American Revolution, seem to me as wise as they are generous. If there be any petition which mankind might wish added to the formula given by the Savior, it would be that the scourge of war might cease, and that peace and good will might prevail among men. But peace and good will can never prevail until mankind learn and feel the simple truth, that however birth or language or climate may have made them differ-however mountains, deserts, rivers, and seas, may divide states—the nations of the earth are nevertheless one family, and all mankind are brethren, practically equal in endowments, equal in national and political rights, and equal in the favor of the common Creator.

Exclusion of foreigners and hostility to foreign states always were elements of barbarism. The intermingling of races always was, and always will be, the chief element of civilization. Japan and China are exclusive states. Great Britain and the United States are social nations. So inconsistent is exclusiveness with progress, that, sooner or later, Providence wills the subjugation of unsocial states, thus securing the advancement of civilization compulsively, when nations obstinately resist it. The conquest of Mexico in the west, of India in the east, and the present humiliation of China, are illustrations of this great truth.

If at St. Petersburg you seek the exchange, where the Russian "merchants most do congregate," the native understands not your inquiry, until you ask for the "Dutch" exchange. Thus do the subjects of the czar unwittingly perpetuate the memory of the fact that they owe their rising commerce to immigration from the Netherlands. I remember that in Clinton's time the Erie canal then in progress was stigmatized as the “Irish ditch.” Had we been as generous as the natives of St. Petersburg, we should have persevered in that designation, and we should now confess for the instruction of mankind, that not only the Erie canal, but its numerous and far-reaching veins and arteries, and our railroads, harbors, and fortifications, were chiefly constructed by hardy, joyous, light-hearted, liberty-loving immigrants from Ireland.

We emulate the sway of ancient Rome; but Rome was wiser than those who affect an exclusive monopoly of American citizenship. Provinces and nations as soon as subjugated, became parts of the Roman empire, and although its eagles threatened conquest

wherever they advanced, they nevertheless bore on their wings charters of Roman citizenship.

Love for their native land is common to all men, but it exceeds its just bounds when it leads men to despise or hate their fellow-men. This excess is the prejudice of ignorance. The native American can not half so heartily despise the Irishman, as the Chinese despises the American. He who has left his native land to seek an asylum here, has made a sacrifice to liberty which ought to commend him to our respect and affection. His children born here will be native Americans as we are; the parent is a foreigner only as our own parents or ancestors, near or remote, also were.

Do we excel, because the foreigner can not speak our language. We can not speak his. It were well if each knew the language of the other, for it is stored with treasures which would add immeasurably to his knowledge and the elements of his happiness.

The battle-cry of liberty is as animating when sounded in French, in German, or in Spanish, as in English, and the accents of love and affection are tender in whatever dialect they may have utterance. Should differences of religious belief divide us? Washington invoked the Divine blessing on our army in a protestant ritual-Lafayette employed the Roman formulary. Would the prayers of either have been answered, if they had carried into council quarrels from the altar? We ought never to forget that, various as are the expositions of our holy faith, they all agree in this, that without charity there is no Christianity.— Letter, March 15, 1844.

Louis Kossuth.

I AM a lover of peace. I shall never freely give my consent to any measure which I shall think will tend to involve this nation in the calamities of foreign war. I believe that our mission is a mission of republicanism. But I believe that we shall best execute it by maintaining peace at home and with all mankind; and if I saw in this measure a step in advance toward the bloody field of contention in the affairs of Europe, I, too, would hesitate long before adopting it. But I see no advance toward any such

danger in doing a simple act of national justice and magnanimity. I believe that no man will deny the principle, that a nation may do for the cause of liberty in other nations whatever the laws of nations do not forbid. I plant myself upon that principle. What the laws of nations do not forbid, any nation may do for the cause of civil liberty in any other nation, in any other country. Now, the laws of nations do not forbid hospitality. The laws of nations do not forbid us to sympathize with the exile to sympathize with the overthrown champion of freedom. The laws of nature demand that hospitality, and from the very inmost sources of our nature springs up that sympathy. What is that great epic poem which has filled the second place in the admiration, I had almost said in the affections, of mankind for two thousand years, but the history of an exile flying from the walls of his burning city and devoted state ? Sir, the laws of nature require-the laws of nations command hospitality to those who fly from oppression and despair. And this is all that we have done, and all that we propose to do. We have invited Kossuth- we have procured his release from captivity-we have brought him here-and we propose to say to him, standing upon our shores with his eye directed to us, and while we know that the eyes of the civilized world are fixed upon him and us, "Louis Kossuth, in the name of the American people we bid you a cordial welcome."

*

*

*

I will suppose now that the opposition made to this resolution is effective. I will suppose that the measure is defeated. Let us look to the consequences beyond. What are they? Kossuth, admitted here to be the representative of the down-trodden constitutional liberties of his own country, and the representative of the up-rising liberties of Europe, shakes from his feet the dust that has gathered upon them on American shores, and returns to the eastern continent-returns upon a point of honor with the United States of America, and therefore, in a practical view, returns, as he will say, and those devoted to his cause will say, repulsed, driven back. Where then, sir, shall he find welcome and repose? In his own beautiful native land, at the base or on the slopes of the Carpathian hills? No! the Austrian despot reigns absolutely there. Shall he find it in Germany, east or west, north or south? No sir; the despot of Austria and

the despot of Prussia reign absolutely there. Shall he find it under the sunny skies of Italy? No, sir; for the Austrian monarch has crushed Italy to the earth. Shall he find it in Siberia,

No, sir; for the Russian

or in the frozen regions of the North? czar, who drove him from his native land and forced him into exile in Turkey, will be ready to seize the fugitive. The scaf fold awaits him there. Where shall he go? Shall he seek protection again from the sceptred Turk? The Turk would say, 'You have eaten my salt as a voluntary captive, and I sheltered you until you left me under the seductions of the republic of the United States. If you come now, the laws of my country and of my God will not oblige or allow me to hazard the peace of my own people again to extend protection over you.' Where, then, shall he go? Where else on the face of broad Europe can he find refuge but in the land of your forefathers, in Britain? There, God be thanked, there would be a welcome and a home for him. Are you prepared to give to the world evidence that you can not receive the representative of liberty and republicanism, whom England can honor, shelter, and protect?

But, Mr. President, will this transaction end there? I fancy that I see the exile wending his lonely way, with downcast look, along the streets and thoroughfares of the great metropolis of Britain and the world, forsaken and abandoned, but not forgotten. Will it end in that? No, sir. Beyond us, above us, there is a tribunal, higher and greater than the Congress of the United States. It is a tribunal whose existence and jurisdiction and authority we have acknowledged, and to whose judg ment-seat we have already called the Turk, the Austrian, and the Russian, to account for their action in regard to Hungary and to Kossuth. It is the tribunal of the public opinion of the world—the public opinion of mankind. Sir, that tribunal is unerring in its judgments. It is constituted of the great, the wise and the good of all nations-not only of the great, and wise, and good, who are now living, but of the great, the wise, and the good of all ages. Before that tribunal, states, great and small, are equal. Ay, before that tribunal the proudest empire is equalled by its humblest citizen or subject. Yes, the Indian and the serf are equal there to the American republic and to the Russian empire. I know no living man entitled

by the consent of Christendom to preside in that august tribunal. But there is a venerable form that seems to rise up before me, and all the congregated nations and people deferentially make way as he advances and takes the judgment-seat. It is the shade of Franklin. And there I see the parties opposed. On the one side stands Hungary, downcast and sorrowful, but she is surrounded by the people of many lands, who wait her redemption and their own. On the other side I see the United States of America, sustained-most singular conjunction!-by the youthful and impatient Bonaparte, the sickly successor of the Romans, and the czar of all the Russias. I hear the impeachment read. It is, that the United States have dishonored and insulted the unfortunate representative of unfortunate Hungary; that they found him a captive in Asia Minor, under the protection of the Turk, but subjected to the surveillance of the Russian tyrant; that they addressed to him words of sympathy and hope, and that they brought to the doors of his captivity a national vessel, with their time-honored flag, and bade him to come upon its deck and be conveyed to a land of constitutional freedom―a land where the advocates and champions of universal liberty were sure to enjoy respect and sympathy, and fraternal welcome; and that when they had so seduced him from a place of obscurity, but of safety, and had thus brought him to their own shores, and when he stood waiting there for one simple word of welcome, one simple look of recognition, they turned away from him, spurned him from their presence, and cast him back upon the charities of Christian or Turk, in whatever land they might be found.

That is the impeachment. And the United States hold up the right hand and answer, “Not guilty." I see the books of testimony opened on behalf of Hungary. Here they are. A resolution of the Congress, of the United States of America, passed in the year 1850, tendering the hospitalities of the nation, and the use of a national ship, to Louis Kossuth; then the message of the president of the United States, in 1851, calling upon Congress to say what shall be the ceremonial of receiving him who has been brought here under their authority; and then the record of this senate, that upon a division of its members, a resolution of welcome was rejected. That constitutes the case on