[_Syracuse_.]
At Syracuse, in New York State, Kossuth was received with an address of
the usual cordiality by the ex-Mayor, Harvey Baldwin. Of his ample reply
a portion may here be presented to the reader. After alluding to
Dionysius and Timoleon, he came back to the subject of Russian
interference in Hungary, and declared that he would not appeal to their
passions, but to their calm reason, although he approved of excitement
in a good cause, and at any rate trusted that Truth and Hope would never
be out of fashion at Syracuse. He continued:--
Gentlemen, as the destination of laws in a well-regulated community is
to uphold right, justice, and security of every individual, rich or
poor, powerful or weak, and to protect his life against violence and his
property against the encroachments of fraud and crime--so the
destination of the laws of _nations_ is to secure the independence
even of the smallest States, from the encroachments of the most powerful
ones. Force will prevail instead of right, so long as _all_
independent nations do not unite for the maintenance of those laws upon
which the security of all nations rests.
I say _all_ nations, because weakness is always comparative, not
absolute. A combination of several leagued powers can reduce to the
condition of comparative weakness even the strongest power on earth.
Without the law of nations there is therefore no security for nations.
But the European powers have long ago substituted for the rule of
justice the so-called _balancing system_--that is to say, the
political balance of power among nations. That system is iniquitous, for
it is founded, not upon the national _right_ even of the smallest
nation to be maintained in its independence, but upon the natural
jealousy of the great powers. With this system the independence of the
smallest States is not sure by right and by law, but only depends on the
consideration that the absorption of such smaller States might
aggrandize one of the great powers too much. In this system humanity is
taken for nothing--the mutual jealousy of the powerful is all, and the
implicit guarantee for the security of the weaker ceases, wherever the
powerful can devise a plan of spoliation which leaves the relative
forces of the spoliators the same as before. It is thus the world has
seen the partition of Poland--that most iniquitous--most guilty
spoliation ever witnessed.
The balancing system would have protected Poland from absorption by
_one_ power, but it has not protected it from partition between
these rival powers. Formerly, separate leagues between several States
have been as a protecting barrier against the ambition of a single
powerful oppressor. In the case of Poland, the world saw with
consternation a confederacy of great powers formed to perpetrate those
very acts of spoliation which hitherto had been prevented by similar
means. I therefore am certainly no advocate of this false system of
political balance of power, and I believe the time will come when that
idol will be thrown down from the place which it usurps, and law and
right will be restored to their sovereign sway. But still I may say, it
is an imperious necessity for all the world in general, as also for the
United States, that something should be done to prevent the measureless
territorial aggrandizement of one single power, chiefly when that power
is the mighty antagonist of your own Republic, as indeed Russia is.
I have on many occasions spoken of the necessary antagonism between
despotic Russia and republican America. Allow me here to recapitulate
some facts concerning Russia.
No man familiar with the history of the last hundred years is ignorant
that the Czars of Russia take it for their destiny to rule the world. It
is their hereditary policy, in which they are brought up from generation
to generation, till that infatuation becomes a point of their character.
To come to that aim--Russian preponderance steps forth alike with
protocols, with emissaries, and with war--in two directions westward and
eastward, against Europe and against Asia.
As to Europe, after having completed her arrondisement on the
Baltic--her earnest aim is partly direct conquest, and partly sovereign
preponderance. Direct conquest, so far as the Sclave race is spread;
which the Czars desire to unite under their despotic sceptre. To attain
that end, the house of Romanoff has started the idea of Pansclavism, the
idea of union of the Sclavish nationality under Russian
protectorate.--Protectorate is always the first step which Russia takes
when desiring to conquer.
She has styled that ambitious design the regeneration of the Sclave
nationality; and to blindfold those deluded nations that they may not
see that without independence and freedom no nationality exists, she has
flattered their ambition with the prospect of dominion over the world.
The Latin race had its turn, and the German race had, and now it is the
Sclave race which is called to rule and master the world. Such was the
Satanic temptation of pride, by which Russia advanced in that ambitious
scheme. I will not now speak of the mischief she has succeeded to do in
that respect: I will only mark the fact that the ambition of Russia aims
at the direct dominion of Europe, so far as it is inhabited by the
Sclave race. The slightest knowledge of geography is sufficient to make
it understood that this would be such an accession to the power of
Russia, that, were they united under one man's despotic will, the
independence of the rest of Europe, should even Russia prudently decline
a direct conquest of it, would be but a mockery. The Czar would be
omnipotent over it, as indeed he is near to be already, at least on the
Continent.
Yet, without the conquest of Constantinople, Russia could never carry
the idea of Pansclavism: for in European Turkey a vast stock of the
Sclavonic race dwells, from Bulgaria over Servia and Bosnia down to
Montenegro, and across through Rumelia. Moreover, the conquest of
Constantinople is the hereditary leading idea of Russian policy. Peter,
called the Great, the founder of the Russian Empire, in making it from a
half-Asiatic a European State, bequeathed this policy as a sacred legacy
to all his posterity, in his political testament, which is the Magna
Charta of Russian power and despotism. All his successors have
energetically followed that inherited direction. Alexander movingly
avowed that Constantinople _is the key to his own house_, and his
brother did and does more than all his predecessors to get that key.
When the Empress Catharine visited the recently conquered Krimea,
Potemkin raised to her honour a triumphal arch, with the motto--"Hereby
is the road to Constantinople." Czar Nicholas has since learned that it
is by Vienna, rather. Russia therefore decided to get rid of this
obstacle, and to convert it out of an obstacle into a TOOL. A direct
conquest would have been dangerous, because it would have met the
opposition of all Europe. Russia therefore tried it first by monetary
influence, and had pretty well advanced in it. Metternich himself was a
pensioner to Russia. But the watchful, independent spirit of
constitutional Hungary still hindered the practical result of that
bribery.
And, mark well, gentlemen, in consequence of the geographical situation
of her dominions, and being also sovereigns of Hungary, it was chiefly
the house of Austria which was considered to be and cherished as the
great bulwark against Russia--charged especially with a jealous
guardianship of Turkish rights. And indeed had the house of Austria
comprehended the conditions of her existence, attached Hungary to
herself by respecting her independence and her constitutional rights,
and developed the power of her hereditary dominions, and placed herself
upon a constitutional basis, she could have maintained her respectable
position of guardianship for centuries. Russia was aware of that fact.
It is the intrigue of Russia, which by money and emissaries for years
before infused the notion of Pansclavism among the Bohemians, Poles,
Croats, Serbs, under the crown of Austria, equally as among the Sclave
population of Turkey; which encouraged Austria to attack Hungary, by
promising her aid in case of need. If Austria succeeded, the
constitutional life of Hungary, in many ways so offensive to Russia, was
overthrown: if Austria failed, she became a dependency of Russia. And
by the unwarrantable carelessness of some powers, the complicity of
others, the latter alternative is achieved. Austria, who was to have
_balanced_ Russia, is thrown into her scale: instead of being a
barrier, she is her vanguard, and her tool--her high road to
Constantinople, her auxiliary army to flank it.
It would be not without interest to sketch the history of Russia step by
step, advancing towards that aim by war and by emissaries, and by
diplomatic corruption and corrupted diplomacy, from the time of Mahomet
Baltadji, of cursed memory, through all subsequent wars--at the treaties
of Kutsuk Kaynardje, Balta Liman, Jassy, Bucharest, Ackierman,
Adrianople, Unkhiar Iskelessi, down to the treaty as to the Dardanelles
and the Bosphorus, and to the treaty of commerce which made two-thirds
of Constantinople itself in their daily bread dependent upon Russian
wheat, to the amount of thirty-five millions of piastres a year, while
Turkish wheat was rotting in the stores of Asia Minor. By each of these
treaties Russia advanced its frontiers, and pressed Constantinople more
closely within its iron grasp; with such perseverant consistency
pursuing her aim, that even in other political transactions, apparently
unconnected with Turkey, it was constantly this which she kept in view.
As for instance, at the conference of Tilsit, when she surrendered
continental Europe to the momentary domains of Napoleon, provided Turkey
were consigned to her. And still she did not succeed--and still
Stamboul stands a barrier to her dominion over the world. And why did
she not succeed? Because the European powers, conscious of the fact
that the conquest of Constantinople involves their own submission to
Russia, have in the last instant always prevented it, by uniting to
treat the Eastern question as one of life and death for their own
independence.
The whole Anglo-Saxon race are bound by every consideration of policy to
check the ambitious encroachments of Russia. It is not in Europe only,
but in Asia, that you meet her. She knows that her dominion over the
world must be short, while the Anglo-Saxon race bold a mighty empire in
India. Moreover, you yourselves, by the extension of your territory to
the Pacific Ocean, are drawn by a thousand natural ties of activity to
Asia. Your expedition to Japan has a world of meaning in it. Great
powers _must_ have broad views in their policy: you cannot contain
your activity, nor therefore your policy, within a domestic circle of
your own. You are for the world what Germany is for Europe. As without
the freedom of Hungary, Europe cannot _become_ free, so without the
freedom of Germany, Europe cannot _remain_ free; for Germany is the
heart of Europe. You, by having extended your dominion to the Pacific,
become the heart of the world. You are brought into the compass of
Russian hatred and Russian ambition. Either you or Russia must fall.
The balance of power, and thereby the independence of the world, has
been overthrown by the connivance of the great powers at the overthrow
of Hungary; and it can only be restored by the restoration of Hungary.
As for Austria, she never more can be restored--she is not only doomed,
she is dead. No skill, no tending can revive her. Having previously
broken every tie of affection and of allegiance, she cannot maintain
even a vegetable life, but by Russian aid. Let the reliance upon that
aid relax, and there is no power on earth which could prevent the
nations who groan under her oppressive and degrading tyranny from
shattering to pieces the rotten building of her criminal existence. And
as to my nation, I declare solemnly, that should we be left forsaken and
alone to fight once more the battle of deliverance for the world, and
should we in consequence of it fail in that honourable strife, we will
rather choose to be Russians than subject to the house of
Austria--rather submit to open, manly force of the Czar, than to the
heart-revolting perjury of the Hapsburg--rather be ruled directly by the
master, than submit to the shame of being ruled by his underlings. The
fetters of force may be broken once, but the affection of a morally
offended people to a perjurious dynasty can never be restored. Russia
we hate with inconceivable hatred, but the House of Hapsburg we hate and
we despise.
I have been often asked, what may be, amidst the present conjunctures,
an opportunity to renew our struggle for liberty? and I have answered
that the very oppression of our country, the heroism of my people, our
resolute will, and the intolerable condition of the European Continent,
is an opportunity in itself; but if too cautious men, having too little
faith in the destiny of mankind, desire yet another opportunity, there
is the prospect of a war between Turkey and Russia. This is a fatality,
pointed out by the situation of Russia, and by the pressing motives,
heaped up since the time of Peter the Great: and Russia will hasten to
try the decisive blow, since she knows that Turkey becomes more powerful
every day. Now, gentlemen, that will be an imperious opportunity to
raise once more the standard of freedom in Hungary; and, so may God
bless us, we are prepared for it. We cannot allow that our natural ally,
Turkey, be flanked from the frontiers of Hungary at the order of the
Czar. Turkey, by curious change of circumstances, having become
necessary to European freedom and civilization, will find the kindred
race of the Magyars to aid her, and by aiding her, to save the world.
The only question is, will the United States remain indifferent at the
overthrow of the balance of power on earth? No, they will not, they
cannot remain indifferent. Their position on the coast of the Pacific
answers "No." Their Republican principle answers "No." The voice of the
people, clustering in thundering manifestations around my own humble
self, answer "No." You yourself, Sir, in the name of the people of
Syracuse, which is but one tone in the mighty harmony of all the
people's voice, have told me "No."
Before these assurances, and upon the conditions of your destiny, I
rely; and I venture humbly to advise you to strengthen your fleet in the
Mediterranean. Sir, look for a port of your own, not depending upon the
smiles of petty Italian despots, but one where the stripes and stars of
America will be able to protect the principles of FREE SHIPS, FREE
GOODS. Determine the character of your country's future administration
from a broad American view, and not from any petty considerations of
small party follies. With these humble suggestions I cordially thank you
for your sympathy, and bid you an affectionate farewell!
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