Fraternity-Testvériség, 1949 (27. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1949-05-01 / 5. szám
TESTVÉRISÉG nearly 70 years were to elapse before it would employ its armed might on the Continent of Europe. However, during the course of Kossuth’s trip various State legislatures voted support for his interventionist principles. When President Millard Fillmore received Kossuth in the White House on December 31, 1851, he expressed to the great exile, as a private citizen, his deep sympathy for the Hungarian cause. He was constrained, however, to declare in his official capacity as Chief Executive that, as regards intervention abroad, the foreign policy of the Uniteed States had not undergone any alteration since the founding of the Union. Similarly, when Secretary of State Daniel Webster spoke as a private citizen at the congressional banquet for Kossuth on January 7, 1852, he made no attempt to conceal his pro-Hungarian sympathies and raised his glass with the following words: “We shall rejoice to see our American model upon the Lower Danube and on the mountains of Hungary... I limit my aspiration for Hungary, for the present, to that single and simple point Hungarian independence, Hungarian self-government, Hungarian control of Hungarian destinies.” Yet when, a few days later, he received Kossuth in his capacity as Secretary of State, he was under obligation to reiterate the noninterventionist character of American foreign policy. The fact that he went so far as to make two concrete promises, the dispatching of an American diplomatic agent to a possible de facto Hungarian national government and the repairing of Hungarian war matériel in United States arsenals in the event of a new war for independence, represented considerable concessions to Kossuth. Even these promises, however, were personal rather than official, because they were made with the understanding that their fulfillment depended on Webster’s remaining in office. But the new war for independence never started in Hungary, and Secretary Webster was dead before the year was over. In spite of the rejection of Kossuth’s interventionist principles, the United States Congress as well as the Executive Branch paid full homage to the man whom the majority of its members regarded as the most outstanding representative of democratic and republican ideas on the Continent. On January 5, 1852, the great Hungarian was ceremoniously received in the Capitol. First he was escorted to the Senate chamber, where he was seated on the rostrum. The session was immediately adjourned and the guest was introduced individually to all the Senators who were present. Following his reception in the Upper House, Kossuth was conducted to the other wing of the building, where the House of Representatives was in session. When he appeared in the door, the Congressmen rose and the Speaker welcomed him in almost the same words with which Lafayette been received on a similar occasion. Here Kossuth delivered a brief nonpolitical speech, after which the sitting was adjourned and the guest became the center of an informal but cordial celebration in which all Representatives present participated without party distinction. Kossuth’s visit to the halls of Congress did not remain without effect. On February 25, 1852, Representative Charles Andrews of Maine delivered a speech in support of the Hungarian’s interventionist principles and, after eulogizing Hungary as the bastion of Western civilization against Eastern barbarism, proposed that the United States Government convoke an international congress which would establish in international law the principle that no nation has the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of another nation. In this manner the consensus of world opinion would assist Hungary in the realization of her independence in spite of Russian opposition. Less than two weeks later a similar resolution was submitted in the Senate by William H. Seward of New York, the future Secretary of State. The text of the resolution read as follows: Resolved, That while the United Slates Government in consideration of the exigencies of society, habitually recognize governments de facto in other states, yet that they are nevertheless by no means indifferent when such a government is established against the consent of any people by usurpation or by armed intervention of foreign states or nations. Resolved, That, considering that the people of Hungary, in the exercise of the right secured to them by the laws of nations, in a solemn and legitimate manner asserted their national independence, and established a government by their own voluntary act, and successfully maintained it against all opposition by parties lawfully interested in the question; and that the Emperor of Russia, without just or lawful right, invaded Hungary, and, by fraud and armed force, subverted the national independence and political construction thus established, and thereby reduced that country to the condition of a province ruled by a foreign power; the United States in defence of their own interest, and of the common interests of mankind, do solemnly protest against the conduct of Russia on that occasion, as a wanton an tyrannical infraction of the laws of the nations; and the United States do further declare that they will not hereafter be indifferent to similar acts of national injustice, oppression, and usurpation, whenever or wherever they may occur. The introduction of the resolution was followed by a magnificent oration in which Seward
