ean concerns--this objection is disposed of, once and for
ever, I hope. It remains now to inquire, whether, since you have
professed not to be indifferent to the cause of European freedom--the
cause of Hungary is such as to have just claims to your active and
effectual assistance and support. It is, gentlemen.

To prove this I do not now intend to enter into an explanation of the
particulars of our struggle, which I had the honour to conduct, as the
chosen Chief Magistrate of my native land. It is highly gratifying to me
to find that the cause of Hungary is--excepting some ridiculous
misrepresentations of ill-will--correctly understood here. I will only
state now one fact, and that is, that our endeavours for independence
were crushed by the armed interference of a foreign despotic power--the
principle of all evil on earth--Russia. And stating this fact, I will
not again intrude upon you with my own views, but recall to your memory
the doctrines established by your own statesmen. Firstly--I return to
your great Washington. He says, in one of his letters to Lafayette, "My
policies are plain and simple; I think every nation has a right to
establish that form of government under which it conceives it can live
most happy; and that no government ought to interfere with the internal
concerns of another." Here I take my ground:--upon a principle of
Washington--a _principle_, not a mere temporary policy calculated
for the first twenty years of your infancy. Russia _has_ interfered
with the internal concerns of Hungary, and by doing so has violated the
policy of the United States, established as a lasting principle by
Washington himself. It is a lasting principle. I could appeal in my
support to the opinion of every statesman of the United States, of every
party, of every time; but to save time, I pass at once from the first
President of the United States to the last, and recall to your memory
this word of the present annual message of his Excellency President
Fillmore:--"Let every people choose for itself, and make and alter its
political institutions to suit its own condition and convenience." I beg
leave also to quote the statement of your present Secretary of State,
Mr. Webster, who, in his speech on the Greek question, speaks
thus:--"The law of nations maintains that in extreme cases resistance is
lawful, and that one nation has no right to interfere in the affairs of
another." Well, that precisely is the ground upon which w