Volume I Part 14 (2/2)
He seemed also to foresee the unity of Italy, although he overestimated the tendency there towards republican inst.i.tutions. He declared that Austria studded the peninsula of Italy with bayonets, and that she was able to send her armies to Italy because Russia guarded her eastern frontier. His residence in Italy for a third of a century was due to his admiration for the history of the Italian peoples, and his belief in the capacity of the Italian races for the business of government.
”The spirit of republican liberty, the warlike genius of ancient Rome, were never extinguished between the Alps and the Faro.” He declared that every stain upon the honor of Italy was connected with foreign rule, and that the petty tyrants of Italy had been kept on their tottering thrones through the intervention of Austria, Germany and France.
At the end he placed the responsibility for the domination of absolutism upon the Continent of Europe to the intervention of Russia and to her recognized supremacy in war. He appreciated the fact that Russia in coalition with Austria or Germany or France was more than the equal of the residue of the Continent, whether combined for offensive or defensive operations.
In the many speeches which Kossuth made in the United States, he endeavored to impress upon his hearers the conviction that absolutism, under which Europe was then groaning, would extend to America. This view made a slight impression only. To the common mind the ocean and the distance seemed a sufficient protection. In the lifetime of Kossuth, absolutism, both in church and state, has lost much of power on the Continent of Europe, while in America it has no abiding place.
Kossuth did not err in his opinion as to the policy of Russia in European affairs; but that policy never extended to America, even in thought. Of that policy Kossuth said: ”It is already long ago that Czar Alexander of Russia declared that henceforth governments should have no particular policy, but only a common one, the policy of safety to all governments; as if governments were the aim for which nations exist, and not nations the aim for which governments exist.”
Finally, he came to look upon Russia as the master of all Europe, and he sought to impress upon his hearers in America the opinion that the time would come when Russia would seek for mastery in the affairs of this continent. This apprehension on his part was not accepted by any cla.s.s of his hearers and followers, and the cession of Alaska must have quieted the apprehension which had taken possession of Kossuth's mind.
In pa.s.sing from so much of Kossuth's career in America as relates to his public policy and to his views upon public questions, it can be said that he entertained the broadest ideas of personal liberty and of the independence and sovereignty of states, coupled with an obligation binding all states to protect each and every state from the aggressive action of any other state.
It was his hope that England and the United States would unite, and by counsel, if not by active intervention, check, and in the end control, Russia in its manifest purpose to dominate over the Continent of Europe. This hope has not been realized. In no instance have the United States and England co-operated for the protection of any other state, and the influence of Russia on the Continent of Europe was never greater than it now is. Manifestly, England is the only obstacle to the domination of Russia over the Bosphorus.
In these forty years, Hungary has gained as a component part of the Austrian Empire, but, in the ratio of the augmentation of its power, the tendency to independence and to a republican form of government has diminished. The demonstrations that followed Kossuth's death are evidence, however, that his teachings have affected the student cla.s.ses in Hungary, and it is possible that those teachings are destined to work changes in Hungary and Italy in favor of republican inst.i.tutions.
Kossuth's teachings were in harmony with the best ideas that have been accepted in regard to state policy, international relations, and individual rights; but he was in advance of his own age and in advance of this age. For Europe he was an unpractical statesman, and in America he demanded what could not be granted. It does not follow, however, that his labors were in vain. He aroused the American mind to a higher sense of the power and dignity of the American nation, and he set forth the influence that England and the United States might exert in the affairs of the world whenever they should co-operate in an international public policy. He maintained the cause of universal liberty. At West Cambridge Kossuth said: ”Liberty was not granted to your forefathers as a selfish boon; your destiny is not completed till, by the aid and influence of America, the oppressed nations are regenerated and made free.”
These words were not wholly visionary, and in these forty years since they were uttered some progress has been made. The empires of Brazil and France have been transformed into republics, slavery has been abolished in North and South America, the weak states of Italy have been united in one government, the German Empire has been created, and all in the direction of popular liberty and with manifest preparation for the republican form of government. Nor can it be said justly that there has been a retrograde movement in any part of the world. These changes would have come to pa.s.s without Kossuth; but it is to his credit that his teachings were coincident with the trend of events, and they may have contributed to the accomplished results.
In 1849 Mr. Webster compared Kossuth to Wycliffe, by the quotation of the lines:
”The Avon to the Severn runs, The Severn to the sea; And Wycliffe's dust shall spread abroad, Wide as the waters be.”
It is not easy to form an opinion of Kossuth's place as an orator, when considered in comparison or in contrast with other orators. He had but one central theme, the cause of Hungary, and on that theme he spoke many hundred times, and never with any offensive or tedious repet.i.tions. In Ma.s.sachusetts alone he delivered thirty-four speeches and orations, and it may be said that all of them were carefully prepared, and most of them were reduced to writing. His topics were the wrongs inflicted upon Hungary, the sufferings endured by his country, the dominating and dangerous influence of Russia in the affairs of Europe, the duty of England and America to resist that influence, the mission of the government and people of the United States to labor for the extension of free inst.i.tutions and the blessings of liberty to the less favored nations of the world,--all made attractive by references to general, local and personal histories.
As one test, and a very important test, of the presence of unusual power, it can be said that no other orator ever made so many acceptable addresses upon allied topics.
His cause did much for him. For im and for his country there was deep- seated and universal sympathy. In his case, with unimportant exceptions, there were no prejudices, or pa.s.sions, or principles, or traditions, to be overcome. Our history, whether as exiles, as revolutionists, or as pioneers in the cause of freedom, contributed materially to the success of his orations and speeches. All who heard him were astonished at the knowledge of our history, both local and general, which he exhibited. When he came to the old Hanc.o.c.k House in Boston, he mentioned the fact without waiting for information, so carefully had he studied the features of the city in advance of his visit. There were three persons in his suite who devoted themselves to the preparation of his speeches,--Gen. Klapka, Count Pulszky and Madame Pulszky. Their knowledge of Kossuth's mind was such that they were able to mark the pa.s.sages in local histories and biographies that would be useful to him in his addresses. Those of his speeches which were prepared were written by these a.s.sistants, to whom he dictated the text. By their aid he was able to prepare his speeches with a celerity that was incomprehensible to the Western mind.
His first speech in Boston was delivered the twenty-seventh day of April, 1852, the day that he completed his fiftieth year. When in private conversation I spoke of the circ.u.mstance that it was my good fortune to welcome him to the State on that anniversary, he said: ”Yes, it is a marked day; but unless my poor country is saved I shall soon wither away and die.”
His voice, whether in public speech or in private conversation, commanded sympathy by its tones, even when his words were not comprehended. In his oratory there was exaggeration in statement, a characteristic that is common to orators, but not more strongly marked in the speeches of Kossuth than in the speeches of those with whom he might be compared.
His powers of imagination were not extraordinary, and of word painting he has not left a single striking example,--not one pa.s.sage that can be used for recitation or declamation in the schools. His cause was too pressing, his manner of life was too serious, for any indulgences in speech. In every speech he had an object in view; and even when he was without hope for Hungary in the near future, he yet announced and advocated doctrines and truths on which he relied for the political regeneration of Europe. He spoke to propositions,--clearly, concisely, convincingly.
In one oratorical art Kossuth was a adept; he deprecated all honors to himself, and with great tact he transferred them to his country and to the cause that he represented:
”As to me, indeed, it would be curious if the names of the great men who invented the plough and the alphabet, who changed the corn into flour and the flour into bread, should be forgotten, and my name remembered.
”But if in your expectations I should become a screen to divert, for a single moment, your attention from my country's cause and attract it to myself, I entreat you, even here, to forget me, and bestow all your attention and your generous sympathy upon the cause of my downtrodden fatherland.”
Kossuth gave rise to just criticism in that he appealed too often and too elaborately to the local and national pride of his audiences. This criticism was applicable to his speeches in England and in America.
In every attempt to fix Kossuth's place in the list of historical orators,--and in that list he must have a conspicuous place,--certain considerations cannot be disregarded, viz.:
First, he spoke to England and American in a language that he acquired when he had already pa.s.sed the middle period of life. The weight of this impediment he felt when he said, ”Spirit of American eloquence, frown not at my boldness that I dare abuse Shakespeare's language in Faneuil Hall.”
Second, we are to consider the amount of work performed in a brief period of time, and the conditions under which it was performed.
Between the twenty-fifth day of April and the fourteenth day of May, 1852, Kossuth delivered thirty speeches in Ma.s.sachusetts, containing, on an average, more than two thousand words in each speech, and not a sentence inappropriate to the occasion. These speeches were prepared and written in the intervals between the ceremonial proceedings, which occurred as often as every day.
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