This being a gift from a citizen of the United States, I take it as a token of encouragement to go on in that way by which, with the blessing of Almighty God, I shall yet be enabled again to see my fatherland independent and free.  I swear here before you, that this American sword in my hand shall be always faithful in the cause of freedom—­that it shall be ever foremost in the battle—­and that it shall never be polluted by ambition or cowardice.

* * * * *

X.—­CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL FOR DEMOCRACY AND PEACE.

[Reply to the Address of the Democrats of Tammany Hall, New York, Dec. 17th.]

Mr. Sickles, who made the address, closed by stating that he contributed to the cause of Hungary “a golden dollar, fresh from the free mines of the Pacific;” adding that he trusted millions would follow, and that the “Almighty Dollar,” if still the proverb of a money-making people, would become a symbol of its noblest instincts and truest ambition.

Kossuth, in reply, after warm thanks, declined the personal praises bestowed on him, and sketched the series of events by which the Austrian tyranny had converted him from insignificance into a man of importance.  He then proceeded to comment on France[*] as follows:—­I hope that the great French nation will soon succeed to establish a true republic.  But I have come to the conviction, that for freedom there is no duration in CENTRALIZATION, which is a legacy of ambitious men.  To be conquerors, power must be centralized; but to be a free nation, self-government must reign in families, villages, cities, counties, states.  As power now is lodged in France, the government has in its hand an army of half a million of men, under that iron discipline which is needed in a standing army.  It has under its control a budget of more than a thousand million francs.  It can dispose of every public office in France; it has a civil army of more than 500,000 men:  the mayor of the least village derives his appointment from the government.  All the police, all the gens d’armes, are in its hands.  Now, gentlemen, is it not clear that—­with such authority and force,—­not to become dangerous to liberty, every President needs to be a Washington.  And Washingtons are not so thickly strewn around.  Woe to the country, whose institutions are such, that their freedom depends on the personal character of one man.  Be he the best man in the world, he will not overcome the essential repugnance of his position to freedom.  When France abandons this centralization, and carries out her own principles of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” by local self-government, she will be the great basis of European republics.  As to sovereignty of the people, I take it that the right to cast a vote for the election of a President once in four years does not exhaust the sovereign rights of a nation.  A people deciding about its own matters, must be everywhere master of its own fate, in village communes as much as in electing its chief officer.