]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Justice Wilde.]
KOSSUTH.
FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED IN BOSTON, ON THE 7TH OF NOVEMBER, 1849, AT A
FESTIVAL OF THE NATIVES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE ESTABLISHED IN MASSACHUSETTS.
We have all had our sympathies much enlisted in the Hungarian effort for
liberty. We have all wept at its failure. We thought we saw a more
rational hope of establishing free government in Hungary than in any
other part of Europe, where the question has been in agitation within
the last twelve months. But despotic power from abroad intervened to
suppress that hope.
And, Gentlemen, what will come of it I do not know. For my part, at this
moment, I feel more indignant at recent events connected with Hungary
than at all those which passed in her struggle for liberty. I see that
the Emperor of Russia demands of Turkey that the noble Kossuth and his
companions shall be given up, to be dealt with at his pleasure. And I
see that this demand is made in derision of the established law of
nations. Gentlemen, there is something on earth greater than arbitrary
or despotic power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind has
its power, and the earthquake has its power; but there is something
among men more capable of shaking despotic thrones than lightning,
whirlwind, or earthquake, and that is, the excited and aroused
indignation of the whole civilized world. Gentlemen, the Emperor of
Russia holds himself to be bound by the law of nations, from the fact
that he negotiates with civilized nations, and that he forms alliances
and treaties with them.
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