Six years before this time Mr. Wilkins, secretary of war, had proposed to organize Nebraska Territory and to extend thither the army posts; and in that same year Stephen A. Douglas, then of the House, had introduced a bill for the organization of Nebraska; but neither effort had had result.  Two years later, Douglas, then in the Senate, once more sought to test the Squatter Sovereignty idea regarding the new western lands, but once more a cold silence met his attempts.  Six months after that time the same bill, with the intent of attaching Nebraska to the state of Arkansas, was killed by Congress, because held to be dangerous.  A third bill by Douglas, later in the same year, was also recommitted.  The “Territory of the Platte” was the next attempt to be dropped.  All these crude attempts were merged in the great Compromise of 1850.  The might of party was brought to bear upon all questions of principle, and the country was commanded to be calm; indeed for a time was calm.  It was the time of manacled hands and of manacled minds.  Our government was not a real democracy.  The great West had not yet raised its voice, augmented by new millions of voices pealing the paean of liberty and opportunity for man.

In this era of arrested activities, the energies of a restless people turned otherwhere for interest.  To relieve the monotony of political stagnation, popular attention was now turned toward the affairs of Hungary.  We could not solve our own problems, but we were as ready to solve those of Europe as Europe was to offer us aid in ours.  Therefore, instant interest attached to the news that a Hungarian committee of inquiry had landed upon our shores, with the purpose of investigating a possible invitation from our republic to the Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, then in exile in Turkey.

The leader of this mission was General Zewlinski, an officer of the patriot army of Hungary, who brought with him a suite of some dozen persons.  These, late in the winter of 1850-51, arrived at Washington and found quarters of somewhat magnificent sort in one of the more prominent hotels of the national capital.  At once political and journalistic Washington was on the qui vive.  The Hungarians became the object of a solicitude, not to say a curiosity, which must at times have tried their souls.

The first formal action of the Hungarian committee took the shape of a return reception, to be held in the hotel parlors.  The invitations, liberal as they were, were sought for quite in excess of the supply, and long before the doors were open, it was quite assured that the affair would be a crush.  The administration, for which Mr. Webster, our secretary of state, had not hesitated to write in most determined fashion to the attache Hulsemann regarding the presumptuous Austrian demands upon our government, none the less was much in a funk regarding “European obligations.”  Not wishing to offend the popular fancy, and not daring to take decisive stand, the usual compromise was made.  Although no member of the administration was sent officially to recognize these unofficial ambassadors, a long suffering officer of the navy, with his wife and one or two other ladies, were despatched quasi-officially to lend color to the occasion.