Remember the power which you have, and which I have endeavoured to point out in a few brief words. Remember this, and form associations; establish ladies' committees to raise substantial aid for Hungary. Now I have done. One word only remains to be said-a word of deep sorrow, the word, "Farewell, New York!" New York! that word will for ever make every string of my heart thrill. I am like a wandering bird. I am worse than a wandering bird. He may return to his summer home, I have no home on earth! Here I felt almost at home. But "Forward" is my call, and I must part. I part with the hope that the sympathy which I have met here in a short transitory home will bring me yet back to my own beloved home, so that my ashes may yet mix with the dust of my native soil. Ladies, remember Hungary, and—farewell!
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XIV.—RESULTS OF THE OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
[Speech at the Citizens' Banquet, Philadelphia, Dec. 26th.]
Mr. Dallas, the Chairman, made an eloquent address advocating the cause of Hungary against Russia, and avowing the duty of America to give warlike aid. This speech was the more remarkable, as coming immediately after the arrival of the news of Louis Napoleon's usurpation. The mind of the public was naturally so full of the event, that Kossuth could not avoid to discuss it; but the topic is so threadbare to the reader, that it will suffice here to preserve a few sentiments.
In the opening, Kossuth complained of forged letters and forged cheques sent to annoy him, and anonymous letters of false accusation circulated against him. Proceeding from this to public topics, and the certainty of a new convulsion in Europe, he said, that it might prove in the future highly dangerous to the moneyed interests, if the world be persuaded that the holders of great disposable wealth use it to aid despotism, and that the possession of it checks the generous propensity to forward the triumph of freedom. If the world be confirmed in this persuasion, the results will be painfully felt by those gentlemen, whose treasures are always open for the despots to crush liberty with. Such moneylenders have excited boundless hatred in all that section of Europe, which has had to suffer from their ready financial aid to despotism. I (said Kossuth) am no Socialist, no Communist; and if I get the means to act efficiently, I shall so act that the inevitable revolution may not subvert the rights of property: but so much I confidently declare—that to the spreading of Communist doctrines in certain quarters of Europe nobody has so much contributed as those European capitalists, who by incessantly aiding the despots with their money have inspired many of the oppressed with the belief that financial wealth is dangerous to the freedom of the world. Rothschild is the most efficient apostle of Communism.
In regard to Louis Bonaparte's temporary success, Kossuth argued, that it would secure, when France makes her next move for freedom, two results beneficial to liberty: First, that in future, the French republicans would abandon their delusive and disastrous Centralization. We have shown (said he) in Hungary, that for a nation to be invincible, its life must not be bound up with its metropolis. Henceforward, in European aspirations, centralization is replaced by federative harmony. I thank Louis Napoleon for it. Your principles of local self-government, gentlemen, were hitherto professed on the continent of Europe chiefly by us Hungarians: now they will conquer the world,—a new victory for humanity. Had the old French republic stood, it would have perpetuated the curse of great standing armies, which are instruments of ambition and a wasting pestilence. Again; the blow struck by Louis Napoleon has forced his nation into the common destiny of Europe. It has forbidden France ever in future to play a separate game, and think to keep her own liberty, without effectively espousing the cause of foreign liberty.
What is the sum of all this? First, that there is nothing in the news from France to alter any judgments which you might previously have formed, or cause you any suspense. Secondly, it only more than ever claims from you an immediately decisive conduct. The success of freedom now depends entirely on what policy the United States of America will adopt.
Well! gentlemen. It may be that the United States have no reply to the hopes of the world. You will then see a mournful tear in the eye of humanity, and its breast heaving with sighs. We presume, you are so powerful that you can afford not to care about the treading down of the law of nations and the funeral of European freedom. You are so glorious at home, that you can afford to lose the glory (at so rare a crisis!) of saving liberty and justice on earth. Yet in your own hour of trial you asked and received military and naval aid from France. Your President has informed the world, that you are not willing to allow "the strong arm of a foreign power to suppress the spirit of freedom in any country." If after this you tell me that you are afraid of Russia, and are too weak to help us,—and would rather be on good terms with the Czar, than rejoice in the liberty and independence of Hungary, Italy, Germany, France,—dreadful as it would be, I would wipe away my tear, and say to my brethren, "Let us pray, and let us go to the Lord's Last Supper, and thence to battle and to death." I would then leave you, gentlemen, with a dying farewell, and with a prayer that the sun of freedom may never drop below the horizon of your happy land.
I am in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, the city of William Penn, whose likeness I saw this day in a history of your city, with this motto under it: "Si vis pacem, para bellum"—(prepare for war, if thou wilt have peace)—a weighty memento, gentlemen, to the name of William Penn.