearly 4,000 political martyrs on the scaffold; still the scaffold continues to be watered with blood, and still the dungeons receive new victims, evidently proving what spirit exists in the people of Italy.
And still Americans doubt that we are on the eve of a terrible revolution; and they ask, What use can I make of any material aid? when Italy is a barrel of powder, which the slightest spark may light.
In respect to foreign rule, GERMANY is more fortunate than Italy. From the times of the treaty of Verdun, when it separated from France and Italy, through the long period of more than a thousand years, no foreign power ever has succeeded to rule over Germany; such is the resistive power of the German people to guard its national existence. The tyrants who swayed over them were of their own blood. But to subdue German liberty, those tyrants were always anxious to introduce foreign institutions. First, they swept away the ancient Germanic right, the common law so dear to the English and American, an eternal barrier against the encroachments of despotism, and substituted for it the iron rule of the imperial Roman law. The rule of papal Rome over the minds of Germany crossed the mountains together with the Roman law, and a spiritual dependency was to be established all over the world. The wings of the German eagle were bound, that it should not soar up to the sun of truth. But when the oppression became too severe, the people of Germany rose against the power of Rome;—not the princes,—though they too were oppressed: but the son of the miner of Eisenach, the poor friar, Martin Luther, defied the Pope on his throne, and at his bidding the people of Germany proved, that it is strong enough to shake off oppression; that it is worthy, and that it knows how, to be free. And again, when the French, under their Emperor, whose genius comprehended everything except freedom, extended their moral sway over Germany, when the princes of Germany thronged around the foreign despot, begging kingly crowns from the son of the Corsican lawyer, with whom the Emperors were happy to form matrimonial alliances—with the man who had no other ancestors than his genius,—then it was again the people, which did not join in the degradation of its rulers, but jealous to maintain their national independence, turned the foreigner out though his name was Napoleon, and broke the yoke asunder, which weighed as heavily upon their princes as upon themselves. And still there are men in America who despair of the vitality of the Germans, of their indomitable power to resist oppression, of their love of freedom, and of their devotion to it, proved by a glorious history of two thousand years. The German race is a power, the vitality and influence of which you can trace through theworld'shistory for two thousand years; you can trace it through the history of science and heroism, of industry, and of bold enterprizing spirit. Your own country, your own national character, bear the mark of German vitality. Other nations, now and then, were great by some great men—the German people was always great by itself.
But the German princes cannot bear independence and liberty; they had rather themselves become slaves, the underlings of the Czar, than allow that their people should enjoy some liberty. An alliance was therefore formed, which they blasphemously called the Holy Alliance,—with the avowed purpose to keep the people down. The great powers guaranteed to the smaller princes—whose name is Legion, for they are many,—the power to fleece and torment their people, and promised every aid to them against the insurrection of those, who would find that for liberty's sake it is worth while to risk their lives and property. It was an alliance for the oppression of the nations, not for the maintenance of the princely prerogative. When the Grand-Duke of Baden, in a fit of liberality, granted his people the liberty of the press, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia abolished the law, though it had been carried unanimously by the Legislature of Baden and sanctioned by the prince.—The Holy Alliance had guaranteed to the princes the power to oppress, but not the power to benefit their people.
But though the great powers interfered often in the principalities and little kingdoms of Germany, indeed as often as the spirit of liberty awoke, yet they themselves avoided every occasion which would have forced them to request the aid of their allies, and especially of Russia. They knew too well, that to accept foreign aid against their own people, was nothing else than to lose independence, and was morally the same as to kneel down before the Czar and to take the oath of allegiance. A government which needs foreign aid against its own people, avows that it cannot stand without foreign aid. Take that foreign aid—interference!—away, and it falls.
The dynasties of Austria and Prussia were aware of this. They therefore yielded, as often as their encroachments met a firm resistance from the people. When my nation so resolutely resisted in 1823 the attempt to abolish the constitution, Prince Metternich himself advised the Emperor Francis to yield, and even humbly to apologize to the Diet of 1825. The King of Prussia granted even a kind of constitution rather than claim the assistance of the Czar. Herein you may find the explanation of the fact that the continent of Europe is not yet republican. The spirit of freedom, when roused by oppression, was lulled into sleep by constitutional concessions. The Czar of Russia was well aware, that this system of compromise prevents his intruding into the domestic concerns of Europe, which would lead him to the sovereign mastership over all; he therefore did everything to push the sovereigns to extremities. But this did not succeed, until by a palace-revolution in Vienna a weak and cruel youth was placed on the throne of Austria, and a passionate woman got the reins of government in her hand, and an unprincipled, reckless adventurer was ready to carry out every imperial whim, regardless of the honour of his country and the interests of his master. Russia at last got her aim. Rather than acknowledge the rights of Hungary, they bowed before the Czar, and gave up the independence of the Austrian throne; they became the underlings of a foreign power, rather than allow that one of the peoples of the European Continent should be really free. Since the fall of Hungary, Russia is the real sovereign of all Germany; for the first time Germany has a foreign master! and you believe that Germany will bear that in the nineteenth century which it never yet has borne? Bear that in fulness of age which it never bore in childhood? Soon after, and through the fall of Hungary, the pride of Prussia was humiliated. Austrian garrisons occupied Hamburg; Schleswig-Holstein was abandoned, Hessia was chastised, and all that is dear to Germans purposely affronted. Their dreams of greatness, their longing for unity, their aspirations of liberty, were trampled down into the dust, and ridicule was thrown upon all elevation of mind, upon all manifestation of patriotism. Hassenburg, convicted of forgery by the Prussian courts, became Minister in Hessia; the once outlawed Schwarzenbeg, and Bach, a renegade republican, Ministers of Austria. The peace of the graveyard, which tyrants, under the name of order, are trying to enforce upon the world, has for its guardians outlawed reprobates, forgers, and renegades. Could you believe that with such elements the spirit of liberty can be crushed? Tyrants know that to habituate nations to oppression, the moral feeling of the people has to be killed. But could you really believe that the moral feeling of such a people as the German, stamped in the civilization of which it was one of the generating elements, can be killed, or that it can bear for a long while such an outrage? Do you think that the people which met the insolent bulls of the Pope in Rome by the Reformation and the thirty years' war, and the numberless armies of Napoleon by a general rising—that this people will tamely submit to the Russian influence, more arrogant than the Papal pretensions, more disastrous than the exactions of the French Empire? They broke the power of Rome and of Paris; will they agree to be governed by St. Petersburg? Those who are accustomed to see in history only the Princes, will say Aye, but they forget that since the Reformation it is no longer the Princes who make the history, but the People; they see the tops of the trees are bent by the powerful northern hurricane, and they forget that the stem of the tree is unmoved. Gentlemen, the German princes bow before the Czar, but the German people will never bow before him.
Let me sum up the philosophy of the present condition of Germany in these few words: 1848 and 1849 have proved that the little tyrants of Germany cannot stand by themselves, but only by their reliance upon Austria and Prussia. These again cannot stand by themselves, but only by their reliance upon Russia. Take this reliance away, by maintaining the laws of nations against the principle of interference,—(for the joint powers of America and England can maintain them)—and all the despotic governments, reduced to stand by their own resources of power, must fall before the never yet subdued spirit of the people of Germany, like rotten fruit touched by a gale.
Let me now speak about the condition of my own dear native land. I hope not to meet any contradiction when I say that no condition can and will endure, which is so bad, so insupportable, that, by trying to change it, a people can lose nothing, and may gain everything. No condition can and will endure, the maintenance of which is contrary to every interest of every class. A revolution on the contrary is unavoidable, when every interest of every class wishes and requires it. I will first speak of the lower, and still the most powerful of all, of the material interest.
There are some countries, where, however insupportable the condition of the masses, still the government has an ally in the mighty and influential class of bankers, who lend their money to support despotism, and in those who have invested their fortunes in the shares of these loans, negotiated by bankers, who speculate on and with the fortunes of small capitalists. That class of men, partly tools of oppression, partly the fools of the tools, exists not in Hungary. We have no such bankers in Hungary, and but a very small inconsiderable number who have invested their fortunes in such loan-shares. And even the few who had been playing in the fatal loan-share game have withdrawn from it, at any price, because they feared to lose all. From that quarter therefore the House of Austria has no ally in Hungary.
As to our former aristocracy, a class influential by its connections, and by its large landed property: you remember that, when we succeeded to abolish the feudal charges, and converted millions of our countrymen, of different religion and different language, out of leaseholders into free landed proprietors, we guaranteed an indemnification to the landowners for what they lost. From a farm of about thirty-five to fifty acres of land, the farmer had to work one hundred and two days a year for the landowner; to give him the ninth part of all his crops, half a dollar in ready money, besides particular fees for shopkeeping, brewery, mill, &c. We freed the people from all the encumbrances, and, thanks to God! that benefit never more can be torn from the people's hands. The aristocracy consented to it, because we had guaranteed full indemnification. The very material existence of this class of former landowners is depending on that indemnification, to defray their debts, (which they formerly had the habit wantonly to contract,) and to provide for the cultivation of their own large allodial property, which they formerly cultivated by the hands of their leaseholders, but now have to invest capital into.
Now this indemnification, amounting to one hundred millions of dollars, the House of Austria never can realize. You know, with its centralized government, which is always very expensive, with its standing army of 600,000 men, the only support of its precarious existence, with its army of spies and secret police, with its system of corruption and robbery, with its fourteen hundred millions of debt, with its eternal deficit in its current expenditures, with its new loans to pay the interest of the old, and an unavoidable bankruptcy impending,—this indemnification Austria never can pay to the former aristocracy of Hungary. The only means to get this indemnification is the restoration of Hungary to its independence by a new revolution. Independent Hungary can pay it, because it has no debts, will want no large standing armies, and will have a cheap administration, because not centralized, but municipal, the people governing itself in and through municipalities, the cheapest of all governments.
Hungary has already pointed out the fund, out of which that indemnification can and will be paid, without any imposition upon the people, or any loss to the commonwealth. Hungary has large State lands, belonging to and administered by the commonwealth. I have mathematically proved that the landed property of the State, sold in small parcels to those who have yet no land, connected with a banking operation founded upon that property itself, to facilitate the payment of the price, is more than sufficient for that indemnification; besides, a small land tax (which the new owners of that immense property, divided into small farms, will have to pay, as other landed proprietors), will yield more revenue to the Commonwealth than all the proceeds of domestic administration.
This my proposition, having been submitted to the National Assembly, was accepted and approved, and has attached to the Revolution the numerous class of farm-labourers who have not yet their own farms, but who contemplated with the liveliest joy this benevolent provision, which Austria can never execute; since, financially ruined as she is, she cannot be contented either with the tax revenue or the banking arrangement, to defray the indemnification; she sells the stock whenever she can find a man to buy it.
But here is a remarkable fact, proving how little is the future of Austria contemplated as sure even by its votaries. When any one is willing to sell landed property in Hungary, foreign bankers, Austrian capitalists buy it readily at an enormous price, because they know that private transactions will be respected by our revolution; butfrom the Government, nobody buys a single acre of land, because every man knows that such a transaction must be considered void. Nay more, not even as a gift is an estate accepted by any one from the present government. Haynau himself was offered in reward a large landed property by the government; he did not accept it, but preferred a comparatively small sum of money, not amounting to one-tenth of the value of the offered land, and he bought from a private individual a landed property, for the money, because that, being a private transaction, is sure to stand: whereas in the future of the Austrian government in Hungary not even its Haynaus have confidence.
The manufacturing interests in Hungary anxiously wish, and must wish, a revolution, because manufacturing industry is entirely ruined now by Austria. All favour, encouragement, and aid, which the national government imparted to industry, is not only withdrawn, but replaced by the old system,—which is, neither to allow Hungary free trade, so as to buy manufactured articles where they can be had in the best quality or at the cheapest price, nor to permit manufacturing at home; but to preserve Hungary in the position of a colonial market—a condition always regarded as insupportable, and sufficient motive for a revolution, as you yourselves from your own history know.
The commercial interest anxiously desire a revolution, because there exists, in fact, no active commerce in Hungary, the Hungarian commerce being degraded into a mere broker-ship of Vienna.
All those who have yet in their hands the Hungarian bank notes issued by my government, must wish a revolution; because Austria, alike foolish as criminal, has declared them to be without value—thus they cannot be restored to value but by a revolution. The amount of those bank notes in the hands of the people is yet about twenty millions of dollars. No menaces, no cruelty can induce the people to give it up to the usurper; they put it into bottles and bury it in the earth. They say: it is good money when Kossuth comes home. But while no menaces of Austria can induce the people to give up this treasure of our impending revolution, a single line of mine, sent home, is obeyed, and the money is treasured up where I have designated.
Do you now understand, gentlemen, by what motive I say that once at home in command—if once our struggle is commenced, I do not want your material aid, and neither wish nor would accept all your millions—but that I want your material aid to get home, and to get homein such a wayas will inspire confidence in my people, by seeing me bring home the only thing which it has not—ARMS!
But I am asked, where will I land? That, of course, I will not say—perhaps directly at Vienna, like a Montgolfier, in a balloon; but one thing I may say, because that is no secret:—remember that all Italy is a sea-coast, and that Italy has the same enemy as Hungary—that Italy is the left wing of that army of which Hungary is the right wing, and that in Italy 40,000 Hungarian soldiers exist, as also, in general, in the Austrian army 140,000 Hungarians. More I can, and will not say on the subject.
But I will say that all the amount of taxation the people of Hungary formerly had to pay was but four and a half million dollars, and now it has to pay sixty-five million dollars; that landowners offer their land to the government, to get rid of the land tax, which is larger than all the revenue; that we have raised 600,000 hundredweight of tobacco—now, the monopoly of tobacco being introduced, the people no longer smokes and has burnt its tobacco seed. We have raised 120 million gallons of wine. Gentlemen, I come not to interfere with the domestic concerns of America. I have no opinion about the Maine liquor-law. For myself I am very fond of water, but still may say it is my opinion, it will be many years before the Maine liquor-law will pass through all Europe. Well, gentlemen, I was about to say, one half of the vineyards are cut down;—hundreds of thousands live upon horticulture and fruit cultivation; yet the trees are cut down to escape the heavy taxation laid upon them. The stamp tax is introduced, the most insupportable to freemen—village is divided from village, town from town, city from city, by custom-lines—the poor peasant woman, bringing a dozen of eggs to the market, has to pay the consumption-tax, before she is permitted to enter; and when she brings medicine home for her sick child she has again to pay before permitted to enter her home.
And besides this material oppression, and the daily and nightly vexations connected with it,—the Protestants deprived of the self-government of their church and school, for which they have thrice taken up arms victoriously in three centuries,—the Roman Catholics deprived of the security of their church property,—the people of every race deprived of its nationality, because there exists no public life wherein to exert it, no national existence, no constitution, no municipalities, no native law, no native officials, no security of person and of property, but arbitrary power, martial law, and the hangman and the jail,—and on the other side Hungarian patriotism, Hungarian honour, Hungarian heroism, Hungarian vitality, stamped in the vicissitudes of one thousand years, andthe consciousness that we have beaten Austria, when we had no army, no money, no friends, and the knowledge that now we have an army, and for home purposes have money in the safe-guarded bank notes, and have America for a friend; and in addition to all this, the confidence of my people in my exertions, and the knowledge of these exertions; of which my people is quite as well informed as yourselves, nay, more, because it sees and knows what I do at home, whereas you see only what I do here—well, if with all this you still doubt about the struggle in Europe being nigh, and still despair of its chance of success, then God be merciful to my poor brains, I know not what to think.
Some here take me for a visionary. Curious, indeed, if that man who, a poor son of the people, took the lead in abolishing feudal injustices a thousand years old, created a currency of millions in a moneyless nation, and suddenly organized armies out of untrained masses of civilians; directed a revolution so as to fix the attention of the whole world upon Hungary, beat the old, well-provided power of Austria, and crushed its future by his very fall, and forsaken, abandoned, in his very exile is feared by Czars and Emperors, and trusted by foreign nations as well as his own—if that man be a visionary, then for so much pride I may be excused that I would like to look face to face into the eyes of a practical man on earth.
Gentlemen, I had many things yet to say. The condition, change, and prospects of Europe are not spoken of so easily, as you have seen, when only the condition of my own country is touched. I don't know that I shall succeed, but I will try to say something about TURKEY.
Turkey! which deserves your sympathy because it is the country of municipal institutions, the country of religious toleration. Turkey, when she extended her sway over Transylvania and half of Hungary, never interfered with the way in which the inhabitants chose to govern themselves; she even allowed those who lived within her dominions to collect there the taxes voted by independent Hungary, with the aim to make war against the Porte. Whilst in the other parts of Hungary, Protestantism was oppressed by the Austrian policy, and the Protestants several times compelled to take up arms for the defence of religious liberty in Transylvania, under the sovereignty of the Porte the Unitarians got political rights, and Protestantism grew up under the protecting wings of the Ottoman power.
The respect for municipal institutions is so deeply rooted in the minds of the Turks, that at the time when they became masters of the Danubian provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, they voluntarily excluded themselves from all political rights in the newly acquired provinces; and up to the present day, they do not allow that a mosque should be built, or that a Turk should dwell and own landed property across the Danube. They do not interfere with the taxation or with the internal administration of these provinces; and the last organic law of the Empire, the Tanzimat, is nothing but the re-declaration of the rights of municipalities, guaranteeing them against the centralizing encroachment of the Pashas. Whilst Czar Nicholas is about to convert the Protestant population of Livonia and Estland to the Greek church by force and by alluring promises, the liberal Sultan Abdul Medjid grants full religious liberty to all sects of Protestantism. But we are accustomed to look upon Turkey as upon a third-rate power, only because in 1828 it was defeated by Russia. Let us now see how the balance stood at that time, and how it stands now.
In 1828 the Turkish population was full of hatred on account of the extermination of the Janissaries. The Christian population were ready to rise against the government, on account of the events of the Greek war. Albania was in revolt, because it was opposed to the system of conscriptions for regular military service. Anatolia was discontented on the same ground. Mehemet Ali possessed Egypt, and paralyzed the action of the government in Arabia and Syria. Servia had just laid down arms, but had not yet concluded peace. The Danubian principalities, though unfavourable to Russia, were not hearty in support of the Porte, and remained apathetic under the occupation of Russia. The revenue did not exceed 400,000,000 piastres (20,000,000 dollars), and was insufficient for a second campaign. The new army was not yet organized, and amounted only to 32,000 men, without tried generals. The fleet had been destroyed at Navarino. The foreign diplomatists had left the empire, and the capital was exposed to an attack of the enemy. In such a position no European government could have risked a war.
Russia had just defeated Persia, and by this victory got access to the Asiatic provinces of the Turkish empire; it had therefore to defend the frontiers on both sides. Russia had not yet entered into Circassia, and could therefore rally all her forces; she had not yet abolished the Poland of 1815, and could leave it without garrisons; she had not yet roused the hatred or the jealousies of Europe. She had engaged all the natural allies of the Porte into a combination for rousing the populations of her enemy, and by her diplomacy she gained the power of bringing her fleet into the Mediterranean, for blockading the ports of Turkey; and Navarino opened for her the Black Sea, where she had thirteen men-of-war. Not disturbed by the Porte, by Circassia, by Poland, by France, or by England, she had prepared two years for this war, whilst her enemy, passing through a terrible crisis, was without money, without an organized army, without a fleet, without other resources than the feeble Mussulman population on the seat of war.
Twenty-four years have altered the balance.—Turkey has now the enthusiastic support of her Mussulman population. The Christian population, with the only exception of Bulgaria, partakes of this enthusiasm. All the warlike tribes, from Albania to Kurdistan, are now supporting the authority of the Sultan. Mehemet Ali is gone; Arabia and Syria are again under the dominion of the Sultan. Servia has made peace, and has become the support of Turkey, offering her, in case of a Russian war, 80,000 men. The Principalities have become the enemies of Russia; they had too long to suffer from her oppression. The public revenue has doubled. Turkey has organized a regular army of 200,000 men, equal to any other, and besides, the militia, She has distinguished generals—Omer Pasha, Gruyon. Her fleet is equal to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and her steam-fleet superior to the Russian. She has for allies all the people from the Caucasus to the Carpathians. The Circassians, the Tartars under Emir Mirza, the Cossacks of the Dobroja, by whom the electric shock is transmitted to Poland and Hungary, form an unbroken chain, by which the spark is carried into the heart of Europe, where all the combustible elements wait for the moment of explosion. Twenty-four years ago Turkey was believed to be in a decaying state; it is now stronger than it has been for the last hundred years.
Russia, during this time, has been unable to overcome the resistance of Circassia; and, cut off from her south-eastern provinces, she cannot attack Turkey in the rear. The Caucasian lines furnished her, in 1828, with 30,000 men; Poland with 100,000; the two countries require now an army of observation and occupation of 200,000 men; the Danubian principalities absorb again 50,000.
The Russian fleet remains as it was in 1828—thirteen men-of-war then, thirteen now: and whilst, in 1828, she had scarcely an enemy in Europe, she has now scarcely one friend, except the kings. All her enemies, whom she has defeated one by one, have combined against her—Poland, Hungary, the Danubian principalities, Turkey, Circassia.
Where is now the force of Russia! Does she not remind us of the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar, standing on feet of clay?
And yet, gentlemen, this Russia can make doubtful the struggle in Europe—not because powerful in arms, but because it stands ready to support tyrants, when nations are tired out in a struggle, or before they have time to make preparations for resistance: then only is Russia a power to be feared. Well, gentlemen, shall not America stand up, and with powerful voice forbid Russia to interfere when nations have shaken off their domestic tyrants? Gentlemen, remember that Peter the Czar left a last will and testament to the people, that Russia must take Constantinople. Why? that Russia might be a great power: and that it may be so Constantinople is necessary, because no nation can be a great power which is not a maritime power. Now see how Turkey has grown in twenty-four years. The more Russia delays, the stronger Turkey becomes, and therefore is Russia in haste to fulfil the destiny of being a maritime power.