Sir, The highly interesting instruction which your kindness has afforded me about that new and wonderful world of the West, in the entrance of which I now stand, impresses me with a presentiment of unlooked for events.
Since I have been in the United States, I have felt as if my guardian angel whispered, that in the West the hopes of my bleeding country will be realized. It was an unconscious instinct,—a ray shooting above the horizon from the yet unseen sun. You, sir, have shown me the sun itself in full majesty. You have transformed my instinct into conviction. Here then, upon the threshold of the West, I bow with awe and joy, as the fireworshipper of old Persia to the source of life and light.
It is indeed joyful, sir, as you said, to see politicians, sectarians, philanthropists of all classes uniting in spontaneous sympathy for a cause pleaded by a stranger. I recognize in it the bounty of Providence. I see the truth revealed, that as magnetism pervades the universe, so there is a sentiment, which, independent of party affections and bubbling passion, pervades the breast of mankind; and that is, the love of Freedom, Justice, and Right. The chord of Freedom passes through all hearts, and whoever touches it, elicits harmony. The harmony is in the chord, not in him who touches it. There is no skill in the breeze which sweeps over the Aeolian harp, yet a sweet harmony bursts forth from its vibrations. The harmony of sympathy which I meet is the most decisive proof, gentlemen, that the cause which I plead is indeed the cause of liberty, the love of which gushes up spontaneously in human bosoms.
Gentlemen, the cause of Hungary, even were it not the cause of Europe and of all earthly freedom, deserves your sympathy and active protection. Like other free nations, we were brave. The Austrian dynasty was perjured and treacherous; and our bravest bled on the scaffold. Tyrannies are cruel: only the people knows how to be generous in victory.—Let me rather say, the People was generous: for the future I hope it will be just. I hope this, not because there is any deep truth in the Irish poet, who sang
"Revenge on a tyrant is sweetest of all:"
Not for that reason. But I hope that the oppressed nations will not again stop half way, and sacrifice their future to untimely generosity; for they have all paid too cruelly for the lesson, that with tyrants there is no faith. So there must be no dealing with them.
Yet, Gentlemen, it is not for Hungary's worth, nor for Hungary's sufferings that I claim protection for her; but because as in her the law of nations has been strikingly trampled down, so in her this law must be vindicated. Else, the league of despots will be able to enforce it as a precedent against all free nations; no law will henceforth be sure on earth, and oppression will rule the world.
It is indeed a new doctrine that all despots have a right to interfere with every attempt of a people to regulate its own institutions; and that oppression in each separate nation is to be upheld by a foreign Czar. According to this, freedom and independence are everywhere proscribed, as inconsistent with the security of absolutism,—to which every other consideration is to yield.
I have been indeed astonished to meet the reply, that the cause which I plead is not worthy of much consideration, "since, after all, it is only the cause of one country!" I have read that the Borgias were wont to say, that Italy is like the artichoke, which must be eaten leaf by leaf. Let me tell those, with whom Hungary is but one leaf of the artichoke, that the despot who is allowed to nibble each leaf separately, will manage to dispose of the whole.
My opponents say; I myself confess my cause to be that of one country only: for in claiming "non-interference," I show my desire to abandon all other countries but my own to their oppressors! I may be permitted to ask,—Is there any truth in the world which may not be distorted into a mockery?