[_Speech at the Citizens' Banquet, Philadelphia, Dec. 26th._]
Mr. Dallas, the Chairman, made an eloquent address advocating the cause
of Hungary against Russia, and avowing the duty of America to give
warlike aid. This speech was the more remarkable, as coming immediately
after the arrival of the news of Louis Napoleon's usurpation. The mind
of the public was naturally so full of the event, that Kossuth could not
avoid to discuss it; but the topic is so threadbare to the reader, that
it will suffice here to preserve a few sentiments.
In the opening, Kossuth complained of forged letters and forged cheques
sent to annoy him, and anonymous letters of false accusation circulated
against him. Proceeding from this to public topics, and the certainty of
a new convulsion in Europe, he said, that it might prove in the future
highly dangerous to the moneyed interests, if the world be persuaded
that the holders of great disposable wealth use it to aid despotism, and
that the possession of it checks the generous propensity to forward the
triumph of freedom. If the world be confirmed in this persuasion, the
results will be painfully felt by those gentlemen, whose treasures are
always open for the despots to crush liberty with. Such moneylenders
have excited boundless hatred in all that section of Europe, which has
had to suffer from their ready financial aid to despotism. I (said
Kossuth) am no Socialist, no Communist; and if I get the means to act
efficiently, I shall so act that the inevitable revolution may not
subvert the rights of property: but so much I confidently declare--that
to the spreading of Communist doctrines in certain quarters of Europe
nobody has so much contributed as those European capitalists, who by
incessantly aiding the despots with their money have inspired many of
the oppressed with the belief that financial wealth is dangerous to the
freedom of the world. Rothschild is the most efficient apostle of
Communism.
In regard to Louis Bonaparte's temporary success, Kossuth argued, that
it would secure, when France makes her next move for freedom, two
results beneficial to liberty: First, that in future, the French
republicans would abandon their delusive and disastrous Centralization.
We have shown (said he) in Hungary, that for a nation to be invincible,
its life must not be bound up with its metropolis. Henceforward, in
European aspirations, centralization is replaced by federative harmony.
I thank Louis Napoleon for it. _Your_ principles of local
self-government, gentlemen, were hitherto professed on the continent of
Europe chiefly by us Hungarians: now they will conquer the world,--a new
victory for humanity. Had the old French republic stood, it would have
perpetuated the curse of _great standing armies_, which are
instruments of ambition and a wasting pestilence. Again; the blow struck
by Louis Napoleon has forced his nation into the common destiny of
Europe. It has forbidden France ever in future to play a separate game,
and think to keep her own liberty, without effectively espousing the
cause of foreign liberty.
What is the sum of all this? First, that there is nothing in the news
from France to alter any judgments which you might previously have
formed, or cause you any suspense. Secondly, it only more than ever
claims from you an immediately decisive conduct. The success of freedom
now depends entirely on what policy the United States of America will
adopt.
Well! gentlemen. It may be that the United States have no reply to the
hopes of the world. You will then see a mournful tear in the eye of
humanity, and its breast heaving with sighs. We presume, you are so
powerful that you can afford not to care about the treading down of the
law of nations and the funeral of European freedom. You are so glorious
at home, that you can afford to lose the glory (at so rare a crisis!) of
saving liberty and justice on earth. Yet in your own hour of trial you
asked and received military and naval aid from France. Your President
has informed the world, that you are not willing to allow "the strong
arm of a foreign power to suppress the spirit of freedom in any
country." If after this you tell me that you are _afraid_ of
Russia, and are _too weak_ to help us,--and would rather be on good
terms with the Czar, than rejoice in the liberty and independence of
Hungary, Italy, Germany, France,--dreadful as it would be, I would wipe
away my tear, and say to my brethren, "Let us pray, and let us go to the
Lord's Last Supper, and thence to battle and to death." I would then
leave you, gentlemen, with a dying farewell, and with a prayer that the
sun of freedom may never drop below the horizon of your happy land.
I am in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, the city of William
Penn, whose likeness I saw this day in a history of your city, with this
motto under it: "_Si vis pacem, para bellum_"--(prepare for war, if
thou wilt have peace)--a weighty memento, gentlemen, to the name of
William Penn.
And I am in that city which is the cradle of your independence--where,
in the hour of your need, the appeal was proclaimed to the Law of
Nature's God, and that appeal for help from Europe, which was granted to
you.
I stood in Independence Hall, whence the spirit of freedom lisps eternal
words of history to the secret recesses of your hearts. Man may well be
silent where from such a place history so speaks. So my task is
done--with me the pain, with you the decision--and, let me add the
prophetic words of the poet, "the moral of the strain."
Kossuth took his seat amid the three times three of the audience.
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