There may be some over-anxious men, who perhaps would say, “But if such a declaration of your government were not respected, and Russia still did interfere, then you would be obliged by this previous declaration, to go to war; and you don’t desire to have a war.”  That objection seems to me as if somebody were to say, “If the vault of heaven breaks down, what shall we do?” My answer is, “But it will not break down.”  Even so I answer.  But your declaration will be respected—­Russia will not interfere—­you will have no occasion for war—­you will have prevented war.  Be sure Russia would twice, thrice consider, before provoking against itself, besides the roused judgment of nations—­(to say nothing of the legions of republican France)—­the English “Lion” and the star-surrounded “Eagle” of America.  Remember that you, in conjunction with England, once before declared that you would not permit European absolutism to interfere with the formerly Spanish colonies of America.  Did this declaration bring you to a war? quite the contrary; it prevented war.  So it would be in our case also.  Let me therefore most humbly entreat you, people of the United States, to give such practical direction to your generous sympathy for Hungary, as to arrange meetings and pass such resolutions, in every possible place of this Union, as I took the liberty to mention above.

The SECOND measure which I beg leave to mention, has reference to commercial interest.  In later times a doctrine has stolen into the code of international law, which is as contrary to the commercial interests of nations as to their independence.  The pettiest despot of the world is permitted to exclude your commerce from whatever port he pleases.  He has only to arrange the blockade, and your commerce is shut out; or, if captured Venice, bleeding Lombardy, or my prostrate but resolute Hungary, rises to shake off the Austrian tyrant’s yoke (as surely they will), that tyrant believes he has the right, from that very moment, to exclude your commerce from the uprisen nation.  Now, this is an absurdity—­a tyrannical invention of tyrants violating your interest—­your independence.  The United States have not always regarded things from the despotic point of view.  I find, in a note of Mr. Everett, Minister of the United States in Spain, dated “Madrid, Jan. 20, 1826,” these words:—­“In the war between Spain and the Spanish American colonies, the United States have freely granted to both parties the hospitality of their ports and territory, and have allowed the agents of both to procure within their jurisdiction, in the way of lawful trade, any supplies which suited their convenience.”  Now, gentlemen, this is the principle which humanity expects, for your own and for mankind’s benefit, to see maintained by you, and not yonder fatal course, which permits tyrants to draw from your country every facility for the oppression of their nations, but forbids nations to buy the means of defence.  That was