[After this, Kossuth proceeded to speak on the aspect of republicanism towards Catholicism and the fortunes of Ireland; a subject more fully treated in other speeches.]

* * * * *

ADDRESS TO KOSSUTH FROM THE STATE COMMITTEE OF OHIO.

Governor Kossuth:—­As Chairman of the Committee appointed for that purpose by a resolution of the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, I have the honour to tender to you, in the name and in behalf of the State, a cordial welcome to the capital.

We proffer this greeting as a small tribute of that admiration which your courage, your integrity, and above all, your self-denying devotion to the cause of Hungarian freedom has roused in our breasts.

Wonder not, sir, at the enthusiasm which your presence excites in a people who cherish, with fond recollection and reverence, the smallest relic of that time, when liberty wrestled with oppression in America, and who hail the anniversaries of her triumphs with such grateful remembrance of those brave and patriotic men who wrought out our full measure of national happiness.

In you we behold a living embodiment of those great principles which we cherish with such tender affection.

You are the realization of that virtue, that courage, that civil and military genius, which sheds such lustre on our early history.

You call to mind more freshly than poetic or historic page, song, or speaking canvass, that glorious record which was graven more than two centuries ago by the first exiles from European oppression upon the granite rocks of New England,—­"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

Our affection is warmed by the lively interest which we feel in the spread of this cardinal principle, and the fitness for its championship which you have evinced, revealing constantly a resemblance to that immortal man, the impress of whose greatness you behold on every side.

When Liberty, scourged from the old, sought out a new world wherein to raise her sacred temple, it was to his master hand she confided the noble work.

Had he been less great, that glorious shrine might never have been beaconed in the sky, or at least its proportions might have been uncouth and insecure.

Now therefore, since liberty has secured the manifold blessings that flow from human equality, and proudly flung back the taunts of tyrants, it is a joyous reflection to the children of this her first home, that she has at length found a man in foreign lands fitly gifted to appreciate those blessings, industrious to search out and follow the path by which they were attained, and virtuous to take no selfish advantage from the thanksgiving that her mission will arouse.

Sir, it is a splendid characteristic of our national government, that Ohioans are as keenly touched by the history of your wrongs as the borders of the Atlantic States.