These great wrongs, the outbreak of long-cherished religious and political intolerance, were not its most fearful and alarming incident. Emboldened by popular forbearance, the spirit of proscription has approached Congress, with a demand for the full disfranchisement in America of all men not born on the American soil. I say disfranchisement-for twenty-one years' residence, which is now insisted on, as a condition of naturalization, would be virtual disfranchisement.

I have not heard the loud and deep-toned censures upon the Philadelphia wrongs, and upon the recent acts of British oppression, which I expected from the American press and from the leaders of mind in America. Therefore in this hour of trial I come here freely to declare before my countrymenand if my voice could reach the region of thrones, to declare before principalities and powers-that the injuries inflicted upon the Irishmen in America are a flagrant violation of law, of constitution, of liberty, and of humanity. I know, indeed, what this declaration costs. It may, indeed, give comfort to the poor and desponding exile, and awaken feelings of kindness toward me in his bosom, but it will offend very many of my own countrymen. Be it so. I desire the respect and regard of my own countrymen; but I would rather have the gratitude of one desponding and depressed fellow-man, than the suffrage of the whole American people given to me in consideration of denying any true principle of free government, or repressing any impulse of humanity. . .

Believe not, fellow-citizens, that this is a question which interests or concerns only the voluntary citizen. The work of disfranchisement once effectually begun, would not cease with the debasement of one class or condition of men; other classes would follow, and oligarchy be succeeded by despotism. Nor is this all. Let the wise men who favor this disfranchisement tell us how they expect to secure the subordination of the disfranchised classes. They can not be expelled; they must increase they increase by virtue of the irresistible and unchangeable laws of God. They can not be degraded to domestic slavery, and unless so degraded, they can not be held in subjection to authority, except in one of two ways, by their own voluntary consent, or by military force. Standing armies no

man dare defend: disfranchised men will not yield voluntary obedience.-Address at Utica, July, 1844.

Entolerance.

I GREATLY fear that the American people do not know how highly they are respected and venerated by the down-trodden masses of Europe. Some among us are ambitious of the favorable judgment of the privileged classes in the old world. Their respect and sympathies are not to be expected. We are disturbers, innovators; and the affection we gain in Europe must proceed from those to whom the progress of democratic principles brings hope not terror. To the oppressed masses in France, in Greece, in Poland, in Italy, in England, and Ireland, the United States of America is the Palestine from which comes a revelation effectual to political salvation. Thence, therefore, come pilgrims of hope, ardent and enthusiastic in the faith they have received from us, and they expect naturally and justly to be received and welcomed as brethren. Strange that any native American citizen should repel those pilgrims, and justly sad is their disappointment when repulsed. Not even the Christian knights who penetrated to the Holy City by crusade were more grieved when they discovered that the Christians of Jerusalem had relapsed into the superstition of the Moslem faith, and forgotten the place of the tomb in which the Savior had reposed.

So, too, when a revolution occurs in Europe, whether tempestuous and convulsive like those in France, Greece, and Poland, or moral and pacific like that in your own native land, the uprising masses turn at once to the United States of America for succor and for support; and such is the mysterious fellowship produced by the love of liberty, that the sympathies of the American people have always been found irrepressible. Ought it to be otherwise? Who would not blush for his country if it were not so? The spirit of freedom, like that of Christianity, is expansive and comprehensive. The church that sends forth no missionaries, need take heed, for its light is about to be darkened. The republic that desires no proselytes, must take warning, for its downfall is at hand.

These sentiments, derived, I trust, from the teachings of the

American Revolution, seem to me as wise as they are generous. If there be any petition which mankind might wish added to the formula given by the Savior, it would be that the scourge of war might cease, and that peace and good will might prevail among men. But peace and good will can never prevail until mankind learn and feel the simple truth, that however birth or language or climate may have made them differ-however mountains, deserts, rivers, and seas, may divide states—the nations of the earth are nevertheless one family, and all mankind are brethren, practically equal in endowments, equal in national and political rights, and equal in the favor of the common Creator.

Exclusion of foreigners and hostility to foreign states always were elements of barbarism. The intermingling of races always was, and always will be, the chief element of civilization. Japan and China are exclusive states. Great Britain and the United States are social nations. So inconsistent is exclusiveness with progress, that, sooner or later, Providence wills the subjugation of unsocial states, thus securing the advancement of civilization compulsively, when nations obstinately resist it. The conquest of Mexico in the west, of India in the east, and the present humiliation of China, are illustrations of this great truth.

If at St. Petersburg you seek the exchange, where the Russian "merchants most do congregate," the native understands not your inquiry, until you ask for the "Dutch" exchange. Thus do the subjects of the czar unwittingly perpetuate the memory of the fact that they owe their rising commerce to immigration from the Netherlands. I remember that in Clinton's time the Erie canal then in progress was stigmatized as the "Irish ditch." Had we been as generous as the natives of St. Petersburg, we should have persevered in that designation, and we should now confess for the instruction of mankind, that not only the Erie canal, but its numerous and far-reaching veins and arteries, and our railroads, harbors, and fortifications, were chiefly constructed by hardy, joyous, light-hearted, liberty-loving immigrants from Ireland.

We emulate the sway of ancient Rome; but Rome was wiser than those who affect an exclusive monopoly of American citizenship. Provinces and nations as soon as subjugated, became parts of the Roman empire, and although its eagles threatened conquest

wherever they advanced, they nevertheless bore on their wings charters of Roman citizenship.

Love for their native land is common to all men, but it exceeds its just bounds when it leads men to despise or hate their fellow-men. This excess is the prejudice of ignorance. The native American can not half so heartily despise the Irishman, as the Chinese despises the American. He who has left his native land to seek an asylum here, has made a sacrifice to liberty which ought to commend him to our respect and affection. His children born here will be native Americans as we are; the parent is a foreigner only as our own parents or ancestors, near or remote, also were.

Do we excel, because the foreigner can not speak our language. We can not speak his. It were well if each knew the language of the other, for it is stored with treasures which would add immeasurably to his knowledge and the elements of his happiness.

The battle-cry of liberty is as animating when sounded in French, in German, or in Spanish, as in English, and the accents of love and affection are tender in whatever dialect they may have utterance. Should differences of religious belief divide us? Washington invoked the Divine blessing on our army in a protestant ritual-Lafayette employed the Roman formulary. Would the prayers of either have been answered, if they had carried into council quarrels from the altar? We ought never to forget that, various as are the expositions of our holy faith, they all agree in this, that without charity there is no Christianity.-Letter, March 15, 1844.

Louis Bossuth.

I AM a lover of peace. I shall never freely give my consent to any measure which I shall think will tend to involve this nation in the calamities of foreign war. I believe that our mission is a mission of republicanism. But I believe that we shall best execute it by maintaining peace at home and with all mankind; and if I saw in this measure a step in advance toward the bloody field of contention in the affairs of Europe, I, too, would hesitate long before adopting it. But I see no advance toward any such

danger in doing a simple act of national justice and magnanimity. I believe that no man will deny the principle, that a nation may do for the cause of liberty in other nations whatever the laws of nations do not forbid. I plant myself upon that principle. What the laws of nations do not forbid, any nation may do for the cause of civil liberty in any other nation, in any other country. Now, the laws of nations do not forbid hospitality. The laws of nations do not forbid us to sympathize with the exile-to sympathize with the overthrown champion of freedom. The laws of nature demand that hospitality, and from the very inmost sources of our nature springs up that sympathy. What is that great epic poem which has filled the second place in the admiration, I had almost said in the affections, of mankind for two thousand years, but the history of an exile flying from the walls of his burning city and devoted state? Sir, the laws of nature require-the laws of nations command hospitality to those who fly from oppression and despair. And this is all that we have done, and all that we propose to do. We have invited Kossuth we have procured his release from captivity we have brought him here-and we propose to say to him, standing upon our shores with his eye directed to us, and while we know that the eyes of the civilized world are fixed upon him and us, "Louis Kossuth, in the name of the American people we bid you a cordial welcome."

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I will suppose now that the opposition made to this resolution is effective. I will suppose that the measure is defeated. Let us look to the consequences beyond. What are they? Kossuth, admitted here to be the representative of the down-trodden constitutional liberties of his own country, and the representative of the up-rising liberties of Europe, shakes from his feet the dust that has gathered upon them on American shores, and returns to the eastern continent-returns upon a point of honor with the United States of America, and therefore, in a practical view, returns, as he will say, and those devoted to his cause will say, repulsed, driven back. Where then, sir, shall he find welcome and repose? In his own beautiful native land, at the base or on the slopes of the Carpathian hills? No! the Austrian despot reigns absolutely there. Shall he find it in Germany, east or west, north or south? No sir; the despot of Austria and