Indeed I can wish nothing more than that the principles of Washington should be followed.  And I may also be permitted to say, that not every word of Washington is a principle, and that what he recommended as a policy according to the exigencies of his time, he never intended to recommend as a rule for ever to be followed even in such circumstances which he, with all his wisdom, could neither foresee nor imagine.  And I may be perhaps permitted to wish the people of the United States should take for a truth, even in respect to the writings of Washington, what we are taught by the ministers of the Gospel in respect to the Holy Scriptures—­that, by the discretion of private judgment, a distinction must be made between what is essential and what is not, between what is substantial and what is accidental, between what is a principle and what is but a history.

[Kossuth proceeded to argue concerning the just interpretation of Washington’s words, as in his New York speech; and continued:]

But what is the present condition upon the basis of which I humbly plead?  Allow me, in answer, to quote the words of one of your most renowned statesmen, the present Secretary of State.  You will find then, gentlemen, that every word he then spoke, is yet more true and more appropriate to-day.

“The holy alliance,” says Mr. Webster, “is an alliance of crowns against the people—­of sovereigns against their own subjects;—­the union of the physical force of all governments against the rights of all people, in all countries.  Its tendency is to put an end to all Nations as such.  Extend the principles of that alliance, and the nations are no more.  There are only kings.  It divides society horizontally, and leaves the sovereigns above, and all the people below; it sets up the one above all rule, all restraint, and puts down the others to be trampled beneath our feet.”

This is the condition of things to which I claim the attention of Republican America:  moreover, for its own interest’s alike, I claim its attention to the following words from the same statesman, worthy of the most earnest consideration precisely now-a-days to every American.

“The declaration of ——­ says:  the powers have an undoubted right to take a hostile attitude in regard to those states in which the overthrow of the government may operate as an example.”

Mark! oh! mark! gentlemen, how this abominable doctrine is carried out in Hungary, in Prussia, in Schleswig Holstein, and in Hesse Cassel.

Now, the American statesman proceeds to maintain, that every sovereign in Europe who goes to war to repress an example, is monstrous.  Indeed, if this principle be allowed, what becomes of the United States?  Are you not as legitimate objects for the operation of that principle as any we attempt to set an example on the other side of the Atlantic.  You thought that when oppressed you might lawfully resist oppression.  We, in Hungary, thought the