He closed with the words: 

If it shall be your fortune to lead your countrymen again in the contest for liberty, be assured that the people of the United States, at least, will not be indifferent, nor, if need be, inactive spectators of a conflict that may involve, not only the independence of Hungary, but the freedom of the world.

Again I bid you a most cordial welcome to the State of Indiana.

Kossuth replied:—­

Governor,—­Amongst all that I have been permitted to see in the United State’s, nothing has more attracted my attention than that part of your democratic institutions which I see developed in the mutual and reciprocal relations between the people and the constituted public authorities.

In that respect there is an immense difference between Europe and America, for the understanding of which we have to take into account the difference of the basis of the political organization, and together with it what the public and social life has developed in both hemispheres.

The great misfortune of Europe is, that the present civilization was born in those cursed days when Republicanism set and Royalty rose.  It was a gloomy change.  Nearly twenty centuries have passed, and torrents of blood have watered the red-hot chains, and still the fetters are not broken; nay—­it is our lot to have borne its burning heat—­it is our lot to grasp with iron hand the wheels of its crushing car.  Destiny—­no; Providence—­is holding the balance of decision; the tongue is wavering yet; one slight weight more into the one, or into the other scale, will again decide the fate of ages, of centuries.

Upon this mischievous basis of royalty was raised the building of authority; not of that authority which commands spontaneous reverence by merit and the value of its services, but of that authority which oppresses liberty.  Hence the authority of a public officer in unfortunate Europe consists in the power to rule and to command, and not in the power to serve his country well—­it makes men oppressive downwards, while it makes them creeping before those who are above.  Law is not obeyed out of respect, but out of fear.  A man in public office takes himself to be better than his countrymen, and becomes arrogant and ambitious; and because to hold a public office is seldom a claim to confidence, but commonly a reason to lose confidence; it is not a mark of civic virtue and of patriotic devotion, but a stain of civic apostacy and of venality; it is not a claim to be honoured, but a reason to be distrusted; so much so, that in Europe the sad word of the poet is indeed a still more sad fact.—­

  “When vice prevails and impious man bears sway
  The post of honour is a private station.”

So was it even in my own dear fatherland.  Before our unfortunate but glorious revolution of 1848, the principle of royalty had so much spoiled the nature and envenomed the character of public office, that (of course except those who derived their authority by election—­which we for our municipal life conserved amongst all the corruption of European royalty through centuries) no patriot accepted an office in the government:  to have accepted one was to have resigned patriotism.