Governor Kossuth:--As Chairman of the Committee appointed for that
purpose by a resolution of the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, I
have the honour to tender to you, in the name and in behalf of the
State, a cordial welcome to the capital.
We proffer this greeting as a small tribute of that admiration which
your courage, your integrity, and above all, your self-denying devotion
to the cause of Hungarian freedom has roused in our breasts.
Wonder not, sir, at the enthusiasm which your presence excites in a
people who cherish, with fond recollection and reverence, the smallest
relic of that time, when liberty wrestled with oppression in America,
and who hail the anniversaries of her triumphs with such grateful
remembrance of those brave and patriotic men who wrought out our full
measure of national happiness.
In you we behold a living embodiment of those great principles which we
cherish with such tender affection.
You are the realization of that virtue, that courage, that civil and
military genius, which sheds such lustre on our early history.
You call to mind more freshly than poetic or historic page, song, or
speaking canvass, that glorious record which was graven more than two
centuries ago by the first exiles from European oppression upon the
granite rocks of New England,--_"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to
God."_
Our affection is warmed by the lively interest which we feel in the
spread of this cardinal principle, and the fitness for its championship
which you have evinced, revealing constantly a resemblance to that
immortal man, the impress of whose greatness you behold on every side.
When Liberty, scourged from the old, sought out a new world wherein to
raise her sacred temple, it was to his master hand she confided the
noble work.
Had he been less great, that glorious shrine might never have been
beaconed in the sky, or at least its proportions might have been uncouth
and insecure.
Now therefore, since liberty has secured the manifold blessings that
flow from human equality, and proudly flung back the taunts of tyrants,
it is a joyous reflection to the children of this her first home, that
she has at length found a man in foreign lands fitly gifted to
appreciate those blessings, industrious to search out and follow the
path by which they were attained, and virtuous to take no selfish
advantage from the thanksgiving that her mission will arouse.
Sir, it is a splendid characteristic of our national government, that
Ohioans are as keenly touched by the history of your wrongs as the
borders of the Atlantic States.
Yes, sir, the hearts of two millions of freemen at the centre of our
country's population leap fast at the shrieks of freedom in every clime,
believing in no cold, unbrother-like law of distance; and, sir, we yield
to no State in the sincerity with which the following resolution was
adopted:
Resolved,--That we declare the Russian past intervention in the affairs
of Hungary a violation of the law of nations, which, if repeated, would
not be regarded indifferently by the people of the State of Ohio.
In conclusion, sir, I present to you a copy of the resolutions of the
General Assembly, and again welcome you to the valley of the West,
trusting that the warmth of your reception in Ohio is but an earnest of
that glorious sympathy which will spring in your path should you go
still farther westward in your holy mission.
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