Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalvawas a Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Governor-President of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 1848–49. With the help of his talent in oratory in political debates and public speeches, Kossuth emerged from a poor gentry family into regent-president of Kingdom of Hungary. As the most influential contemporary American journalist Horace Greeley said of Kossuth: “Among the orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior.” Kossuth's powerful English and American...
NationalityHungarian
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth19 September 1802
I consider no man honest who does not observe towards other nations the principles which he desires to be observed towards his own: and therefore I will not interfere in your domestic questions.
Liberty is a principle; its community is its security; exclusiveness is its doom.
Neutrality, as a lasting principle, is an evidence of weakness.
I am a republican. I have avowed it openly in monarchical but free England; and am happy to state that I have lost nothing by this avowal there.
But the Hungarian nation, although taken by surprise, unarmed and unprepared, did not abandon its future prospects in any agony of despair.
I must therefore implore your indulgence for a pretty long and plain development of my views concerning that cause which the citizens of New York, and you particularly, gentlemen, honour with generous interest.
I came not to your glorious shores to enjoy a happy rest - I came not to gather triumphs of personal distinction, but as a humble petitioner, in my country's name, as its freely chosen constitutional leader, to entreat your generous aid.
The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery.
Men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.
Upon this the Hungarian ministers resigned, but the names submitted by the president of the council, at the demand of the king, were not approved of for successors.
I consider that it is on instruction and education that the future security and direction of the destiny of every nation chiefly and fundamentally rests.
Ethics may be defined as the obligations of morality.
It is chiefly in New York that I feel induced to urge this, because New York is, by innumerable ties, connected with Europe - more connected than several parts of Europe itself.
Your generous part in my liberation is taken by the world for the revelation of the fact, that the United States are resolved not to allow the despots of the world to trample on oppressed humanity.