The fourth toast was,—
"The army of the united states. In saluting the illustrious Exile with magnanimous courtesy, as high as it could pay to any Power on earth, it has added grace to the glory of its history."
General Shields, Senator for Illinois, Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs in the Senate, being loudly called for, replied in the necessary absence of General Scott, the chief of the army; and after an appropriate acknowledgment of the toast, added:
In paving this very high honor to our illustrious guest—this noble Hungarian—let me observe that that army which has been toasted to-night spoke for his reception by the voice of their cannon; and the cannon that spoke there spoke the voice of twenty-five millions of people. Sir, that salute which the American cannon gave the Hungarian exile had a deep meaning in it. It was not a salute to the mere man Louis Kossuth, but it was a salute in favour of the great principle which he represents—the principle which he advocates, the principle of nationality and of human liberty. Sir, I was born in a land which has suffered as an oppressed nation. I am now a citizen of a land which would have suffered from the same power, had it not been for the bravery, gallantry, and good fortune of the men of that time. Sir, as an Irishman by birth, and an American by adoption, I would feel myself a traitor to both countries if I did not sustain downtrodden nationalities everywhere—in Hungary, in Poland, in Germany, in Italy—everywhere where man is trodden down and oppressed. And, sir, I say again, that that army which maintained itself in three wars against one of the greatest and most powerful nations of the world, will, if the trying time should come again, maintain that same flag (the stars and stripes) and the same triumph, and the same victories in the cause of liberty. [Great applause.]
The president of the evening then, after a cordial speech, proposed the fifth toast:
"Hungary, represented in the person of our honoured Guest, having proved herself worthy to be free by the virtues 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."
This toast was received with immense applause, which lasted several minutes.
Kossuth then rose and spoke as follows:
Sir: As once Cineas the Epirote stood among the Senators of Rome, who, with a word of self-conscious majesty, arrested kings in their ambitious march—thus, full of admiration and of reverence, I stand amongst you, legislators of the new Capitol, that glorious hall of your people's collective majesty. The Capitol of old yet stands, but the spirit has departed from it, and is come over to yours, purified by the air of liberty. The old stands a mournful monument of the fragility of human things: yours as a sanctuary of eternal right. The old beamed with the red lustre of conquest, now darkened by the gloom of oppression; yours is bright with freedom. The old absorbed the world into its own centralized glory; yours protects your own nation from being absorbed, even by itself. The old was awful with unrestricted power; yours is glorious by having restricted it. At the view of the old, nations trembled; at the view of yours, humanity hopes. To the old, misfortune was introduced with fettered hands to kneel at triumphant conquerors' feet; to yours the triumph of introduction is granted to unfortunate exiles who are invited to the honour of a seat. And where Kings and Caesars never will be hailed for their power and wealth, there the persecuted chief of a downtrodden nation is welcomed as your great Republic's guest, precisely because he is persecuted, helpless, and poor. In the old, the terrible voe victis! was the rule; in yours, protection to the oppressed, malediction to ambitious oppressors, and consolation to a vanquished just cause. And while from the old a conquered world was ruled, you in yours provide for the common federative interests of a territory larger than that old conquered world. There sat men boasting that their will was sovereign of the earth; here sit men whose glory is to acknowledge "the laws of nature and of nature's God," and to do what their sovereign, the People, wills.
Sir, there is history in these contrasts. History of past ages and history of future centuries may be often recorded in small facts. The particulars to which the passion of living men clings, as if human fingers could arrest the wheel of Destiny, these particulars die away; it is the issue which makes history, and that issue is always coherent with its causes. There is a necessity of consequences wherever the necessity of position exists. Principles are the alpha: they must finish with omega, and they will. Thus history may be often told in a few words.