Select Speeches of Kossuth | Page 5

Therefore I claim for my own country also, that
England, seeing from our past that our cause is just, should profess the
sovereign right of every nation to dispose of itself, and should allow no
power whatever to interfere with our domestic matters. Since I thus
regard the internal affairs of every nation to be its own separate concern,
I did not think it became me here in England to speak about the future
organization of our country.
But my behavior has not been everywhere appreciated as I hoped. I
have met in certain quarters the remark that I "am slippery, and evade
the question." Now on the point of sincerity I am particularly
susceptible. I have the sentiment of being a straightforward man, and I
would not be charged with having stolen into the sympathies of
England without displaying my true colours. Therefore I must clearly
state, that in our past struggle it was NOT we who made a revolution.
We began peacefully and legislatively to transform the
monarchico-aristocratical constitution of Hungary into a
monarchico-democratical constitution. We preserved our municipal
institutions, as our most valuable treasure; but to them, as well as to the
legislative power, we gave, as basis, the common liberty of the people,
instead of the class-privileges of old. Moreover, in place of the old
Board of Council,--which, being a corporate body, was of course a
mockery in regard to that responsibility of the Executive, which was
our chartered right on paper,--we established the real and personal
responsibility of ministers. In this, we merely[*] upheld what was due
to us by constitution, by treaties, by the coronation-oath of every
king,--the right to be "governed as a self-consistent, independent
country, by our native institutions, according to our own laws." This
and all our other reforms we effected peacefully by careful legislation,
which the King sanctioned and swore to maintain.
[Footnote *: Many Englishmen have unjustly accused the Hungarians
as having by the laws of March, 1848, effected a SEPARATION of

Hungary from Austria. Even if this were true, it could not justify the
cause of the Hapsburgs. The dynasty yielded, under the pressure of
circumstances (as alone will dynasties ever yield), while Hungary did
but petition legally, and was in fact unarmed. The dynasty swore to the
new laws; and then conspired with Croatians, Serbians, and Russians to
overthrow the laws by marauding and force of arms. In fact, if in
January, 1849, Austria would have negotiated, instead of arresting all
Hungarian ambassadors, Hungary would have consented to modify the
laws of March: but the Austrians had already in October ordered the
overthrow of the whole Hungarian constitution, and had no wish to do
anything by legal methods.
At the same time, the original objection is fundamentally false. No
separation of the two countries was effected by the laws of March,
1848; for no legal union ever existed. Only the crowns were united, not
the countries. Kossuth rightly compares the union to that which was
between England and Hanover. At any time in the past, Hungary might
have made peace with a power with which Austria was at war, if the
Kings had not falsified their oath by not assembling the Diet: for the
Diet always had the lawful right of War and Peace. Any mode
whatsoever of enforcing the Coronation oath, might, according to this
logic, be condemned as a "separating" of Austria and Hungary.]
Nevertheless, this very dynasty, in the most perjurious manner,
attacked these laws, this freedom, this constitution, by arms. We
defended ourselves by arms victoriously. When upon this the perjurious
dynasty called in the Russian armies to beat us down, we of course
declared the Hapsburgs to be no longer our sovereigns. We avowed
ourselves to be a free and independent nation, but fixed as yet no
definite form of government,--neither monarchical nor republican.
These are plain facts. Hungary is not now under lawful government, but
is being trampled down by a foreign intruder who is not King of
Hungary, being _neither acknowledged by the nation, nor sanctioned
by law_. Hungary is, in a word, in a state of WAR against the
Hapsburg dynasty, a war of legitimate defence, by which alone it can
ever regain independence and freedom. By such war alone has any
nation ever won its freedom from oppressors; as you see in Switzerland,
Belgium, Spain, Portugal, France, Sweden, Norway, Greece, the United
States, and England itself.

I can state it, as known to me, with the certainty of matter of fact, that
Hungary will never accept the Hapsburgs as legitimate sovereigns in
the future, nor ever enter into any new moral relations with that
perjurious family. Nor only so; but their perjury has so entirely plucked
out of my nation's heart all faith in monarchy and all attachment to it,