from our country; our answer to his impious
treachery was the declaration of our independence and his forfeiture of
the crown.

Were we right to do so, or not?

We were; and _we had accomplished already our lawful enterprise
victoriously_; we had taken our competent seat amongst the
independent nations on earth. But the other independent powers, and
alas! even the United States, lingered to acknowledge our dearly but
gloriously bought independence; and beaten Austria had time to take her
refuge under the shelter of the other principle, hostile to
self-government, of the sacrilegious principle of FOREIGN ARMED
INTERFERENCE.

The Czar of Russia declared that the example of Hungary is dangerous to
the interests of absolutism! He interfered, and aided by treason, he
succeeded to crush freedom and self-government in Hungary, and to
establish a centralized absolutism there, where, through all the ages of
the past, the rule of despotism never had been established, and the
United States let him silently accomplish this violation of the common
law of nations.

Gentlemen, the law of nations, upon which you have raised the lofty hall
of your independence, does not exist any more. The despots are united
and leagued against national self-government. They declare it
inconsistent with their divine (rather Satanic) rights; and upon this
basis all the nations of the European Continent are held in fetters; the
government of France is become a vanguard to Russia, St. Petersburg is
transferred to Paris, and England is forced to arm and to prepare for
self-defence at home.

These are the immediate consequences of the downfall of the principle of
self-government in Hungary, by the violence of foreign interference. But
if this great principle is not restored to its full weight by the
restoration of Hungary's sovereign independence, then you will see yet
other consequences in your own country. _Your_ freedom and
prosperity is hated as dangerous to the despots of Europe. If you do not
believe me, believe at least what the organs of your enemies openly avow
themselves. Pozzo di Borgo, the great Russian diplomatist, and
Hulsemann, the little Austrian diplomatist, repeatedly in 1817 and 1823,
published that despotism is in danger, unless yourselves become a
king-ridden people. If you study the history of the Hungarian struggle,
you can also see the way by which the despots will carry their design.
The secret power of foreign diplomacy will