THE NATION'S GUEST:
LAJOS KOSSUTH IN AMERICA
December 1851 - July 1852
 
 
When Louis Kossuth landed in New York, Dec. 5, 1851, he was not an unknown personage. He and his native land had been made known to the people of the United States by the Revolution of 1848 and the contest of 1849 for the independence of Hungary. Until these events occurred, Hungary was only a marked spot on the map of Europe, and the name of Kossuth, as a leader in industrial and social progress, had not been written nor spoken on this side of the Atlantic.
 
George S. Boutwell
Former Governor of Massachusetts
July 1894
 
 
During the middle of the last century, beginning in 1848, a wave of nationalist and popular insurrections swept across Europe. The revolutionary spirit struck a responsive chord in Hungary, then part of the sprawling Hapsburg Empire. Led by Lajos Kossuth, liberal elements demanded far-reaching political, social and economic reforms. Peaceful negotiations quickly escalated into open war. The hastily improvised Hungarian army suffered several defeats in the early stages of the struggle, but managed to turn the tide by the spring of 1849, driving out virtually all Imperial troops from the country. At this point, Emperor Franz Joseph invoked military assistance from Russia. Czar Nicholas I obliged, and soon a huge Russian army was pouring over the Carpathians.
 
Bitter fighting continued for some weeks, but the odds were hopeless. On August 12, Kossuth, after transferring his powers to General Art£r G”rgey, fled to the Ottoman Empire, where he was cordially received by the Turkish authorities. Although the Hapsburg and Czarist governments peremptorily demanded the extradition of Kossuth and other refugees, Sultan Abdul Medjid refused. Britain and France, for reasons of their own, supported the stance of the Sublime Porte, and dispatched their fleets to the Dardanelles to underline their resolution. At this point, the Vienna government reluctantly acquiesced in the internment of Kossuth at Kiutahia, in Asia Minor.
 
None of the revolutionary movements of 1848 excited so much sympathy in the United States as that of Hungary. Hungary's attempt to establish an independent republic and the picturesque leadership of Kossuth had an almost magical effect upon Americans. In Hungary's fight for freedom, Americans saw a defense of their own principles. The people watched eagerly the course of the uprising. Abraham Lincoln, representative from Springfield, Illinois, in Congress, presented a resolution of sympathy with the cause of Hungarian freedom. Lt. Mayne Reid, a novelist/soldier, raised a company of men to fight for the Hungarian cause. (The war was over before Reid could reach the battlefield.) After 1848, the United States was the first power to indicate its readiness to consider Hungary as an independent sovereign state.
 
The popular demand that Kossuth be invited to America as the "nation's guest," originated with the Reverend Franklin Tefft, a Methodist Episcopal Minister. On February 17, 1851, Senator Henry S. Foote introduced a joint resolution, which called upon President Millard Fillmore to obtain Kossuth's release and to transport him to the United States in a national ship. Within the next two weeks both houses of Congress endorsed the resolution.
 
On September 10, 1851, Captain John C. Long received on board of the warship Mississippi, Kossuth, his family and some fifty other refugees. Americans expected Kossuth to settle in the United States. Kossuth, however, had other plans. He was not looking for a safe retirement; his objective in coming to America was to secure financial, diplomatic, and perhaps even military aid for Hungary.
 
A triumphant voyage across the Mediterrenean followed with stops at Spezia and Marseilles. At both ports, popular demonstrations acclaimed Kossuth as the symbol of the free world and the enemy of tyrants. He was not allowed to land in Marseilles due to political complications; therefore Frenchmen came out to the Mississippi in hundreds of boats, singing national songs and shouting "hurrah" for Kossuth and the United States. He gave a rousing speech to the people, adopting the motto of a workman who had previously swum to the ship to embrace him with the words: "There are no obstacles to him who wills." To them, he was a romantic hero, the modern Prometheus defeated but unconquered, standing alone amid the wreckage of European liberalism.
 
Anxious to make contact with British politicians and the general public as well as the Hungarian emigr‚ community of London before proceeding to America, Kossuth broke his trans-Atlantic voyage at Gibraltar. There he boarded the steamer Madrid bound for Southampton.
 
Kossuth stayed barely a month in Britain, but during his short period he captivated the public. The people turned out to greet him as they had turned out for no other foreigner. Standing on English soil, he now displayed before an English-speaking people the marvelous versatility of his oratorical genius. He delivered his first address in the City Hall of Southampton. When he spoke, his listeners sat enraptured, almost mesmerized by the flow of words. It was one characteristic all men noticed, regardless of their attitudes toward his mission. "He is certainly a phenomenon," Richard Cobden, the apostle of free trade, wrote. "Not only is he the first orator of the age, but he combines the rare attributes of a first-rate administrator, high moral qualities and unswerving courage." Kossuth could speak fluently not only in Hungarian, but Latin, French, German, Italian, Slovak and English.
 
"The enthusiasm of the English people seemed to know no bounds," recalled Carl Schurz, himself a refugee then in Great Britain. "His entry was like that of a national hero returning from a victorious campaign. . . . He appeared in his picturesque Hungarian garb, standing upright in his carriage, with his saber at his side, and surrounded by an equally picturesque retinue. But when he began to speak, and his voice, with its resonant and at the same time mellow sound, poured forth its harmony over the heads of throngs in classic English, deriving a peculiar charm from the soft tinge of foreign accent, then the enthusiasm of the listeners mocked all description."
 
Just as in Southampton, the crowds massed to greet Kossuth in Winchester, London, Manchester, wherever he stayed. It was a triumphal welcome which in that century had only before been extended by the English people to Admiral Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. At each place he pleaded the cause of Hungary. The indignation he aroused against Russian policy had much to do with the strong anti-Russian feeling which made the Crimean War possible a few years later. Queen Victoria, who was made very uneasy by all the adulation given to Kossuth, said that the national movement in Italy and Hungary was nothing but the expression of the "inherent rawness and bad breeding" of the masses.
 
On the 24th of November Kossuth, accompanied by his wife and a small retinue, left England on the American steamer Humboldt for the United States. The vessel arrived at New York on the night of December 4. As the Humboldt came within sight of Governor's Island, thirty-one cannon shots were fired for each of the States then composing the Union. At the Battery in lower Manhattan, 200,000 people awaited to greet him and gave him an ovation which only two men had ever received - George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette.
 
Castle Garden, the fortress of Revolutionary times turned into a summer garden and used for the reception of distinguished visitors where the initial welcome took place, was filled to overflowing. As Kossuth entered the building, pandemonium reigned. Mayor Ambrose C. Kingsland introduced him as the "spokesman of Hungarian independence, champion of human progress, representative of the freedom in the world." Kossuth's theme, which was a plea for substantial aid for Hungary, and a picture of her sufferings, as well as an appeal for the interference of the United States on her behalf, met with extravagant applause.
 
Most of the New York press were favorable to Kossuth. "His manner of speaking is at once incomparably dignified and graceful. . . . Beyond a doubt he is the greatest of orators now living," declared the Tribune. "Among orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior," said Horace Greeley.
 
Between the 6th and 22nd of December he received upwards of thirty-five visiting bodies, besides attending numerous dinners and public receptions. He welcomed deputations from every conceivable body of men from Socialists to Presbyterian ministers. The selectmen of Springfield, Massachusetts, wrote him: "We desire to see amongst us one who has shared so largely as yourself in the opening scenes of the glorious future. We desire to behold in you the symbol of European liberty."
 
Throughout the North, Free-Soilers and Germans were among Kossuth's most devoted sympathizers. With eight other prominent citizens, Lincoln called a "Kossuth meeting" at his home town and condemned Russian intervention in Hungary.
 
Over 400 people attended the Corporation Dinner given by the city authorities of New York on December 11. Two days later, he was the guest of honor at a banquet given by the Press Club of New York and presided over by the poet-editor William Cullen Bryant, of the Evening Post. Speeches were made, and Kossuth, as usual, delivered a brilliant one. A committee, was founded, headed by George Bancroft, the historian and diplomat, to promote the Hungarian cause through the collection of funds. A large meeting in Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church raised $12,000.
 
After New York came a triumphal march across much of the United States, described by the Cincinnati Enquirer as "among the most remarkable events of this this remarkable age."
 
Kossuth arrived in Philadelphia on December 24, and was welcomed with ceremonies similar to those that took place in New York. He spoke from the balcony in the rear of Independence Hall to an exuberant crowd that filled the square. His audience in Baltimore waited for him for hours in the cold and called their resulting illness "Kossuth grippe."
 
On New Year's Eve, Kossuth was escorted to the White House, by the Secretary of State, Daniel Webster. President Fillmore expressed to Kossuth, as a private citizen, his deep sympathy for the Hungarian cause. But he said no word of official recognition of Hungary's cause, nor did he indicate that the United States would support her against despotism. Fillmore reminded Kossuth at the same time that American policy since the presidency of George Washington had been to follow a course of neutrality and to avoid interference in the affairs of other nations.
 
On January 5, 1852, Kossuth was introduced to the Senate and to the House of Representatives two days later. He was not asked to address the Senate; however, he did address the House. The House of Representatives received him in open session - an honor previously accorded only the Marquis de Lafayette.
 
At the lavish Congressional banquet held in his honor on the evening of January 7, all the dignitaries present were completely entranced by his singularly captivating eloquence. "The 'Hungarian *Whirlwind' certainly carried away everything," recorded the Rev. C. M. Butler, chaplain of the Senate, "and mingled all parties into confused mass of admirers, prostrate at M. Kossuth's feet." Webster offered the toast: "Hungarian independence, Hungarian control of her own destinies; and Hungary as a distinct nationality among the nations of Europe." The Hapsburg government was deeply offended by this statement, and relations between Webster and Ritter von Hlsemann, Vienna's charg‚ d'affaires at Washington, remained strained until Webster's death on October 24, 1852.
 
Francis Preston Blair, the voice of Jacksonian democrary, invited him to deliver the major address at the annual Democratic dinner at Jackson Hall commemorating the Battle of New Orleans. Kossuth's appearance, words, and delivery left his listeners singing paeans for days.
 
After Kossuth departed from Washington, Senator William H. Seward, one of his most ardent supporters, offered a resolution of solemn protest against Russia's suppression of Hungary's independence.
 
As Kossuth moved across the United States he made a tremendous impression on the American public. Dozens of books, hundreds of pamphlets, thousands of editorials were written about him.  Streets, squares, cities and counties were named after him. Hungarian history, music, dances and wine became popular. Associations of Friends of Hungary sprung up everywhere. Kossuth was the object of extravagant adulation at countless meetings, rallies, banquets and parades. Local politicians, conscious of the pressing necessity of keeping with the popular current, made speeches appropriate to the occasion. Many American believed Kossuth was offering Europe what Washington and Jefferson had already given to the United States. He was continually asked to make speeches; he gave at least six hundred major addresses, many of them improvised. One journalist, wrought up to a high pitch of feeling by one of Kossuth's speeches, declared that the Washington of the eighteenth century was interpreted by the Washington of the nineteenth.
 
He received roaring receptions in Cleveland and Cincinnati. The True Democrat of Cleveland pronounced him worthy of America's greatest weapons in the struggle for liberty: "Money, muskets and men! Powder, pistols and prayer!" A young fanatic in Newburgh, Ohio, greeted him, "God bless you, you are a political Christ." In addressing the Ohio legislature, Kossuth said: "The spirit of our age is democratic. All for the people and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people. That is Democracy."
 
"To invite him to our State capital and tender him a formal reception seemed a matter of course," recalled John Lyle King, Indiana assemblyman from Madison. In Covington, Kentucky, he was handed a purse with $175, and was told to use it to purchase weapons; he was also assured that Kentucky would furnish 10,000 men to fight the despots, if needed. The Louisville Journal of February 23, hailed him as the "Champion of Freedom," and declared that the mission on which he had come was holy, as noble, and as glorious as that for which the Revolutionary Fathers had fought three quarters of a century ago.
 
Fully realizing the deep-seated commitment of Americans to avoid entanglements in the politics of other nations, Kossuth repeatedly stated: "The principle of neutrality does not involve the principle of indifferentism to the violation of the laws of nations, which are a common property to all nations. Indifference to these violations is rather contrary to the principle of neutrality; as, indeed, it is a fallacy to believe that you are neutral."
 
According to Kossuth's interpretation of the non-intervention policy of the United States, Washington's advice in his farewell address was appropriate in the early days of the republic, but not presently inasmuch America had matured into a giant, and, in any case, Washington did not intend the principle of non-interference to be a constitutional doctrine. Furthermore, Kossuth asserted, an American declaration of intervention for the sake of non-intervention would tantamount to nothing more than an extension of the Monroe Doctrine from the American continent to Europe.
 
Kossuth and his party reached St. Louis, Missouri, on March 9. The rather lukewarm reception accorded by the official circles was offset to a degree by the response of the city's German community. As he was leaving St. Louis, Kossuth said: "Here I stand in the very heart of your immense Republic; no longer captive, but free in the land of the free, not only not desponding, but firm in confidence of the future, because raised in spirits by a swelling sympathy in the home of the brave, still a poor, a homeless exile, but not without some power to do good to my country and to the cause of liberty."
 
During his stay in St. Louis, Kossuth received an invitation from Governor Hempstead of Iowa, urging him to visit that State. However, Kossuth was not able to accept this invitation, nor any of half dozen or more extended by cities near St. Louis.
 
In Jackson, Mississippi, Kossuth paid his respects to Henry S. Foote, then governor of the State, to whom he owed the Congressional action which resulted in his release from Turkey and transportation to the United States.
 
Although Kossuth did everything he could reasonably have done to win support in the South, his efforts were fruitless. He received neither political nor financial aid from this part of the country. New Orleans was one of the very few cities south of the Mason-Dixon line which extended an invitation to Kossuth. But no parade was held in his honor and the reception was not very friendly. The South was indifferent if not absolutely hostile.
 
By the time Kossuth returned to Washington in mid-April the "Kossuth craze" had waned considerably. Public curiosity having been satisfied, he was no longer the hero of the age. "Hungary and Kossuth have passed from the memory of all men here but myself," lamented Seward. Only Seward, his wife and Mrs. Horace Mann saw him off when he left to tour New England, hoping to recapture the enthusiasm of the public.
 
On April 24, aboard a special train sent from Boston bedecked with the colors of the United States and Hungary, Kossuth entered New England. At every railroad station in Connecticut multitudes of people cheered him, as he passed along. In New Haven, Eli Whitney, the son of the inventor of the cotton gin, escorted him through his arsenal and gave him twenty rifles for use in the coming revolution. 
 
The Springfield Republican, a newspaper not overly partial to Kossuth, said of his visit: "Never, probably, has Kossuth received, in a city of this size, an ovation so cordial, so hearty, and at the same time so spontaneous, as that which he received here on Saturday. The impression he has left upon our citizens is a good one, and he certainly cannot be insensible to the honor Springfield has shown him."
 
At Boston Commons an estimated fifty thousand people gathered to watch him review the local troops and perform other ceremonial duties. On the morning of April 28, Kossuth went to the State-House to pay his respects to Governor Boutwell. The next day he addressed a massive throng at historic Faneuil Hall. He was dressed in his fine Hungarian custome, with a sword. He held the attention of the assembly most perfectly till the last word. Afterwards nine hundred guests attended a banquet in his honor.
 
On May 8, he spoke to the Germans of Boston in their native tongue. "To hear Kossuth speak in German," said one of the newspaper editorials, "was an enjoyment which we could desire for everyone who has heard him in English."
 
At Concord, Ralph Waldo Emerson, in behalf of his townsmen, addressed Kossuth thus: "We please ourselves that in you we meet one whose temper was long since tried in the fire, and made equal to all events; a man so truly in love with a glorious future that he cannot be diverted to any less. . . . We only see in you the angel of freedom, crossing the sea and land, crossing parties, nationalities, private interests and self-esteems . . ."
 
Ultimately Kossuth became a victim of the slavery question: extremists in both sections of the United States were prepared to judge the Hungarian cause only in terms of their own domestic struggle. Kossuth wanted to maintain a strict neutrality on this explosive issue, repeatedly asserting that he did not wish to address himself to the slavery issue, since as a foreigner, he did not want to get involved in the internal affairs of the United States.
 
Consequently, abolitionists accused him for patronizing slaveholders; slaveholders accused him of being sympathetic to the abolitionist cause. William Lloyd Garrison, president of the American Anti-Slavery Society, could not tolerate Kossuth's neutral stance on the "peculiar institution." "He means to be deaf, dumb and blind, in regard to it!" thundered Garrison in one of his editorials. Frederick Douglass, himself once a slave and now a major figure in the antislavery movement, fumed that for Kossuth to satisfy the American people, "he must cease to be Kossuth." Calling his aloofness from the slavery question "craven and time serving conduct," the Garrison group of abolitionists became his bitter enemy and remained hostile to the very end.
 
Kossuth failed to achieve the main - although wholly unrealistic - goal of his trip, securing the diplomatic and military support of the United States against Hapsburg and Russian absolutism. His lack of success was due mainly to the overwhelming desire in America to continue a neutral foreign policy. The more Kossuth appealed for intervention in the affairs of Europe, the more the American people wearied of his entreaties and cooled in their ardor for him and his cause. Many feared that his passionate and persuasive speeches would embroil the United States in an unprofitable and unnecessary war. Americans were  too deeply engrossed in their manifest destiny and were not yet ready to take on Europe's
burden.
 
Beyond collecting about $90,000 he had accomplished nothing. The enthusiasm he aroused proved to be ephemeral. As far as tangible results were concerned, his American trip was a failure. In the end he had to content himself with his success as a speaker. All who heard him were touched by his eloquence.
 
On July 14, 1852, Kossuth left the United States for Great Britain aboard the liner Africa. England was to be his home until 1861, when he moved to Turin, Italy, where he died on March 20, 1894. The New York Times, on the eve of his departure, said: "A score of years hence, there will be nothing of which an individual will more eagerly boast than that he has seen, heard, and perhaps grasped the hand of the great statesman of Hungary; the hero of the nineteenth century, the Epaminondas, the last Greek of European annals. May triumph attend him."
 
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