ggle, America was silent and England did not stir; and
while you were assisted by a French King, we were forsaken by a French
Republic--itself now trodden down because it has forsaken us?

Well, we are not broken yet. There is hope for us, because there is a
God in heaven and an America on earth. May be that our nameless woes
were necessary, that the glorious destiny of America may be fulfilled;
that after it had been an asylum for the oppressed, it should become, by
regenerating Europe, the pillar of manhood's liberty.

Oh! it is not a mere capricious change of fate, that the exiled governor
of the land whose name, four years ago, was scarcely known on your
glorious shores, and which now (oh, let me have the blessings of this
belief!) is dear to the generous heart of America. It is not a mere
chance that Hungary's exiled chief thanks the Senators of Maryland for
the high honour of public welcome in that very Hall where the first
Continental Congress met; where your great Republic's glorious
constitution was framed; where the treaty of acknowledged independence
was ratified, and where you, Senators, guard with steady hand the rights
of your sovereign States which is now united to thirty others, not to
make you less free, but to make you more mighty--to make you a power on
earth.

I believe there is the hand of God in history. You assigned a place in
this hall of freedom to the memory of Chatham, for having been just to
America, by opposing the stamp act, which awoke your nation to
resistance.

Now, the people of England think as once Pitt the elder thought, and
honours with deep reverence the memory of your Washington.

But suppose the England of Lord Chatham's time had thought as Chatham
did: and his burning words had moved the English aristocracy to be just
towards the colonies: those our men there [turning to the portraits] had
not signed your country's independence. Washington were perhaps a name
"unknown, unhonoured, and unsung," and this proud constellation of your
glorious stars had perhaps not yet risen on mankind's sky--instead of
being now about to become the sun of Freedom. It is thus Providence
acts.

Let me hope, sir, that Hungary's unmerited fate was necessary, in order
that your stars should become such a sun.

Sirs, I stand, perhaps, upon the very spot where your Washington stood,
consummating the greatest act of his life. The walls which now listen
to my humble words, listened to the words of hi