THE SAME CONTINUED.
We, the elect of the nation, sat on that morning busily but quietly, in the legislative hall of old Presburg, and, without any flood of eloquence, passed our laws in short words, that the people shall be free; the burdens of feudalism shall cease; the peasant shall become free proprietor; that equality of duties, equality of rights, shall be the fundamental law; and civil, political, social, and religious liberty shall be the common property of all the people, whatever tongue it may speak, or in whatever church pray; and that a national ministry shall execute these laws, and guard with its responsibility the chartered, ancient independence of our Fatherland.
Two days before, Austria's brave people in Vienna had broken its yoke; and summing up despots in the person of their tool, old Metternich, drove him away; and the Hapsburgs, trembling in their imperial cavern of imperial crimes, trembling, but treacherous, and lying and false, wrote with yard-long letters, the words, "Constitution" and "Free Press" upon Vienna's walls; and the people in joy cheered the inveterate liars, because the people knows no falsehood.
On the 14th, I announced the tidings from Vienna to our Parliament at Presburg. The announcement was swiftly carried by the great democrat, the steam-engine, upon the billows of the Danube, down to old Buda and to young Pesth, and while we, in the House of Representatives, passed the laws of Justice and freedom, the people of Pesth rose in peaceful but majestic manifestation, declaring that the people should be free. At this manifestation all the barriers raised by violence against the laws, fell of themselves. Not a drop of blood was shed. A man who was in prison because he had dared to write a book, was carried home in triumph through the streets. The people armed itself as a National Guard, the windows were illuminated and bon fires burnt, and when these tidings returned back to Presburg, blended with the cheers from Vienna, they warmed the chill of our House of Lords, who readily agreed to the laws we pro posed. And there was rejoicing throughout the land. For the first time for centuries the farmer awoke with the pleasant feeling that his time was now his own—for the first time went out to till his field with the consoling thought that the ninth part of his harvest will not be taken by the landlord, nor the tenth by the bishop. Both had fully resigned their feudal portion, and the air was brightened by the lustre of freedom, and the very soil budding into a blooming paradise. Such is the memory of the 15th of March, 1848. L. Kossuth.
LXXXI.
THE SAME CONTINUED.
One year later, there was blood, but also victory, over the land; the people because free, fought like demi-gods. Seven great victories we had gained in that month of March. On this very day, the remains of the first ten thousand Russians fled over the frontiers of Transylvania, to tell at home how heavily the blow falls from free Hungarian arms. It was in that very month, that one evening I lay down in the bed, whence in the morning Windischgrätz had risen; and from the battle-field I hastened to the Congress at Debreczin, to tell the Representatives of the nation "It is time to declare our national independence, because it is really achieved. The Hapsburgs have not power to contradict it more." Nor had they.
But Russia, having experienced by the test of its first interference, that there was no power on earth caring about the most flagrant violation of the laws of nations, and seeing by the silence of Great Britain and of the United States, that she may dare to violate those laws, our heroes had to meet a fresh force of nearly two hundred thousand Russians. No power cheered our bravely-won independence by diplomatic recognition; not even the United States, though they always professed their principle to be that they recognize every de facto government. We therefore had the right to expect a speedy recognition from the United States. Our struggle rose to European height, but we were left alone to fight for the world; and we had no arms for the new battalions, gathering up in thousands with resolute hearts and empty hands.
The recognition of our independence being withheld, commercial intercourse for procuring arms abroad was impossible,—the gloomy feeling of entire forsakedness spread over our tired ranks, and prepared the field for the secret action of treachery; until the most sacrilegious violation of those common laws of nations was achieved, and. the code of "nature and of nature's God" was drowned in Hungary's blood. And I who on the 15th of March, 1848, saw the principle of full civil and religious liberty triumphing in my native land,—who, on the 15th of March, 1849, saw this freedom consolidated by victories,—one year later, on the 15th of March, 1850, was on my sorrowful way to an Asiatic prison. L. Kossuth.