Magyar News, 2001. szeptember-2002. augusztus (12. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2002-03-01 / 7. szám
Portrait by sculptor József Róna freedom and independence, because the declaration of such a Power as your Republic will be respected even where it should be not liked; and Europe's oppressed nations will feel cheered in resolution and doubled in strength to maintain the decision of their American brethren on their own behalf with their own lives. There is an immense power in the idea to be right, when this idea is sanctioned by a nation like yours. And when the foreboding future will become present, there is an immense field for private benevolence and sympathy upon the basis of the broad principles of international justice pronounced in the sanctuary of your people's collective majesty. So much to guard me against misunderstanding. Sir, I most fervently thank you for the acknowledgment that my country has proved worthy to be free. Yes, gentlemen, I feel proud at my nation's character, heroism, love of freedom and vitality, and I bow with reverential awe before the decree of Providence which placed my country in a position that, without its restoration to independence, there is no possibility for freedom and the independence of nations on the European continent. Even what now in France is about to pass proves the truth of this. Every disappointed hope with which Europe looked toward France is a degree more added to the importance of Hungary to the world. Upon our plains were fought the decisive battles for Christendom; [sic] there will be fought the decisive battles for the independence of nations, for State rights, for international law, and for democratic liberty. We will live free, or die like men; but should my people be doomed to die, it will be the first whose death will not be recorded as suicide, but as a martyrdom for the world, and future ages will mourn over the sad fate of the Magyar race, doomed to perish, not because we deserved it, but because in the nineteenth century there was nobody to protect the laws of nature and of nature's God. But I look to the future with confidence and with hope. Adversities manifold of a tempest-tossed life, could of course not fail to impress a mark of cheerlessness upon my heart, which, if not a source of joy, is at least a guard against sanguine illusions. I, for myself, would not want the hope of success for doing what is right. To me the sense of duty would suffice; therefore, when I hope, it has nothing common with that desperate instinct of a drowning man, who, half sunk, still grasps at a straw for help. No, when I hope, there is motive for that hope. I have a steady faith in principles. I dare say that experience taught me the logic of events in connection with principles. I have fathomed the very bosom of this mystery; and was I deceived in my calculations thereabout. Once in my life I supposed a principle to exist in a certain quarter where indeed no principle proved to exist. It was a horrible mistake, and resulted in a horrible issue. The present condition of Europe is a very consequence of it. But precisely this condition of Europe proves that I did not want only suppose a principle to exist there, where I found none. Would it have existed, the consequences could not have failed to arrive as I have contemplated them. Well, there is a providence in every fact. Without this mistake the principles of American republicanism would for a long time yet not found a fertile soil on that continent, where it was considered wisdom to belong to the French school. Now matters stand thus: that either the continent of Europe has no future at all, or this future is American republicanism. And who could believe that two hundred millions of that continent, which is the mother of a civilization, are not to have any future at all? Such a doubt would be almost blasphemy against Providence indeed — a just, a bountiful Providence. I trust with the piety of my religion in it. I dare say my very humble self was a continual instrument of it. How could I be else, in such a condition as I was bom, not conspicuous by any preeminent abilities -having nothing in me more than an iron will, which nothing can bend, and the consciousness of being right — how could I, under the most arduous circumstances, accomplish many a thing which my sense of honest duty prompted me to undertake? Oh, there is indeed a Providence which mles! And even my being here, when four months ago I was yet a prisoner of the league of European despots in far Asia and the sympathy which your glorious people honor me with, and the high benefit of the welcome of your Congress, and the honor to be your guest, to be the guest of your great Republic - I, the poor, humble, unpretending exile — is there not a very intelligible manifestation of Providence in it? — the more, when I remember that the name of your humble but thankful guest is, I Painting of Kossuth in his later life by painter József Rippl-Rónay by the furious rage of the Austrian tyrant, to the gallows nailed? Your generosity is a loud protestation of republican virtues against despotism. I firmly trust in those principles; and, relying upon this very fact of your generosity, I may be permitted to say that that respectable organ of the free press was mistaken which announced that I considered my coming hither to be a failure. I confidently trust that the nations of Europe have a future. I am aware that this future is contradicted by bayonets of absolutism; but I know that bayonets may support, but afford no chair to sit upon. I trust to the future of my native land, because I know that it is worthy to have it; and it is necessary to the destinies of humanity. I trust to the principles of republicanism; and, whatever be my personal fate, so much I know, that my country will conserve to you and your glorious land an everlasting gratitude. □ Page 7
