Hungarian American Coalition News, 2002 (11. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
2002 / 1. szám
sympathized deeply with you; in your brave struggle for independence and freedom of your native land. The American people can never be indifferent to such a contest, but our policy as a nation in this respect has been uniform from the commencement of our government; and my own views as the Chief Executive magistrate of this nation, are fully and freely expressed in my recent message to Congress, to which you have been pleased to allude. They are the same, whether speaking to Congress here, or to the nations of Europe. Should your country be restored to independence and freedom, I should wish you, as the greatest blessings you could enjoy, a restoration to your native land; but should that never happen, I can only repeat my welcome to you and your companions here, and pray that God's blessing may rest upon you wherever your lot may be cast. * ** * Kossuth's eloquent speeches delivered in elegant but often archaic English, attracted audiences across the nation and had a great suggestive power. This oratory talent was transmitted to Vienna in one of his reports by Gabor Egressz a secret imperial agent. Excerpts of a Kossuth Speech at the Congressional Banquet given in his honor on January 7,1852 in Washington, DC The banquet given by a large number of Members of the two Houses of Congress to Kossuth took place at the National Hotel in Washington. The number present was about two hundred and fifty. The Hon. William R. King, of Alabama, president of the Senate, presided. On his right sat Louis Kossuth, an on his left the Hon. Daniel Webster, Secretary of State. On the right of Kossuth at the same table sat the Hon. Linn Boyd, Speaker of the House of Representatives. The president of the evening.. .proposed the fifth toast: "Hungary, represented in the person of our honored Guest, having proved herself worthy to be free by the virtues and valor of her sons, the law of nations and the dictates of justice alike demand that we shall have fair play in her struggle for independence." The toast was received with immense applause, which lasted several minutes. Kossuth then rose and spoke as follows: "Sir, as once Cineas de 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 1 stand amongst you, legislators of the new Capitol, that glorious hall of your people's majesty. The capitol of old stands, but the spirit has departed from it and come over to yours, purified by the air of liberty [Applause] The first Governor of independent Hungary, driven from his land by Russian violence; an exile on Turkish soil, protected by a Mahometan Sultan against the blood-thirst of Christian tyrants; cast back a prisoner to far Asia by diplomacy; and rescued from his Asiatic prison by America crossing the Atlantic, charged with the hopes of Europe's oppressed nations...I have the boldness to say that Hungary well deserves your sympathy; that Hungary has a claim to protection because it has a claim to justice....We Hungarians are very fond of the principle of municipal self government, and we have a natural horror against the principle of centralization. That fond attachment to municipal self-government without which there is no provincial freedom possible, is a fundamental feature of our national character... .Where the craddle of our Saviour stood, and where his divine doctrine was founded, there now another faith rules, and the whole of Europe's armed pilgrimage could not avert this fate from that sacred spot, nor stop the rushing waves of Islamism absorbing the Christian empire of Constantine. We stopped these rushing waves. The breast of my nation proved a breakwater to them. [Bravo! Bravo!] We guarded Christendom, that Luthers and Calvins might reform it. [Applause] ...Terror spreads over Europe, an, anticipating persecution rules. From Paris to Pesth there is a gloomy silence, like the silence of Nature before the terror of a hurricane. It is a sensible silence, only disturbed by the thousandfold rattling of the muskets by which Napoleon murders that people that gave him a home when he was in exile, and by the groans of the new martyrs in Sicily, Milan, Vienna and Pesth. The very sympathy which I met in England, and was expected to meet here, throws my sisters into the dungeons of Austria. [Cries of shame!] 4 • Hungarian American Coalition • Spring 2002
