Volume I Part 15 (1/2)
Third, though his theme had many aspects, and these varying aspects Kossuth presented with such skill as to command the attention of his hearers, yet his theme was always the same,--the wrongs of Hungary.
On the twentieth, the twenty-fourth, and the twenty-fifth days of May, 1859, Kossuth delivered speeches in London, Manchester, and Bradford, England. The Lord Mayor presided at the meeting in London, and the meetings one and all were designed to aid the Liberal Party in the then pending general election. Kossuth's visit to England and the purpose of the visit were due to an arrangement with the Emperor Napoleon, from which Kossuth was led to expect the liberation of Hungary from the grasp of Austria as one of the essential purposes of the war in which France and Austria were engaged. As the result of an interview with the Emperor on the night of the 5th of May, Kossuth visited England in aid of the Liberal Party, and in the belief that the accession of that party to power would secure the neutrality of that country. Hence the wisdom and the duty of neutrality were the topics to which Kossuth devoted himself during his short stay in England. The Liberal Party triumphed, but the triumph was brief, and the disposition of the new ministry was not tested.
Kossuth's speeches of 1859 at the London Tavern, at a meeting presided over by the Lord Mayor, and at Manchester and at Bradford, present him at his best. He had received a pledge from Napoleon that if he could secure the neutrality of England, and would organize a Hungarian legion for service in the war with Austria, the liberation of Hungary should be regarded as a necessary condition of peace. Such, at least, was the interpretation which Kossuth put upon these words of the Emperor, spoken at the midnight meeting of May 5, 1859: ”We beg you to proceed forthwith with your scheme; and be convinced that in securing the neutrality of England you will have removed the greatest obstacle that stands in the way of the realization of your patriotic hopes.”
In a preliminary conversation with Prince Napoleon, held at the instance of the Emperor, Kossuth had stipulated that the Emperor should publish a proclamation to the Hungarian nation, announcing his confederation with the Hungarians as their friend and ally, and for the purpose of carrying into effect the Declaration of Independence of 1849. The obligations a.s.sumed by Kossuth were faithfully performed.
General Klapka organized a legion in Italy of four thousand Hungarians.
The overthrow of the Tory Party in England, which Kossuth had predicted and promised, was achieved, and thus the neutrality of Great Britain was secured.
Kossuth's speeches in England were delivered under the influence of the highest incentives by which an orator and patriot could be moved. With the utmost confidence in his ability to perform what he had promised, he had pledged his honor for the neutrality of England. As he then believed, the fate of Hungary was staked upon the fulfilment of that pledge. Hence it came to pa.s.s that his speeches in England in May, 1859, were on a higher plane than the speeches that he delivered in the years 1851 and 1852. At the former period he had no hope of immediate relief for Hungary; in 1859 he imagined that the day of the deliverance of his country was at hand, and that the neutrality of England was a prerequisite, or at least a coincident condition.
It is not too much to say that the following extract from his speech in the London Tavern justifies every claim that has been made in behalf of Kossuth as a patriot and an orator:
”The history of Italy during the last forty years is nothing but a record of groans, of evergrowing hatred and discontent, of ever- recurring commotions, conspiracies, revolts and revolutions, of scaffolds soaked in the blood of patriots, of the horrors of Spielberg and Mantua, and of the chafing anger with which the words, 'Out with the Austrians,' tremble on the lips of every Italian. These forty years are recorded in history as a standing protest against those impious treaties. The robbed have all the time loudly protested, by words, deeds, sufferings, and sacrifice of their lives, against the compact of the robbers. Yet, forsooth, we are still told that the treaties of 1815 are inviolable. Why, I have heard it reported that England rang with a merry peal when the stern inward judge, conscience, led the hand of Castlereagh to suicide; and shall we, in 1859, be offered the sight of England plunging into the incalculable calamities of a great war for no better purpose than to uphold the accursed work of the Castlereaghs, and from no better motive than to keep the House of Austria safe?
”Inviolable treaties, indeed. Why, my lord, the forty-four years that have since pa.s.sed have riddled those treaties like a sieve. The Bourbons, whom they restored to the throne of France, have vanished, and the Bonapartes, whom they proscribed, occupy the place of the Bourbons on the throne of France. And how many changes have not been made in the state of Europe, in spite of those 'inviolable treaties'?
Two of these changes--the transformation of Switzerland from a confederation of states into a confederated state, and the independence of Belgium--have been accomplished to the profit of liberty. But for the rest, the distinctive features through which those treaties have pa.s.sed is this, that every poor plant of freedom which they had spared has been uprooted by the unsparing hand of despotism. From the republic of Cracow, poor remnant of Poland, swallowed by Austria, down to the freedom of the press guaranteed to Germany, but reduced to such a condition that, in the native land of Guttenberg, not one square yard of soil is left to set a free press upon, everything that was not evil in those inviolable treaties has been trampled down, to the profit of despotism, of concordats, of Jesuits, and of benighting darkness. And all these violations of the inviolable treaties were accomplished without England's once shaking her mighty trident to forbid them. And shall it be recorded in history that when the question is how to drive Austria from Italy, when the natural logic of this undertaking might present my own native country with a chance for that deliverance to which England bade G.o.d-speed with a mighty outcry of sympathy rolling like thunder from John O'Groat's to Land's End,--that deliverance for which prayers have ascended, and are ascending still, to the Father of mankind from millions of British hearts,--shall it be recorded in history that at such a time, that under such circ.u.mstances, England plunged into the horrors and calamities of war, nay, that she took upon herself to make this war prolonged and universal, for the mere purpose of upholding the inviolability of those rotten treaties in favor of Austria, good for nothing on earth except to spread darkness and to perpetuate servitude?
”There you have that Austria in Piedmont carrying on war in a manner that recalls to memory the horrors of the long gone-by ages of barbarism. You may read in the account furnished to the daily papers, by their special correspondents, that the rigorously disciplined soldiers of Austria were allowed to act the part of robbers let loose upon an unoffending population, to offer violence to unprotected families, to outrage daughters in the presence of their parents, and to revel in such other savage crimes as the blood of civilized men curdles at hearing and the tongue falters in relating. Such she was always--always. These horrors but faintly reflect what Hungary had to suffer from her in our late war. And shall it be said that England, the home of gentlemen, sent her brave sons to shed their blood and to stain their honor in fighting side by side with such a _soldatesca_ for those highwayman compacts of 1815 to the profit of that Austria?”
With the treaty of Villafranca, July 11, 1859, Kossuth abandoned all hope of the independence of Hungary. There can be no doubt that, from the first, Napoleon intended to abandon Kossuth and his cause when he had made use of his influence in England and in Italy for his own purposes. The armistice and the peace with Austria were inaugurated by Napoleon; and when, at the last moment, Emperor Francis Joseph raised difficulties upon some points in the treaty, Prince Napoleon, who was a party to the conference, threatened him with a revolution in Italy and in Hungary. As to Kossuth, his only solace was in the reflection that he had stayed the tendency to revolution on the soil of Hungary, and thus his countrymen had been saved from new calamities.
Thenceforward Kossuth had before him only a life of exile; but he reserved for his children the right, and he set before them the duty, of returning to their native land.
I am giving large s.p.a.ce to the visit of Kossuth in the belief that the country is moving away from the doctrines of self-government as a common right of mankind, as they were taught by him and as they were accepted generally until we approached the end of the nineteenth century.
In Faneuil Hall Kossuth made these striking remarks. Addressing himself to America, he said: ”You have prodigiously grown by your freedom of seventy-five years; but what are seventy-five years to take for a charter of immortality! No, no, my humble tongue tells the record of eternal truth. A privilege never can be lasting. Liberty restricted to one nation never can be sure. You may say 'we are the prophets of G.o.d,' but you shall not say, 'G.o.d is only our G.o.d.' The Jews have said so and the pride of Jerusalem lies in the dust! Our Saviour taught all humanity to say _'Our Father in Heaven,'_ and his Jerusalem is 'lasting to the end of days.'”
His style was that of a scholar who had mastered the English language by the aid of books. His idiomatic expressions were few. In one of his speeches when urging his audience to demand active intervention in behalf of Hungary he attempted to use the phrase, ”You should take time by the forelock.” At the last word he came to a dead pause and subst.i.tuted a twist of his own forelock with his right hand. He thus commanded the hearty cheers of his hearers. It is probable that the expedient was forced upon Kossuth, but the art of a skilled orator might have suggested such a device.
Kossuth was small in stature, not more than five feet seven inches in height, and weighing not more than one hundred and forty pounds. His eyes and hair were black, his complexion dark, giving the impression that he did not belong to the Caucasian race. His career was a meteoric display in political oratory, such as the world does not often witness. His integrity cannot be questioned, and for more than a third of a century he submitted to a life of exile rather than accept a home under a government which he thought was a usurpation. He gave to the country new ideas, and his name and fame will be traditional for a long period of time.
When Kossuth was in America he looked upon General Gorgey as a traitor and he was so regarded by the friends of Hungary generally. In the year 1885, however, a testimonial was presented to General Gorgey by about thirty of the survivors of the contest of 1848, in which they exonerated him from that charge. General Klapka was among the signers, but the name of Kossuth did not appear upon the memorial.
At the end of the nineteenth century neither Ma.s.sachusetts nor any other State could or would accord to an exile for liberty the reception that was given to Kossuth in 1852.
The expenses of his reception in Ma.s.sachusetts, and of the entertainment of his suite were paid by an appropriation from the public treasury. He was given a public reception by the Governor of the State, and a like reception was given to him by each House of the Legislature in suspended session.
He was further honored by a review on Boston Common of a fourth part of the organized militia of the commonwealth. The a.s.semblages of citizens were as large in proportion to the population of the State as were ever gathered upon any other occasion.
Kossuth visited fifteen of the princ.i.p.al cities and towns of the State and in each of them he delivered one address or more. His theme was always the same, but his variety of argument and ill.u.s.tration seemed inexhaustible. At Cambridge he urged the students to so use their powers as to ”promote their country's welfare and the rights of humanity.”
The Legislature adopted a series of resolutions of sympathy and in condemnation of Austria and Russia. The opening resolution was in these words: ”Resolved, That every nation has the right to adopt such form of government as may seem to it best calculated to advance those ends for which all governments are in theory established.” Can this resolution command an endors.e.m.e.nt at the beginning of the twentieth century?
The States of Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont adopted resolutions of sympathy with Hungary and of arraignment of Austria and Russia.
[* This chapter was published substantially as it appears here in the _New England Magazine._ Copyright, 1903, by Warren F. Kellogg.]
XIX THE COALITION AND THE STATE CONSt.i.tUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1853
The controversy over slavery, which wrought a division in the Whig and Democratic parties as early as the year 1848, led to a reorganization of parties in 1849, under the names of Whig, Democratic, and Free-soil parties, respectively. Of these the Whig Party was the largest, but from 1849 to 1853 it was not able to command a majority vote in the State, and at that time a majority vote was required in all elections.