If you ask, how soon is such an exclusion of your produce from Europe by Russian influence possible?  I reply:  possibly within a single year; for within a year, if we cannot recommence the struggle, Russia may accomplish the partition of Europe.  Principles can only be balanced by principles—­absolutism by republican institutions—­unrighteous interference by the law of nations—­despotism by civil and religious liberty.  This is the cause which I advocate.  It is not the cause of Hungary alone; it is yours—­it is the world’s.  It has a determination as absolute and extreme as despotism.

Hungary would have been too content, if Russia had not interfered, merely to defend herself against Austria, the immediate instrument of her oppression.  Now the independence of Europe, and the independence of Hungary with it, can only be secured on the Moskwa, and on the Neva, in the Kremlin, and in the great Hall of St. George.

For this purpose, in which you yourselves are so vitally interested, we do not claim for you to fight our battles for us.  Look to the nations of Europe, groaning under Russia’s weight.  Look, in the first line to Sweden, and from Sweden, across Poland to Hungary, and from Hungary to Turkey, and to brave Circassia.  Pronounce in favor of the law of nations, with the determination which shows that you mean to act, and I say, Russia will respect your declaration, or else it will have a war from Sweden down to Turkey and Circassia.  So soon as it moves with 160,000 to 200,000 men against Hungary (and with less it could not), all those nations will be aware that there is the last opportunity afforded to them by Providence to shake off Russia’s yoke, and they will avail themselves of this opportunity—­be sure of it.  The momentary fall of Hungary was too painful a lesson to them.

But again I am answered, “in case of such a war you will be entangled in it.”  To this I say that you will have to fight a war single-handed and alone, within less than five years against Russia and all Europe, if you do not take the position which I humbly claim.  But if you take this position, the necessity of this war will be averted from you, and Russian preponderance will be checked and your protestation respected, without having to go to war.  Because there is another sanction which you may add to your protestation—­a sanction powerful as a threat of war, and yet no war at all.  That sanction will be the declaration of Congress, that, as the intervention of a foreign power in the domestic affairs of any nation is a violation of the laws of nations, by the fact of such intervention your neutrality laws of 1818 are suspended in as far as the interfering or interference-claiming power is concerned.  In other words, that the citizens of the United States are at liberty to follow their own inclination in respect to such a foreign power which violates the laws of nations.

This sanction would be sufficient, because the enterprizing spirit of your high-minded people is too well known not to be feared by all the despots of the world.