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XIV.—­RESULTS OF THE OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

[Speech at the Citizens’ Banquet, Philadelphia, Dec. 26th.]

Mr. Dallas, the Chairman, made an eloquent address advocating the cause of Hungary against Russia, and avowing the duty of America to give warlike aid.  This speech was the more remarkable, as coming immediately after the arrival of the news of Louis Napoleon’s usurpation.  The mind of the public was naturally so full of the event, that Kossuth could not avoid to discuss it; but the topic is so threadbare to the reader, that it will suffice here to preserve a few sentiments.

In the opening, Kossuth complained of forged letters and forged cheques sent to annoy him, and anonymous letters of false accusation circulated against him.  Proceeding from this to public topics, and the certainty of a new convulsion in Europe, he said, that it might prove in the future highly dangerous to the moneyed interests, if the world be persuaded that the holders of great disposable wealth use it to aid despotism, and that the possession of it checks the generous propensity to forward the triumph of freedom.  If the world be confirmed in this persuasion, the results will be painfully felt by those gentlemen, whose treasures are always open for the despots to crush liberty with.  Such moneylenders have excited boundless hatred in all that section of Europe, which has had to suffer from their ready financial aid to despotism.  I (said Kossuth) am no Socialist, no Communist; and if I get the means to act efficiently, I shall so act that the inevitable revolution may not subvert the rights of property:  but so much I confidently declare—­that to the spreading of Communist doctrines in certain quarters of Europe nobody has so much contributed as those European capitalists, who by incessantly aiding the despots with their money have inspired many of the oppressed with the belief that financial wealth is dangerous to the freedom of the world.  Rothschild is the most efficient apostle of Communism.

In regard to Louis Bonaparte’s temporary success, Kossuth argued, that it would secure, when France makes her next move for freedom, two results beneficial to liberty:  First, that in future, the French republicans would abandon their delusive and disastrous Centralization.  We have shown (said he) in Hungary, that for a nation to be invincible, its life must not be bound up with its metropolis.  Henceforward, in European aspirations, centralization is replaced by federative harmony.  I thank Louis Napoleon for it. Your principles of local self-government, gentlemen, were hitherto professed on the continent of Europe chiefly by us Hungarians:  now they will conquer the world,—­a new victory for humanity.  Had the old French republic stood, it would have perpetuated the curse of great standing armies, which are instruments of ambition and a wasting pestilence.  Again; the blow struck by Louis Napoleon has forced his nation into the common destiny of Europe.  It has forbidden France ever in future to play a separate game, and think to keep her own liberty, without effectively espousing the cause of foreign liberty.