And still Americans doubt that we are on the eve of a terrible revolution; and they ask, What use can I make of any material aid? when Italy is a barrel of powder, which the slightest spark may light.

In respect to foreign rule, GERMANY is more fortunate than Italy. From the times of the treaty of Verdun, when it separated from France and Italy, through the long period of more than a thousand years, no foreign power ever has succeeded to rule over Germany; such is the resistive power of the German people to guard its national existence. The tyrants who swayed over them were of their own blood. But to subdue German liberty, those tyrants were always anxious to introduce foreign institutions. First, they swept away the ancient Germanic right, the common law so dear to the English and American, an eternal barrier against the encroachments of despotism, and substituted for it the iron rule of the imperial Roman law. The rule of papal Rome over the minds of Germany crossed the mountains together with the Roman law, and a spiritual dependency was to be established all over the world. The wings of the German eagle were bound, that it should not soar up to the sun of truth. But when the oppression became too severe, the people of Germany rose against the power of Rome;—not the princes,—though they too were oppressed: but the son of the miner of Eisenach, the poor friar, Martin Luther, defied the Pope on his throne, and at his bidding the people of Germany proved, that it is strong enough to shake off oppression; that it is worthy, and that it knows how, to be free. And again, when the French, under their Emperor, whose genius comprehended everything except freedom, extended their moral sway over Germany, when the princes of Germany thronged around the foreign despot, begging kingly crowns from the son of the Corsican lawyer, with whom the Emperors were happy to form matrimonial alliances—with the man who had no other ancestors than his genius,—then it was again the people, which did not join in the degradation of its rulers, but jealous to maintain their national independence, turned the foreigner out though his name was Napoleon, and broke the yoke asunder, which weighed as heavily upon their princes as upon themselves. And still there are men in America who despair of the vitality of the Germans, of their indomitable power to resist oppression, of their love of freedom, and of their devotion to it, proved by a glorious history of two thousand years. The German race is a power, the vitality and influence of which you can trace through the world's history for two thousand years; you can trace it through the history of science and heroism, of industry, and of bold enterprizing spirit. Your own country, your own national character, bear the mark of German vitality. Other nations, now and then, were great by some great men—the German people was always great by itself.

But the German princes cannot bear independence and liberty; they had rather themselves become slaves, the underlings of the Czar, than allow that their people should enjoy some liberty. An alliance was therefore formed, which they blasphemously called the Holy Alliance,—with the avowed purpose to keep the people down. The great powers guaranteed to the smaller princes—whose name is Legion, for they are many,—the power to fleece and torment their people, and promised every aid to them against the insurrection of those, who would find that for liberty's sake it is worth while to risk their lives and property. It was an alliance for the oppression of the nations, not for the maintenance of the princely prerogative. When the Grand-Duke of Baden, in a fit of liberality, granted his people the liberty of the press, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia abolished the law, though it had been carried unanimously by the Legislature of Baden and sanctioned by the prince.—The Holy Alliance had guaranteed to the princes the power to oppress, but not the power to benefit their people.

But though the great powers interfered often in the principalities and little kingdoms of Germany, indeed as often as the spirit of liberty awoke, yet they themselves avoided every occasion which would have forced them to request the aid of their allies, and especially of Russia. They knew too well, that to accept foreign aid against their own people, was nothing else than to lose independence, and was morally the same as to kneel down before the Czar and to take the oath of allegiance. A government which needs foreign aid against its own people, avows that it cannot stand without foreign aid. Take that foreign aid—interference!—away, and it falls.

The dynasties of Austria and Prussia were aware of this. They therefore yielded, as often as their encroachments met a firm resistance from the people. When my nation so resolutely resisted in 1823 the attempt to abolish the constitution, Prince Metternich himself advised the Emperor Francis to yield, and even humbly to apologize to the Diet of 1825. The King of Prussia granted even a kind of constitution rather than claim the assistance of the Czar. Herein you may find the explanation of the fact that the continent of Europe is not yet republican. The spirit of freedom, when roused by oppression, was lulled into sleep by constitutional concessions. The Czar of Russia was well aware, that this system of compromise prevents his intruding into the domestic concerns of Europe, which would lead him to the sovereign mastership over all; he therefore did everything to push the sovereigns to extremities. But this did not succeed, until by a palace-revolution in Vienna a weak and cruel youth was placed on the throne of Austria, and a passionate woman got the reins of government in her hand, and an unprincipled, reckless adventurer was ready to carry out every imperial whim, regardless of the honour of his country and the interests of his master. Russia at last got her aim. Rather than acknowledge the rights of Hungary, they bowed before the Czar, and gave up the independence of the Austrian throne; they became the underlings of a foreign power, rather than allow that one of the peoples of the European Continent should be really free. Since the fall of Hungary, Russia is the real sovereign of all Germany; for the first time Germany has a foreign master! and you believe that Germany will bear that in the nineteenth century which it never yet has borne? Bear that in fulness of age which it never bore in childhood? Soon after, and through the fall of Hungary, the pride of Prussia was humiliated. Austrian garrisons occupied Hamburg; Schleswig-Holstein was abandoned, Hessia was chastised, and all that is dear to Germans purposely affronted. Their dreams of greatness, their longing for unity, their aspirations of liberty, were trampled down into the dust, and ridicule was thrown upon all elevation of mind, upon all manifestation of patriotism. Hassenburg, convicted of forgery by the Prussian courts, became Minister in Hessia; the once outlawed Schwarzenbeg, and Bach, a renegade republican, Ministers of Austria. The peace of the graveyard, which tyrants, under the name of order, are trying to enforce upon the world, has for its guardians outlawed reprobates, forgers, and renegades. Could you believe that with such elements the spirit of liberty can be crushed? Tyrants know that to habituate nations to oppression, the moral feeling of the people has to be killed. But could you really believe that the moral feeling of such a people as the German, stamped in the civilization of which it was one of the generating elements, can be killed, or that it can bear for a long while such an outrage? Do you think that the people which met the insolent bulls of the Pope in Rome by the Reformation and the thirty years' war, and the numberless armies of Napoleon by a general rising—that this people will tamely submit to the Russian influence, more arrogant than the Papal pretensions, more disastrous than the exactions of the French Empire? They broke the power of Rome and of Paris; will they agree to be governed by St. Petersburg? Those who are accustomed to see in history only the Princes, will say Aye, but they forget that since the Reformation it is no longer the Princes who make the history, but the People; they see the tops of the trees are bent by the powerful northern hurricane, and they forget that the stem of the tree is unmoved. Gentlemen, the German princes bow before the Czar, but the German people will never bow before him.

Let me sum up the philosophy of the present condition of Germany in these few words: 1848 and 1849 have proved that the little tyrants of Germany cannot stand by themselves, but only by their reliance upon Austria and Prussia. These again cannot stand by themselves, but only by their reliance upon Russia. Take this reliance away, by maintaining the laws of nations against the principle of interference,—(for the joint powers of America and England can maintain them)—and all the despotic governments, reduced to stand by their own resources of power, must fall before the never yet subdued spirit of the people of Germany, like rotten fruit touched by a gale.

Let me now speak about the condition of my own dear native land. I hope not to meet any contradiction when I say that no condition can and will endure, which is so bad, so insupportable, that, by trying to change it, a people can lose nothing, and may gain everything. No condition can and will endure, the maintenance of which is contrary to every interest of every class. A revolution on the contrary is unavoidable, when every interest of every class wishes and requires it. I will first speak of the lower, and still the most powerful of all, of the material interest.

There are some countries, where, however insupportable the condition of the masses, still the government has an ally in the mighty and influential class of bankers, who lend their money to support despotism, and in those who have invested their fortunes in the shares of these loans, negotiated by bankers, who speculate on and with the fortunes of small capitalists. That class of men, partly tools of oppression, partly the fools of the tools, exists not in Hungary. We have no such bankers in Hungary, and but a very small inconsiderable number who have invested their fortunes in such loan-shares. And even the few who had been playing in the fatal loan-share game have withdrawn from it, at any price, because they feared to lose all. From that quarter therefore the House of Austria has no ally in Hungary.

As to our former aristocracy, a class influential by its connections, and by its large landed property: you remember that, when we succeeded to abolish the feudal charges, and converted millions of our countrymen, of different religion and different language, out of leaseholders into free landed proprietors, we guaranteed an indemnification to the landowners for what they lost. From a farm of about thirty-five to fifty acres of land, the farmer had to work one hundred and two days a year for the landowner; to give him the ninth part of all his crops, half a dollar in ready money, besides particular fees for shopkeeping, brewery, mill, &c. We freed the people from all the encumbrances, and, thanks to God! that benefit never more can be torn from the people's hands. The aristocracy consented to it, because we had guaranteed full indemnification. The very material existence of this class of former landowners is depending on that indemnification, to defray their debts, (which they formerly had the habit wantonly to contract,) and to provide for the cultivation of their own large allodial property, which they formerly cultivated by the hands of their leaseholders, but now have to invest capital into.

Now this indemnification, amounting to one hundred millions of dollars, the House of Austria never can realize. You know, with its centralized government, which is always very expensive, with its standing army of 600,000 men, the only support of its precarious existence, with its army of spies and secret police, with its system of corruption and robbery, with its fourteen hundred millions of debt, with its eternal deficit in its current expenditures, with its new loans to pay the interest of the old, and an unavoidable bankruptcy impending,—this indemnification Austria never can pay to the former aristocracy of Hungary. The only means to get this indemnification is the restoration of Hungary to its independence by a new revolution. Independent Hungary can pay it, because it has no debts, will want no large standing armies, and will have a cheap administration, because not centralized, but municipal, the people governing itself in and through municipalities, the cheapest of all governments.