Part 22 (1/2)
And is it upon the ruins of Hungary that the absolutist powers are now about to realize this prophecy?
You are aware of the fact that every former revolution in Europe was accompanied by some const.i.tutional concessions, promised by the kings to appease the storm, but treacherously nullified when the storm pa.s.sed.
Out of this false play constantly new revolutions arose. It is therefore that Russian interference in Hungary was preceded by a proclamation of the Czar,--wherein he declares ”that insurrection having spread in every nation with an audacity which has gained new force in proportion to the concessions of the governments,” every concession must be withdrawn; not the slightest freedom, no political rights, and no const.i.tutional aspirations must be left, but everything levelled by the equality of pa.s.sive obedience and absolute servitude; he therefore takes the lead of the allied despots, to crush the spirit of liberty on earth.
It is this impious work, which was begun by the interference in Hungary, and goes on spreading in a frightful degree; it is this impious work which my people, combined with the other oppressed nations, is resolved to oppose. It is therefore no partial struggle which we are about to fight; it is a struggle of principles, the issues of which, according as we triumph or fall, must be felt everywhere, but nowhere more than here in the United States, because no nation on earth has more to lose by the all-overwhelming preponderance of the absolutist principle than the United States. If we are triumphant, the progress and development of the United States will go on peacefully, till your Republicanism becomes the ruling principle on earth (G.o.d grant it may soon become); but if we fail, the absolutist powers, triumphant over Europe, will and must fall with all their weight upon you, precisely because else you would grow to such a might as would decide the destinies of the world. And since the absolutistical powers, with Russia at their head, desire themselves to rule the world, it is natural for her to consider you as their most dangerous enemy, which they must try to crush, or else be crushed sooner or later themselves. The _Pozzo di Borgos_ tell you so: the _Hulsemanns_ tell you so: and it were indeed strange if the people of the United States, too proudly relying upon their power and their good luck, should indifferently regard the gathering of danger over their head, and hereby invite it to come home to them, forcing them to the immense sacrifices of war, whereas we now afford to them an opportunity to prevent that danger, without any entanglement, and without claiming from you any moral and material aid, except such as is not only consistent with, but necessary to your interests.
Allow me to make yet some remarks about the commercial interests as connected with the cause I plead. Nothing astonishes me more than to see those whose only guiding star is commerce, considering its interests only from the narrow view of a small momentary profit, and disregarding the threatening combination of next coming events.
Permit me to quote in this respect one part of the public letter which Mr. Calhoun, the son of the late great leader of the South, the inheritor of his fame, of his principles, and of his interests, has recently published. I quote it because I hope n.o.body will charge him with partiality in respect to Hungary.
Mr. Calhoun says:
”There is a universal consideration that should influence the government of the United States. The palpable and practical agricultural, manufacturing, commercial and navigating interests, the pecuniary interests of this country, will be promoted by the independence of Hungary more than by any other event that could occur in Europe. If Hungary becomes independent it will be her interest to adopt a liberal system of commercial policy. There are fifteen millions of people inhabiting what is or what was Hungary, and the country between her and the Adriatic. These people have not now, and never had, any commerce with the United States. Hungarian trade and commerce has been stifled by the 'fiscal barriers' of Austria that encircle her. She has used but few of American products. Your annual s.h.i.+pments of cotton and cotton manufactures to Trieste and all other Austrian ports, including the amount sent to Hungary, as well as Austria, has never exceeded nine hundred thousand dollars per annum. All other merchandize and produce sent by you to Austria and Hungary do not exceed one hundred thousand dollars a year. Hungary obtains all her foreign imports through Austrian ports. The import and transit duties levied by Austria are exceedingly onerous, and nearly prohibitory as to Hungary of your cotton and cotton goods.” Hungary independent, and a market is at once opened for your cotton, rice, tobacco, and manufactures of immense value. That market is now closed to you, and has always been, by Austrian restrictions. And can it be doubted that besides supplying the fifteen millions of _industrious and intelligent_ people of Hungary (_and they are, as a people, perhaps, the most intelligent of any in Europe_), the adjacent and neighbouring countries, will not also be tempted to encourage trade with you? Hungary needs your cotton. She is rich in resources--mineral, agricultural, manufacturing, and of every kind. She is rich in products for which you can exchange your cotton, rice, &c.
Will it, I ask, injuriously affect you if the English should compete with you and send their manufactures of cotton thither? Not, I presume, as long as the raw material is purchased from America; but in fact, your market will be extended through her. ”If therefore those of our statesmen (says Mr. Calhoun), who can only be influenced by the almighty dollar, will cypher up the value of this trade--this new market for our products, worth perhaps twenty millions of dollars yearly--they may find an excuse for incurring even the tremendous and awful risk of a war with Austria, but which there is less danger of than there is with Governor Brigham Young, in Utah. They may find a substantial interest involved that is worth taking care of. Governor Kossuth may be a.s.sured it is of more consequence than sympathy. It is a wonderfully sensitive nerve in this country: it controls most of the others.--Sympathy, in this case, can take care of itself. It does not require any nursing. The interests involved should be attended to. It seems to me that this position as to our commerce with Hungary cannot be attacked in front, in rear, or on either flank. It is by far more forcible and powerful than the _ex post facto_ argument in favour of the Mexican war, that it got us California and its gold. So far as the general welfare of the country is concerned, free trade with independent Hungary, and its certain ultimate results, would be more invaluable than all the cargoes of gold that may be brought from the Pacific coast, if ten times the present amount.”
That is the opinion of a distinguished American citizen, identified chiefly with the interests of the South.
As to me, I beg permission to sketch in a few lines the reverse of the picture. If we fail in our enterprize to check the encroaching progress of absolutism, if the despots of Europe succeed to accomplish their plot, the chief part of which for Russia is to get hold of Constantinople, and thus to become the controlling power of the Mediterranean sea, what will be the immediate result of it in respect to your commerce?
No man of sound judgment can entertain the least doubt that the first step of Russia will and must be, to exclude America from the markets of Europe by the renewal of what is called the continental system. Not a single bushel of wheat or corn, not a single pound of tobacco, not a single bale of cotton, will you be permitted to sell on the continent of Europe. The leagued despots must exclude you, because you are republicans, and commerce is the conveyer of principles; they must exclude you, because by ruining your commerce they ruin your prosperity, and by ruining this they ruin your development, which is dangerous to them. Russia besides must exclude you, because you are the most dangerous rival to her in the European markets where you have already beaten her. And it will be the more the interest of Russia to exclude you, because by taking Constantinople, she will also become the master of Asiatic and African regions, where also cotton is raised.
Well, you say, perhaps, though you be excluded from the European continent, England still remains to your cotton commerce.--Who could guarantee that the English aristocracy will not join in the absolutist combination, if the people of the United States, by a timely manifestation of its sentiments, does not encourage the public opinion of England itself? But suppose England does remain a market to your cotton, you must not forget that if English manufacture is excluded from all the coasts of Europe and of the Mediterranean, she will not buy so much cotton from you as now, because she will lose so large a market for cotton goods.
Well, you say neither England nor you will submit to such a ruin of your prosperity. Of course not; but then you will have a war, connected with immense sacrifices; whereas now, you can prevent all that ruin, all those sacrifices, and all that war. Is it not more prudent to prevent a fire, than to quench it when your own house is already in flames?
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me draw to a close. I most heartily thank you for the honours of this unlooked-for reception, and for your generous sympathy. I feel happy that the interests, political as well as commercial, of the United States, are in intimate connexion with the success of the struggle of Hungary for independence and republican principles; and I bid you a sincere and cordial farewell, recalling to your memory, and humbly recommending to your sympathy that toast, which the more clement Senator of Alabama, Colonel King, as President of the United States Senate, gave me at the Congressional Banquet, on the 7th of January, in these words:--
”Hungary having proved herself worthy to be free, by the virtue and valour of her sons, the law of nations and the dictates of justice alike demand that she shall have fair play in her struggle for independence.”
It was the honourable Senator of Alabama who gave me this toast, expressing his conviction that to this toast every American will cordially respond. His colleague has not responded to it, but Mobile has responded to it, and I take, with cordial grat.i.tude, my leave of Mobile.
x.x.xIX.--KOSSUTH'S DEFENCE AGAINST CERTAIN MEAN IMPUTATIONS.
[_Jersey City_.]
Kossuth was here welcomed with an address by the Hon. D. S. Gregory, whose guest he became. Great efforts had been made to prejudice the public against him; notwithstanding which he was received with enthusiasm. In the evening, in his speech at the Presbyterian Church, he alluded to the attacks of his opponents as follows:
Mr. Mayor, and Ladies and Gentlemen,--There have been some who, to the great satisfaction of despots, and their civil and religious confederates, have moved Heaven and h.e.l.l to lower my sacred mission to the level of a stage-play; and to ridicule the enthusiastic outburst of popular sentiments, by defaming its object and its aim.
That was a sorrowful sight indeed. To meet opposition we must be prepared. There is no truth yet but has been opposed: the car which leads truth to triumph must pa.s.s over martyrs; that is the doom of humanity. Mankind, though advanced in intellectual skill, is pretty much the same in heart as it was thousands of years ago--if not worse; for wealth and prosperity do not always improve the heart. It is sorrowful to see that not even such a cause as that which I plead, can escape from being dragged down insultingly into the mud. With the ancient Greeks, the head of an unfortunate was held sacred even to the G.o.ds. Now-a-days, with some,--but let us be thankful! only with some few degenerate persons,--even calamity like ours is but an occasion for a bad joke.
Jesus Christ felt thirsty on the cross, and received vinegar and wormwood to quench the thirst of his agony. Oh ye spirits of my country's departed martyrs, sadden not your melancholy look at mean insult. The soil which you watered by your blood will yet be free, and that is enough! Ye will hear glad tidings about it when I join your ranks.
But now, as for myself. When I was in private life, I despised to become rich, and sacrificed thousands to the public, and often saw my own family embarra.s.sed by domestic cares. I refused indemnifications, and lived poor. When raised to the highest place in my country, and provided with an allowance four times as great as your President's, I still lived in my old modest way. I had millions at my disposal, yet I went into exile penniless. Who now are _ye_, or what like proof have _ye_ given of not adoring the ”Almighty Dollar,” who dare to insult my honour and call me a st.u.r.dy beggar, and ask in what brewery I will invest the money I get from Americans? And why? because I ask a poor alms to prepare the approaching struggle of my country; because I cannot and may not tell the public (which is to tell my country's enemy), how I dispose of the sums which I receive. And Americans, pretending to be republicans, pretending to sympathize with liberty, and wield that light artillery of Freedom,--the Press,--try to put on me mean stigmas, in order to make it impossible for me to aid the contest of Hungary for its own and mankind's liberty.
Indeed, it is too sad. The consul of ancient Rome, Spurius Postumius, was once caught in a snare by the Samnites, and was ordered to pa.s.s under the yoke with all his legions. When he hesitated to submit, a captain cried to him: ”Stoop, and lead us to disgrace for our country's sake.” And so he did. The word of the captain was true: our country may claim of us, to submit even to degradations for its benefit. But I am sorry that it is in America I had to learn, there are in a patriot's life trials still bitterer than even that of exile.
Well: I can bear all this, if it be but fruitful of good for my beloved fatherland. But I look up to Almighty G.o.d, and ask in humility, whether unscrupulous and mean suspicion shall succeed in stopping the flow of that public and private aid to me, from republican America and from American republicans, without which I cannot organize and combine our forces.
Mr. Mayor and citizens of Jersey, I indeed apprehend you will have much disappointed those who endeavoured by ridicule to drive our cause out of fas.h.i.+on. You have shown them to-day that the cause of liberty can never be out of fas.h.i.+on with Americans. I thank you most cordially for it; the more because I know that long before yesterday sympathy with the cause of liberty has been in fas.h.i.+on with you. I am here on the borders of a state noted for its fidelity and sacrifices in the struggle for your country's freedom and independence: to which the State of New Jersey has, in proportion to its population, sacrificed a larger amount of patriotic blood and of property, than any other of your sister states.