To prove this I do not now intend to enter into an explanation of the particulars of our struggle, which I had the honour to conduct, as the chosen Chief Magistrate of my native land.  It is highly gratifying to me to find that the cause of Hungary is—­excepting some ridiculous misrepresentations of ill-will—­correctly understood here.  I will only state now one fact, and that is, that our endeavours for independence were crushed by the armed interference of a foreign despotic power—­the principle of all evil on earth—­Russia.  And stating this fact, I will not again intrude upon you with my own views, but recall to your memory the doctrines established by your own statesmen.  Firstly—­I return to your great Washington.  He says, in one of his letters to Lafayette, “My policies are plain and simple; I think every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it can live most happy; and that no government ought to interfere with the internal concerns of another.”  Here I take my ground:—­upon a principle of Washington—­a principle, not a mere temporary policy calculated for the first twenty years of your infancy.  Russia has interfered with the internal concerns of Hungary, and by doing so has violated the policy of the United States, established as a lasting principle by Washington himself.  It is a lasting principle.  I could appeal in my support to the opinion of every statesman of the United States, of every party, of every time; but to save time, I pass at once from the first President of the United States to the last, and recall to your memory this word of the present annual message of his Excellency President Fillmore:—­“Let every people choose for itself, and make and alter its political institutions to suit its own condition and convenience.”  I beg leave also to quote the statement of your present Secretary of State, Mr. Webster, who, in his speech on the Greek question, speaks thus:—­“The law of nations maintains that in extreme cases resistance is lawful, and that one nation has no right to interfere in the affairs of another.”  Well, that precisely is the ground upon which we Hungarians stand.

But I may perhaps meet the objection (I am sorry to say I have met it already)—­“Well, we own that it has been violated by Russia in the case of Hungary, but after all what is Hungary to us?  Let every people take care of itself, what is that to us?” So some speak:  it is the old doctrine of private egotism, “Every one for himself, and God for us all.”  I will answer the objection again by the words of Mr. Webster, who, in his speech on the Greek question, having professed that the internal sovereignty of every nation is a law of nations—­thus goes on, “But it may be asked ‘what is all that to us?’ The question is easily answered. We are one of the nations, and we as a nation have precisely the same interest in international law as a private individual has in the laws of his country.”  The principle which your honourable Secretary of State professes, is a principle of eternal truth.  No man can disavow it, no political party can disavow it.  Thus happily I am able to address my prayers, not to a party, but to the whole people of the United States, and will go on to do so as long as I have no reason to regard one party as opposed or indifferent to my country’s cause.