FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED IN BOSTON, ON THE 7TH OF NOVEMBER, 1849, AT A
FESTIVAL OF THE NATIVES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE ESTABLISHED IN MASSACHUSETTS.
We have all had our sympathies much enlisted in the Hungarian effort for
liberty. We have all wept at its failure. We thought we saw a more
rational hope of establishing free government in Hungary than in any
other part of Europe, where the question has been in agitation within
the last twelve months. But despotic power from abroad intervened to
suppress that hope.
And, Gentlemen, what will come of it I do not know. For my part, at this
moment, I feel more indignant at recent events connected with Hungary
than at all those which passed in her struggle for liberty. I see that
the Emperor of Russia demands of Turkey that the noble Kossuth and his
companions shall be given up, to be dealt with at his pleasure. And I
see that this demand is made in derision of the established law of
nations. Gentlemen, there is something on earth greater than arbitrary
or despotic power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind has
its power, and the earthquake has its power; but there is something
among men more capable of shaking despotic thrones than lightning,
whirlwind, or earthquake, and that is, the excited and aroused
indignation of the whole civilized world. Gentlemen, the Emperor of
Russia holds himself to be bound by the law of nations, from the fact
that he negotiates with civilized nations, and that he forms alliances
and treaties with them. He professes, in fact, to live in a civilized
age, and to govern an enlightened nation. I say, that if, under these
circumstances, he shall perpetrate so great a violation of national law
as to seize these Hungarians and to execute them, he will stand as a
criminal and malefactor in the view of the public law of the world. The
whole world will be the tribunal to try him, and he must appear before
it, and hold up his hand, and plead, and abide its judgment.
The Emperor of Russia is the supreme lawgiver in his own country, and,
for aught I know, the executor of that law also. But, thanks be to God,
he is not the supreme lawgiver or executor of national law, and every
offence against that is an offence against the rights of the civilized
world. If he breaks that law in the case of Turkey, or any other case,
the whole world has a right to call him out, and to demand his
punishment.
Our rights as a nation, like those of other nations, are held under the
sanction of national law; a law which becomes more important from day to
day; a law which none, who profess to agree to it, are at liberty to
violate. Nor let him imagine, nor let any one imagine, that mere force
can subdue the general sentiment of mankind. It is much more likely to
diffuse that sentiment, and to destroy the power which he most desires
to establish and secure.
Gentlemen, the bones of poor John Wickliffe were dug out of his grave,
seventy years after his death, and burnt for his heresy; and his ashes
were thrown upon a river in Warwickshire. Some prophet of that day said:
"The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea,
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad,
Wide as the waters be."
Gentlemen, if the blood of Kossuth is taken by an absolute, unqualified,
unjustifiable violation of national law, what will it appease, what will
it pacify? It will mingle with the earth, it will mix with the waters of
the ocean, the whole civilized world will snuff it in the air, and it
will return with awful retribution on the heads of those violators of
national law and universal justice. I can not say when, or in what form;
but depend upon it, that, if such an act take place, then thrones, and
principalities, and powers, must look out for the consequences.
And now, Gentlemen, let us do our part; let us understand the position
in which we stand, as the great republic of the world, at the most
interesting era of its history. Let us consider the mission and the
destiny which Providence seems to have designed for us, and let us so
take care of our own conduct, that, with irreproachable hearts, and with
hands void of offence, we may stand up whenever and wherever called
upon, and, with a voice not to be disregarded, say, This shall not be
done, at least not without our protest.