Chapter XVII: Part 17

Well, it would ill become me to investigate if there be nothing "rotten in the state of Denmark," and certainly I am not the man who could feel inclined to undervalue the divine power of liberty; to underrate the value of your democratic institutions, and the vitality of your glorious Union. It is to them I look in the solitary hours of meditation, and when, overwhelmed with the cares of the patriot, my soul is groaning under nameless woes, it is your freedom's sunny light which dispels the gloomy darkness of despondency; here is the source whence the inspiration of hope is flowing to the mourning world, that down-trodden millions at the bottom of their desolation still retain a melancholy smile upon their lips, and still retain a voice in their bleeding chest, to thank the Almighty God that the golden thread of freedom is not yet lost on earth. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, all this I feel, and all this I know, reflecting upon your freedom, your institutions, and your Union; but casting back my look into the mirror of the past, there I see upon mouldering ground, written with warning letters, the dreadful truth, that all this has nothing new; all this has been; and all this has never yet been proved sufficient security. Freedom is the fairest gift of Heaven; but it is not the security of itself. Democracy is the embodiment of freedom, which in itself is but a principle. But what is the security of democracy? And if you answer, "The Union is;" then I ask, "And where is the security of the Union?" Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Freedom is no new word. It is as old as the world. Despotism is new, but Freedom not. And yet it has never yet proved a charter to the security of nations. Republic is no new word. It is as old as the word "Society." Before Rome itself, republics absorbed the world. There were in all Europe, Africa and Asia Minor, but republics to be found, and many among them democratic. Men had to wander to far Persia if they would have desired to know what sort of thing a monarch is. And all they have perished; the small ones by foreign power, the large ones by domestic vice. And union, and confederacy, the association of societies--a confederate republic of republics, is also no new invention. Greece has known it and flourished by it, for a while. Rome has known it; by such associations she attacked the world. The world has known them; with them it defended itself against Rome. The so-called Barbarians of Europe, beyond the Danube and the Rhine, have known it; it was by a confederacy of union that they resisted the ambitious mistress of the world. Your own country, America, has known it; the traditionary history of the Romans of the West, of those six Indian Nations, bears the records of it, out of an older time than your ancestors settled in this land; the wise man of the Onondaga Nation has exercised it long before your country's legislators built upon that basis your independent home. And still it proved in itself alone no security to all those nations who have known it before you. Your own fathers have seen the last of the Mohawks burying his bloody tomahawk in the namesake flood, and have listened to the majestic words of Logan, spoken with the dignity of an Aemilius, that there exists no living being on earth in the veins of whom one drop of the blood of his race did flow. Well, had history nothing else to teach us, than that all what the wisdom of man did conceive, and all that his energy has executed through the innumerable days of the past, and all that we take to be glorious in nations and happy to men, cannot so much do as to ensure a future even to such a flourishing commonwealth as yours; then weaker hearts may well ask, What good is it to warn us of a fatality which we cannot escape; what good is it to hold up the mournful monuments of a national mortality to sadden our heart, if all that is human must share that common doom? Let us do as we can, and so far as we can, and let the future bring what it may. But that would be the speech of one having no faith in the all-watching Eye, and regarding the eternal laws of the universe not as an emanation of a bountiful Providence, but of a blind fatality, which plays at hazard with the destinies of men. I never will share such blasphemy. Misfortune came over me, and came over my house, and came over my guiltless nation; still I never have lost my trust in the Father of all. I have lived the days when the people of my oppressed country went along weeping over the immense misfortune that they cannot pray, seeing the downfall of the most just cause and the outrageous triumph of the most criminal of all crimes on earth; and they went along not able to pray, and weeping that they are not able to pray. I shuddered at the terrible tidings in the desolation of my exile; but I could pray, and sent the consolation home, that I do not despair; that I believe in God, and trust to His bountiful providence, and ask them who of them dares despair when I do not? I was in exile, as I am now, but arrogant despots were debating about my blood, my infant children in prison, my wife, the faithful companion of my sorrows and my cares, hunted like a noble deer, and my sisters in the tyrant's fangs, red with the blood of my nation, and the heart of my aged mother breaking, about the shattered fortunes of her house, and all of them at last homeless wanderers, cast to the winds, like the yellow leaves of a fallen tree; and my fatherland, my dear, beloved fatherland, half murdered, half in chains, and humanity nearly all oppressed, and those who are not yet oppressed looking with compassion at our sad fate, but taking it for wise policy not to help, and the sky of freedom dark on our horizon, and darkening fast over all, and nowhere a ray of hope; a lustre of consolation nowhere; and still I did not despair; and my faith to God, my trust to Providence has spread over my down-trodden land.

I therefore, who do not despair of my own country's future, though it be overwhelmed with misfortunes, I certainly have an unwavering faith in the destinies of Humanity; and though the mournful example of so many fallen nations instructs us, that neither the diffusion of knowledge, nor the progress of industry, neither prosperity, nor power, nay, not even freedom itself, can secure a future to nations, still I say there is one thing which can secure it; there is one law, the obedience to which would prove a rock upon which the freedom and happiness of nations may rest sure to the end of their days. And that law, ladies and gentlemen, is the law proclaimed by our Saviour; that rock is the unperverted religion of Christ. But while the consolation of this sublime truth falls meekly upon my soul like as the moonlight falls upon the smooth sea, I humbly claim your forbearance, ladies and gentlemen; I claim it in the name of the Almighty Lord, to hear from my lips a mournful truth. It may displease you; it may offend; but still truth is truth. Offended vanity may blame me; power may frown at me, and pride may call my boldness arrogant, but still truth is truth, and I, bold in my unpretending humility, will proclaim that truth; I will proclaim it from land to land and from sea to sea; I will proclaim it with the faith of the martyrs of old, till the seed of my word falls upon the consciences of men. Let come what come may, I say with Luther: God help me, I cannot otherwise. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the law of our Saviour, the religion of Christ, can secure a happy future to nations. But, alas! there is yet no Christian people on earth--not a single one among all. I have spoken the word. It is harsh, but true. Nearly two thousand years have passed since Christ has proclaimed the eternal decree of God, to which the happiness of mankind is bound, and has sanctified it with His own blood, and still there is not one single nation on earth which would have enacted into its law-book that eternal decree. Men believe in the mysteries of religion, according to the creed of their church; they go to church, and they pray and give alms to the poor, and drop the balm of consolation into the wounds of the afflicted, and believe they do all that the Lord commanded to do, and believe they are Christians. No! Some few may be, but their nation is not--their country is not; the era of Christianity has yet to come, and when it comes, then, only then, will be the future of nations sure. Far be it from me to misapprehend the immense benefit which Christian religion, such as it already is, has operated in mankind's history. It has influenced the private character of men, and the social condition of millions; it was the nurse of a new civilization, and softening the manners and morals of men, its influence has been felt even in the worst quarter of history--in war. The continual massacres of the Greek and Roman kings and chiefs, and the extermination of nations by them--the all-devastating warfare of the Timurs and Gengis Khans--are in general not more to be met with; only my own dear fatherland was doomed to experience once more the cruelties of the Timurs and Gengis Khans out of the sacrilegious hands of the dynasty of Austria, which calumniates Christianity by calling itself Christian. But though that beneficial influence of Christianity we have cheerfully to acknowledge, yet it is still not to be disputed that the law of Christ does yet nowhere rule the Christian world.

Montesquieu himself, whom nobody could charge to be partial for republics, avows that despotism is incompatible with the Christian religion, because the Christian religion commands meekness, and despotism claims arbitrary power to the whims and passions of a frail mortal; and still it is more than 1,500 years since the Christian religion became dominant, and through that long period despotism has been pre-eminently dominant; you can scarcely show one single truly democratic republic of any power which had subsisted but for a hundred years, exercising any influence upon the condition of the world. Constantine, raising the Christian religion to Rome's imperial throne, did not restore the Romans to their primitive virtues. Constantinople became the sewer of vice; Christian worship did not change the despotic habits of Kings. The Tituses, the Trajans, the Antonines, appeared seldom on Christian thrones; on the contrary, mankind has seen, in the name of religion, lighted the piles of persecution, and the blazing torches of intolerance; the earth overspread with corpses of the million victims of fanaticism; the fields watered with blood; the cities wrapped in flames, and empires ravaged with unrelenting rage. Why? Is it Christian religion which caused these deplorable facts, branding the brow of partly degraded, partly outraged Humanity? No. It was precisely the contrary; the fact that the religion of Christ never yet was practically taken for an all-overruling law, the obedience to which, outweighing every other consideration, would have directed the policy of nations--that fact is the source of evil, whence the oppression of millions has overflowed the earth, and which makes the future of the proudest, of the freest nation, to be like a house built upon sand.

Every religion has two parts. One is the dogmatical, the part of worship; the other is the moral part.

The first, the dogmatic part, belonging to those mysterious regions which the arm of human understanding cannot reach, because they belong to the dominion of belief, and that begins where the dominion of knowledge ends--that part of religion, therefore, the dogmatic one, should be left to every man to settle between God and his own conscience. It is a sacred field, whereon worldly power never should dare to trespass, because there it has no power to enforce its will. Force can murder; it can make liars and hypocrites, but no violence on earth can force a man to believe what he does not believe. Yet the other part of religion, the moral part, is quite different. That teaches duties toward ourselves and toward our fellow-men. It can be, therefore, not indifferent to the human family: it can be not indifferent to whatever community, if those duties be fulfilled or not, and no nation can, with full right, claim the title of a Christian nation, no government the title of a Christian government, which is not founded upon the basis of Christian morality, and which takes it not for an all-overruling law to fulfil the moral duties ordered by the religion of Christ toward men and nations, who are but the community of men, and toward mankind, which is the community of nations. Now, look to those dread pages of history, stained with the blood of millions, spilt under the blasphemous pretext of religion; was it the intent to vindicate the rights, and enforce the duties of Christian morality, which raised the hand of nation against nation, of government against government? No: it was the fanaticism of creed, and the fury of dogmatism. Nations and governments rose to propagate their manner to worship God, and their own mode to believe the inscrutable mysteries of eternity; but nobody has yet raised a finger to punish the sacrilegious violation of the moral laws of Christ, nobody ever stirred to claim the fulfilment of the duties of Christian morality toward nations. There is much speaking about the separation of Church and State, and yet, on close examination, we shall see that there was, and there is, scarcely one single government entirely free from the direct or indirect influence of one or other religious denominations; scarcely one which would not at least bear a predilection, if not countenance with favour, one or another creed--but creed, and always creed. The mysteries of dogmatism, and the manner of worship, enter into these considerations; they enter even into the politics, and turn the scales of hatred and affection; but certainly there is not one single nation, not one single government, the policy of which would ever have been regulated by that law of morality which our Saviour has promulgated as the eternal law of God, which shall be obeyed in all the relations of men to men. But you say, of the direct or indirect amalgamation of Church and State, proved to be dangerous to nations in Christian and for Christian times, because it affected the individual rights of men, and among them, the dearest of all, the liberty of conscience and the freedom of thought. Well, of this danger, at least, the future of your country is free; because here, at least, in this, your happy land, religious liberty exists. Your institutions left no power to your government to interfere with the religion of your citizens. Here every man is free to worship God as he chooses to do.

And that is true, and it is a great glory of your country that it is true. It is a fact which entitles to the hope that your nation will revive the law of Christ, even on earth. However, the guarantee which your Constitution affords to religious liberty is but a negative part of a Christian government. There are, besides that, positive duties to be fulfilled. He who does no violence to the conscience of man, has but the negative merit of a man doing no wrong; but as he who does not murder, does not steal, and does not covet what his neighbour's is, but by not stealing, not murdering, not coveting what our neighbour's is, we did yet no positive good; a man who does not murder has not yet occasion to the title of virtuous man. And here is precisely the infinite merit of the Christian religion. While Moses, in the name of the Almighty God, ordered but negative degrees toward fellow-men, the Christian religion commands positive virtue. Its divine injunctions are not performed by not doing wrong; it desires us to do good. The doctrine of Jesus Christ is sublime in its majestic simplicity. "Thou shalt love God above all, and love thy neighbour as thou lovest thyself."

This sublime doctrine is the religion of love. It is the religion of charity. "Though I speak with the tongues of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." Thus speaks the Lord, and thus speaking He gives the law, "Do unto others as thou desirest others to do unto thee." Now, in the name of Him who gave this law to humanity, to build up the eternal bliss and temporal happiness of mankind, in the name of that Eternal Legislator, I ask, is in that _charity_, in that fundamental law of Christianity, any limit of distinction drawn in man in his personal, and man in his national capacity? Is it but a law for a man where he is alone, and can do but little good? Is it no law more where two are together, and can do more good? No law more when millions are together? Am I in my personal adversities; is my aged mother in her helpless desolation; are my homeless sisters whom you feed to-day, that they may work to-morrow; are we your neighbours, unto whom you do as you would others in a similar position do unto yourself? And is every one of my down-trodden people a neighbour to every one of you? but all my people collectively, is it _not_ a neighbour to you? And is my nation not a neighbour to your nation? Is my down-trodden land not a neighbour to your down-trodden land? Oh! my God, men speak of the Christian religion and style themselves Christians, and yet make a distinction between virtue in private life and virtue in public life; as if the divine law of Charity would have been given only for certain small relations, and not for all the relations between men and men.

"There he is again, with his eternal complaints about his country's wrongs;" may perhaps somebody remark: "This is an assembly of charity, assembled to ease his private woes of family; and there he is again speaking of his country's wrongs, and alluding to our foreign policy, about which he knows our views to be divided." Thus I may be charged.

My "private family woes!" But all my woes and all the woes of my family, are concentrated in the unwarrantable oppression of my fatherland. You are an assembly of charity, it is true, and the Almighty may requite you for it; but being a charitable assembly, can you blame me that the filial and fraternal devotion of my heart, in taking with gratitude the balm of consolation which your charity pours into the bleeding wounds of my family, looks around to heal those wounds, the torturing pains of which you ease, but which cannot be cured but by justice and charity done to my fatherland. Shall this sad heart of mine be contented by leaving to my homeless mother and sisters the means to have their bread by honest labour, their daily bread salted with the bitter tears of exile; and shall I not care to leave them the hope that their misfortune will have an end; that they will see again their beloved home; that they will see it independent and free, and live where their fathers lived, and sleep the tranquil sleep of death in that soil with which the ashes of their fathers mingle? Shall I not care to give the consolation to my aged mother, that when her soon departing soul, crowned with the garland of martyrdom, looks down from the home of the blessed, the united joy of the heavens will thrill through her immortal spirit, seeing her dear, dear Hungary free? Your views are divided on the subject, it may be; but can your views be divided upon the subject that it is the command of God to love your neighbours as you love yourselves? That it is the duty of Christians, that it is the fundamental principle of the Christian religion, to do unto others as you desire others to do unto you? And if there is, if there can be no difference of opinion in regard to the principle; if no one in this vast assembly--whatever be the platform of his party--ever would disclaim this principle, will any one blame me that in the name of Christ I am bold to claim the application of that principle? I should not speak of politics! Well, I have spoken of Christianity. Your politics either agree with the Law of Christ, or they do not agree with it. If they don't agree, then your politics are not Christian; and if they agree, then I cause no division among you.

And I shall not speak of my people's wrongs! Oh! my people--thou heart of my heart, thou life of my life--to thee are bent the thoughts of my mind, and they will remain bent to thee, though all the world may frown. To thee are pledged all the affections of my heart, and they will be pledged to thee as long as one drop of blood throbs within this heart. Thine are the cares of my waking hours; thine are the dreams of my restless sleep. Shall I forget thee, but for a moment! Never! Never! Cursed be the moment, and cursed be I in that moment, in which thou wouldst be forgotten by me!

Thou art oppressed, O my fatherland! because the principles of Christianity have not been executed in practice; because the duties of Christianity have not been fulfilled; because the precepts of Christianity have not been obeyed; because the law of Christianity did not control the policy of nations; because there are many impious governments to offend the law of Christ, but there was none to do the duties commanded by Christ.

Thou art fallen, O my country, because Christianity has yet to come; but it is not yet come--nowhere! Nowhere on earth! And with the sharp eye of misfortune piercing the dark veil of the future, and with the tongue of Cassandria relating what I see, I cry it out to high Heaven, and shout it out to the Earth--"Nations, proud of your momentary power; proud of your freedom; proud of your prosperity--your power is vain, your freedom is vain, your industry, your wealth, your prosperity are vain; all these will not save you from sharing the mournful fate of those old nations, not less powerful than you, not less free, not less prosperous than you--and still fallen, as you yourself will fall--all vanished as you will vanish, like a bubble thrown up from the deep! There is only the law of Christ, there are only the duties of Christianity, which can secure your future, by securing at the same time humanity."

Duties must be fulfilled, else they are an idle word. And who would dispute that there is a positive duty in that law, "Love thy neighbour as thou lovest thyself. Do unto others as thou wouldst that others do unto thee." Now, if there are duties in that law comprised, who shall execute them, if free and powerful nations do not execute them? No government can meddle with the private relations of its millions of citizens so much as to enforce the positive virtue of Christian charity, in the thousand-fold complications of private life. That will be impossible; and our Saviour did not teach impossibilities. By commanding charity toward fellow-men in human relations, He commanded it also to governments. It is in their laws toward their own citizens; it is in their policy toward other nations, that governments and nations can fulfil those duties of Christianity; and what they can, that they should. How could governments hope to see their own citizens and other nations observing toward them the positive duties of Christian morality, when they themselves do not observe them against others; when oppressed nations, the victims, not of their own faults, but of the grossest violation of the law of Christ, look in vain around to find out a nation among Christian nations, and a government among Christian governments, doing unto them, in the hour of their supreme need, as the Saviour said that it is duty to do unto others in every case?

Yes, gentlemen, as long as the principles of Christian morality are not carried up into the international relations--as long as the fragile wisdom of political exigencies overrules the doctrines of Christ, there is no freedom on earth firm, and the future of no nation sure. But let a powerful nation like yours raise Christian morality into its public conduct, that nation will have a future against which the very gates of hell itself will never prevail. The morality of its policy will react upon the morality of its individuals, and preserve it from domestic vice, which, without that prop, ever yet has attended too much prosperity, and ever yet was followed by a dreadful fall. The morality of its policy will support justice and freedom on earth, and thus augmenting the number of free nations, all acting upon the same principle, its very future will be placed under the guarantee of them all, and preserve it from foreign danger--which is better to prevent than to repel. And its future will be placed under the guarantee of the Almighty himself, who, true to His eternal decrees, proved through the downfall of so many mighty nations, that He always punished the fathers in the coming generations; but alike bountiful as just, will not and cannot forsake those to whom He gave power to carry out His laws on earth, and who willingly answered His divine call. Power in itself never yet was sure. It is right which makes power firm; and it is community which makes right secure. The task of PETER'S apostolate is accomplished--the Churches are founded in the Christian world. The task of PAUL'S apostolate is accomplished--the abuses of fanaticism and intolerance are redressed. But the task of him whom the Saviour most loved, is not yet accomplished. The gospel of charity rules not yet the Christian world; and without charity, Christianity, you know, is "but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."

Oh! Charity, thou fairest gift of Heaven! thou family link between nations; thou rock of their security; thou deliverer of the oppressed; when comes thy realm? Where is the man whom the Lord has chosen to establish thy realm? Who is the man whom the Lord has chosen to realize the religion, the tenets of which the most beloved disciple of the Saviour has recorded from his divine lips? who is the man to reform, not Christian creeds, but Christian morality? Man! No; that is no task for a man, but for a nation. Man may teach a doctrine; but that doctrine of Charity is taught, and taught with such sublime simplicity, that no sectarist yet has disputed its truth. Historians have been quarrelling about mysteries, and lost empires through their disputes. The Greeks were controversially disputing whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone, or from the Father and Son; and Mahomet battered the walls of Byzantium, they heard it not; he wrested the cross from Santa Sophia; they saw it not, till the cimeter of the Turk stopped the rage of quarrel with the blow of death. In other quarters they went on disputing and deciding with mutual anathemas the question of transfiguration and many other mysteries, which, being mysteries, constitute the private dominion of belief; but the doctrine of charity none of them disputes; there they all agree; nay, in the idle times of scholastical subtility, they have been quarrelling about the most extravagant fancies of a scorched imagination. Mighty folios have been written about the problem, how many angels could dance upon the top of a needle without touching each other? The folly of subtility went so far as to profane the sacred name of God, by disputing if He, being omnipotent, has the power to sin? If, in the holy wafer, He be present dressed or undressed? If the Saviour would have chosen the incarnation in the shape of a gourd, instead of a man, how would he have preached, how acted miracles, and how had been crucified? And when they went to the theme of investigating if it was a whip or a lash with which the angels have whipped St. Jerome for trying to imitate in his writings the pagan Cicero, it was but after centuries that Abbot Cartaut dared to write that if St. Jerome was whipped at all, he was whipped for having _badly_ imitated Cicero. Still, the doctrine of Christian charity is so sublime in its simplicity, that not even the subtility of scholasticism dared ever to profane it by any controversy, and still that sublime doctrine is not executed, and the religion of charity not realized yet. The task of this glorious progress is only to be done by a free and powerful nation, because it is a task of action, and not of teaching. Individual man can but execute it in the narrow compass of the small relations of private life; it is only the power of a nation which can raise it to become a ruling law on earth; and before this is done, the triumph of Christianity is not arrived--and without that triumph, the freedom and prosperity even of the mightiest nation is not for a moment safe from internal decay, or from foreign violence.

Which is the nation to achieve that triumph of Christianity by protecting justice out of charity? Which shall do it, if not yours? Whom the Lord has blessed above all, from whom He much expects, because He has given her much.

Ye Ministers of the Gospel, who devote your lives to expound the eternal truths of the book of life, remember my humble words, and remind those who, with pious hearts, listen to your sacred words, that half virtue is no virtue at all, and that there is no difference in the duties of charity between public and private life.

Ye Missionaries, who devote your lives to the propagation of Christianity, before you embark for the dangers of far, inhospitable shores, remind those whom you leave, that the example of a nation exercising right and justice on earth by charity, would be the mightiest propagandism of Christian religion.

Ye Patriots, loving your country's future, and anxious about her security, remember the admonitions of history--remember that the freedom, the power, and the prosperity in which your country glories, is no new apparition on earth; others also had it, and yet they are gone. The prudence with which your forefathers have founded this commonwealth, the courage with which you develop it, other nations also have shown, and still they are gone.

And ye ladies; ye fairest incarnation of the spirit of love, which vivifies the universe, remember my words. The heart of man is given into your tender hands. You mould it in its infancy. You imprint the lasting mark of character upon man's brow, You ennoble his youth; you soften the harshness of his manhood; you are the guardian angels of his hoary age. All your vocation is love, and your life is charity. The religion of charity wants your apostolate, and requires your aid. It is to you I appeal, and leave the sublime topic of my humble reflections to the meditations of your Christian hearts.

And thus, my task of to-day is done. Man shall earn the means of life by the sweat of his brow. Thus shall my family. Your charity of to-day has opened the way to it. The school which my mother, if God spares her life, will superintend, and in which two of my sisters will teach, and the humble farm which my third sister and her family shall work, will be the gift of your charity to-day.

A stony weight of cares is removed from my breast. Oh! be blessed for it, be thanked for it, in the name of them all who have lost every thing, but not their trust to God, and not the benefit of being able to work. My country will forgive me that I have taken from her the time of one day's work--to give bread to my aged mother and to my homeless sisters, the poor victims of unrelenting tyranny. Returning to Europe, I may find my own little children in a condition that again the father will have to take the spade or the pen into his hand to give them bread.

And my fatherland will again forgive me, that that time is taken from her. That is all what I take from her; nothing else of what is given, or what belongs to her. And the day's work which I take from my country, I will restore it by a night's labour. To-day, the son and the brother has done his task; you have requited his labour by a generous charity; the son and brother thanks you for it, and the patriot, to resume his task, bids you a hearty, warm farewell.

APPENDICES TO KOSSUTH'S SPEECHES.

Appendix I.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Daily News,' dated January 17th, 1852_, by Sabbas Vucovics, _late Minister of Justice in Hungary, in answer to_ Count Casimir Bathyanyi.

So early as the commencement of the Serbian insurrection, the popular suspicion gained ground that the insurrection had been stirred up by the secret intrigues of the court, and confidence in the truth and good faith of the King disappeared accordingly. The nation, however, still indulged the hope that a weak King, though betrayed into ambiguous proceeding, would not permit himself to be carried away into a flagrant breach of the constitution. This was the time when the King, in the opinion of the people, was kept distinct from the Camarilla. But when the Austrian ministry openly attempted to deprive Hungary of its ministries of war and finance, when the base game of the degradation and restoration of Jellachich was played, and when the Hungarian army, fighting in the name of the King against the insurrections of the Serbians and Croats, became aware that the balls of that same King thinned their ranks from the hostile camp, the nation arrived at the universal conviction that the Hapsburg dynasty were only pursuing their old absolute tendencies, and that they wanted to force Hungary into self-defence, in order, under the pretext of rebellion, to deprive it of all its constitutional rights and guarantees. It needs no proof that a loud indignation, and even hatred of the dynasty, spread far and wide in the country, in consequence of these intrigues and proceedings. In spite of this natural excitement, and of the war itself, carried on by the nation with an increasing enthusiasm of hatred of the House of Austria, no party in the country urged a declaration of _déchéance_ or forfeiture against the dynasty. Even all the faithless acts recorded in the letter of Count Casimir Bathyanyi, and the cruelties committed in the name of that court in Lower Hungary and Transylvania, did not turn the scales in this direction. The Pragmatic Sanction was still considered as good in law; and the many precedents of our history, when the nation and its kings went to war with each other, and ultimately settled their disputes by solemn pacts confirming the constitution of the land, conveyed the notion that a reconciliation was even then not impossible.

Without these precedents and reminiscences of history, and only guided by the universal feeling of the country against the dynasty, the Hungarian parliament would have pronounced the forfeiture of the House of Austria so far back as October, 1848, when Jellachich was appointed absolute plenipotentiary of the King in Hungary, with discretionary power of life and death; or in December, 1848, when in Olmütz the succession of the Hungarian throne was changed and determined, without the concurrence of the nation through the Diet. To force the nation and its parliament to the last step in this momentous crisis, the court itself broke the dynastic tie.

This was done by the imposition of the constitution of the 4th of March, 1849, by which the House of Austria itself annihilated the Pragmatic Sanction, treating free and independent Hungary with the arrogance of a conqueror. The nation, more irritated by this act than by any preceding event, saw that the hour was come, beyond which further to defer the dethronement of the dynasty would be alike incompatible with the laws and the honour of Hungary. _All the channels of public opinion, the public press, the popular meetings, and even the head quarters of the army, resounded with emphatic declarations of the impossibility of reconciliation with the dynasty. The garrison of Komorn_--the most important fortress of the country--_petitioned the government for the declaration of forfeiture_. Most assuredly no party manoeuvres were wanted in this universal excitement, caused by the constitution of the 4th of March, to carry a parliamentary resolution of forfeiture.

When the proposition of forfeiture was made on the 14th of April, 1849, in the House of Representatives, only eight members voted against it, in a house never attended by less than from 220 to 240 members. The House of Magnates adopted this resolution without opposition. The press of all shades of opinion, though enjoying the most unlimited freedom, also declared for the resolution of the Diet. It was moreover received throughout the whole country with patriotic assent and determination. If there was a party opposed to the forfeiture, how came it that it did not hold it to be a duty to declare its opposition in the Diet or through the press?

When the intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Temeswar reached the Governor Kossuth, who was then in the fortress of Arad, he immediately summoned a council of the ministry to deliberate on measures of public safety still possible. At this council, in which all the ministers took part, it was resolved to invest Görgei, who stood alone at the head of an unconquered army, with full powers for negotiating a peace. It was, moreover, resolved to dissolve the government, which could not be carried on in any fixed place of safety under the existing circumstances. We did not, however, insert in the instrument investing Görgei with full power (and despatched to him immediately) the abdication of the government. On the same day--it was the 11th of August, 1849--Görgei declared in the presence of some of the ministers who had assembled at Csányi's (who was one of them), that he could not accept the commission because the resignation of the government was not contained in it, while he was sure that the enemy would enter into no negotiations with him, so long as Kossuth and his ministry were thought to be behind him. The ministers who were present, after a short deliberation, considering it to be their duty not to stand in the way of the negotiation which had been resolved on as necessary, accordingly sent their resignation to the governor, _whom they requested to resign as well_. The governor soon after sent his abdication for countersignature by these members of the ministry, and accordingly the government formally dissolved itself, after having done so _de facto_ in the previous council of ministers. I must mention the circumstance that _in the governor's instrument of abdication conditions were proscribed to Görgei, which were not inserted in the original instrument of authorization, issued by the full council_. These conditions were, the preservation of the nationality and the autonomy of Hungary. Four ministers took part in this resignation of the governor, as above stated, Aulich, Csányi, Horvath, and I. Two of the ministers, Szemere and [Casimir] Bathyanyi, were absent when the formal declaration of the abdication was discussed at Csányi's residence. I have not mentioned among the ministers our late colleague, the finance minister Dushek, because his treachery, which was afterwards brought to light, excludes him from our ranks. From all these circumstances, it will be manifest how unjust the reproaches of Count Casimir Bathyanyi are, that no new cabinet council was held.

It is notorious that Görgei abused the full powers with which he was entrusted, instead of procuring the preservation of Hungary by a negotiation for peace, by an ignominious treachery to his native country. From that very moment the power conferred on him by the above-mentioned instrument, and the conditional abdication of the government, consequently and legally reverted to him who had invested him with it. To deny this, would be to recognize in the foreign rule which crushed Hungary, in consequence of that treachery, legitimate right and lawful power.

I, however, perfectly agree with the noble count, that the nation, once more restored to its constitutional existence, and free from foreign yoke, will have the unlimited right to dispose of all the affairs of the country, and consequently of the executive power. To assert a contrary opinion would be a crime against the nation. Not over a liberated nation (which, of course, would have the right to choose whom it will), but over a nation crushed by an usurping power, the claims of Kossuth, as elected Governor of Hungary, are, I submit, lawful.

Republican principles have not been proclaimed at Kossuth's dictation as the aim of our national exertions. They were, during our struggle, the well-ascertained and deep-rooted sentiment of the country, and Kossuth could only faithfully represent the proclaimed will and feeling of the nation, by inscribing them on his banner. Immediately after the declaration of independence, all the manifestations of the national will were unanimous in the desire for a republic. The ministry, which was nominated by the Governor as a consequence of that legislative act, declared in both houses of the Diet, that its efforts would be directed to the establishment of a republic. Both houses joined in this declaration, and in the government no opposition whatever was manifested against it. One of the first acts of the new government was to remove the crown from all national scutcheons, and from the great seal of Hungary. The press in all its shades developed republican principles. The new semi-official paper bore the name of _The Republic_. It is true that the government was only provisional, for the war continued, and the definite decision of this question depended on unforeseen circumstances. We should have preferred almost any settlement to the necessity of a subjection to the Austrian dynasty; and at the price of emancipation from that detested power, the nation would even have been prepared, for the sake of aid, to choose a king from another race; but certainly if it had been the unaided victor in the struggle, never. Monarchical government would have been for us the resort of expediency. The government of our wishes and principles was "The Republic."

I do not feel at all convinced, as the noble count asserts, that the institutions and habits of Hungary are incompatible with a democratic republic. I find, on the contrary, traits in them which lead me to an opposite conclusion. The aggregate character of the numerous nobility which resigned its privileges in the Diet of 1847-48 of its own accord, and which was in its nature more a democratic than an aristocratic body, because neither territorial wealth nor rank interfered with or disturbed the equality of its rights,--the national antipathy to the system of an upper house, which was considered as a foreign institution, because it had been introduced under the Austrian dynasty,--the immemorial custom of periodically electing all officials, and even the judges,--the detestation in which bureaucracy and all the instruments of centralization were held in all ages, while the attachment to the municipal self-government was ineradicable,--the fact that, in consequence of the laws which had been sanctioned in April, 1848, the county authorities, formerly only elected from the "nobility," were democratically reconstituted, and exercised their functions in this form till the catastrophe of Világos, without the slightest collision between the different classes of society,--the peaceful election of the representatives of the last Diet conducted almost on the principle of universal suffrage,--all these facts unmistakeably prove that the germ of democracy lay in our institutions, and that these could receive a democratic development without any concussion. Those characteristic _traits_ of our nation, which have been so often misrepresented as signs of an aversion to a republic, and which may be more properly called civic virtues; as, for example, our respect for law, our antipathy to untried political theories, our attachment to traditional customs, and our pride in the history of our country, are no obstacles to, but rather guarantees, and even conditions of a republic, which is to be national and enduring. It would indeed be an unprecedented event in history, if staunch royalism could be the characteristic of a country which, like Hungary, has found in its kings for three hundred years the inexorable foes of its liberties, and which in that time, for its defence, had to wage six bloody wars against the dynasty.

As to the criticisms by the noble count of the personal character of Kossuth, I take leave to assert that a great majority of the Hungarian nation do not share his opinion. It is not my task to appear as a personal advocate, and I wish, therefore, to advert only to one point of his attack, which may seem to be based on facts. The noble count asserts that Kossuth has attained to power _by doubtful means_. I am amazed at this assertion, knowing, as I do, that Kossuth was proposed by Count Louis Bathyanyi, and nominated by the King, with the universal applause of the nation, to the Ministry of Finance. After the resignation of the first Hungarian ministry, he was freely and unanimously elected by the Diet to the Presidency of the Committee of Defence, and after the declared forfeiture of the dynasty to the Governorship of the country. I know no more honourable means by which a man can be raised to power.

S. VUKOVICS,

Late Minister of Justice of Hungary.

_London, January 17, 1852_.

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Appendix II.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Times,' dated December 9th, 1851, by_ Bartholomew Szemere, _late Minister of the Interior in Hungary; in answer to_ Prince Esterhazy.

I shall now proceed to give a succinct account of what took place from April 14, when the new acts received the Royal sanction, to December, 1848. You may be assured that I shall conceal nothing that tended to change the relations between Hungary and Austria.

The Prime Minister was already nominated when Jellachich was raised to the dignity of Ban of Croatia by a Royal decree which the Premier was not even asked to countersign. The Hungarian ministers, nevertheless, for the sake of peace, overlooked this irregular proceeding.

By a decree, dated June 10, 1848, the King made known to all whom it might concern, that all the troops stationed within the kingdom of Hungary, whether Hungarians or Austrians, were placed under the orders of the Hungarian Minister of War, and that all the Hungarian fortresses were under the jurisdiction of the said Minister. Yet at this very time officers of the Imperial and Royal army were taking an active part in the rebellion of the Serbs and Valachs, while General Mayerhofer was enlisting recruits in the principality of Servia, and sending them to assist the rebels. The people thus beheld with astonishment civil war break out, and saw with still greater astonishment that Imperial officers were fighting on both sides.

Jellachich, as a functionary of the Hungarian Crown, refused to obey the Hungarian ministry, and illegally summoned a Croatian Diet to meet at Agram on June 5. In consequence of these proceedings, Ferdinand V., by a decree dated June 10, 1848, deprived him, as a rebel, of all his civil and military offices and dignities, but at the same time sent him, through his Minister of War, Latour, field officers, artillery and ammunition.

The troubles increased daily. The Hungarian ministry requested the Archduke John to act us mediator. He accepted the office, but did nothing.

The Diet met on July 2. The Palatine, as the representative of the Sovereign in the speech from the Throne, said that, as several districts were in a state of open rebellion, the principal objects to which, in the name of His Majesty, he should direct the attention of the Diet were the finances and the defences of the country, and that bills relating to these objects would be brought in by the Ministers. He then proceeded as follows:--"His Majesty has learned with painful feelings, that although he only followed the dictates of his own gracious inclination, when, at the request of the faithful Hungarian people, he gave his sovereign sanction to the laws enacted by the last Diet--laws which the common weal, according to the exigencies of the present age, rendered imperatively necessary--there are, nevertheless, a number of seditious agitators, especially in the annexed territories and the Hungarian districts of the Lower Danube, who, by false reports and terrorism, have excited the different religious sects and races speaking different languages against each other, and, by mendaciously affirming that the above-mentioned laws are not the free expressions of His Majesty's Royal will, have stirred up the people to offer an armed opposition to the execution of the law, and to the legally constituted authorities. And, moreover, that some of these agitators have even proceeded so far in their iniquitous course as to spread the report that this armed opposition has been made in the interests of the dynasty, and with the knowledge, and connivance of His Majesty or of the members of His Majesty's Royal house. I therefore, in order that all the inhabitants of the kingdom, without distinction as to creed or language, may have their minds set at rest, hereby declare, in conformity with the sovereign behest of His Majesty our most gracious King, and in his sovereign name and person, that it is His Majesty's firm and steadfast determination to defend with all his Royal power and authority the unity and integrity of His Royal Hungarian crown against every attack from without, and every attempt at disruption and separation that may be made within the kingdom, and at the same time inviolably to maintain the laws which have received the Royal sanction. And while His Majesty will not suffer any one to curtail the liberties assured to all classes by the law, His Majesty, as well as all the members of His Royal dynasty, strongly condemns the audacity of those who venture to affirm that any illegal act whatsoever or any disrespect of the constituted authorities can be reconcileable with His Majesty's sovereign will, or at all compatible with the interests of the Royal dynasty."

It thus clearly appears that the King acknowledged the validity and the inviolability of the acts passed by the Diet of 1847-8 three months after they had been sanctioned.

Relying on the sincerity of the Royal asseverations, the Diet humbly requested that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to render the country happy by his presence. It was, in fact, the general wish that the King should come to Hungary; even the most radical journals loudly declared that if he came he would be received with enthusiasm bordering on madness.

Meanwhile the rebellion of the Croats, Serbs, and Valachs, was spreading daily, and that, too, _in the name of the Sovereign_. Generals, colonels, and other field officers of the Imperial army were at the head of it, without any one of them being summoned by the King to answer for his conduct. The eyes of the too credulous natives were now opened, and still more when the King refused to sanction the acts for the levying of troops and raising of funds for the suppression of the rebellion, although the Diet had been convened chiefly for this purpose.

I must here observe that at this period nothing whatever had occurred that could serve as a pretext for the dynasty to support the rebellion. The Diet, it is true, would not consent that the troops that were to be levied should be draughted into the old regiments; but it was obviously impossible for the Diet to consent to any such measures at a period when the rebels were everywhere led by Imperial officers, when the Austrian troops stationed in Hungary, although they had been placed under the orders of the Hungarian Ministry, refused to fight against those rebels, and the commanders of fortresses to receive orders from the Hungarian War-office.