The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,778 pages of information about The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster.

The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,778 pages of information about The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster.
Hungarian revolution.  The American agent, as was stated in his instructions to be not unlikely, found the condition of Hungarian affairs less prosperous than it had been, or had been believed to be.  He did not enter Hungary, nor hold any direct communication with her revolutionary leaders.  He reported against the recognition of her independence, because he found she had been unable to set up a firm and stable government.  He carefully forbore, as his instructions required, to give publicity to his mission, and the undersigned supposes that the Austrian government first learned its existence from the communications of the President to the Senate.

Mr. Huelsemann will observe from this statement, that Mr. Mann’s mission was wholly unobjectionable, and strictly within the rule of the law of nations and the duty of the United States as a neutral power.  He will accordingly feel how little foundation there is for his remark, that “those who did not hesitate to assume the responsibility of sending Mr. Dudley Mann on such an errand should, independent of considerations of propriety, have borne in mind that they were exposing their emissary to be treated as a spy.”  A spy is a person sent by one belligerent to gain secret information of the forces and defences of the other, to be used for hostile purposes.  According to practice, he may use deception, under the penalty of being lawfully hanged if detected.  To give this odious name and character to a confidential agent of a neutral power, bearing the commission of his country, and sent for a purpose fully warranted by the law of nations, is not only to abuse language, but also to confound all just ideas, and to announce the wildest and most extravagant notions, such as certainly were not to have been expected in a grave diplomatic paper; and the President directs the undersigned to say to Mr. Huelsemann, that the American government would regard such an imputation upon it by the Cabinet of Austria as that it employs spies, and that in a quarrel none of its own, as distinctly offensive, if it did not presume, as it is willing to presume, that the word used in the original German was not of equivalent meaning with “spy” in the English language, or that in some other way the employment of such an opprobrious term may be explained.  Had the Imperial government of Austria subjected Mr. Mann for the treatment of a spy, it would have placed itself without the pale of civilized nations; and the Cabinet of Vienna may be assured, that if it had carried, or attempted to carry, any such lawless purpose into effect, in the case of an authorized agent of this government, the spirit of the people of this country would have demanded immediate hostilities to be waged by the utmost exertion of the power of the republic, military and naval.

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The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.