I may cordially thank, in the name of my cause, the people of Indiana, its Governor, and Representatives, for the high honour of the Legislature’s invitation, and of this public welcome.

* * * * *

XXXIV.—­IMPORTANCE OF FOREIGN POLICY, AND OF STRENGTHENING ENGLAND.

[Speech at Louisville, March 6th.]

At the Court House, Louisville, Kossuth was addressed by Bland Ballard,
Esq., and replied as follows: 

Whatever be the immediate issue of that discussion about foreign policy, which now so eminently occupies public attention throughout the United States, from the Capitol and White-house at Washington down to the lonely farms of your remotest territories, one fact I have full reason to take for sure, and that is:  That when the trumpet-sound of national resurrection is once borne over the waves of the Atlantic announcing to you that nations have risen to assert those rights to which they are called by nature and nature’s God—­when the roaring of the first cannon-shot announces that the combat is begun which has to decide which principle is to rule over the Christian world—­absolutism or national sovereignty—­there is no power on earth which could induce the people of the United States to remain inactive and indifferent spectators of that great struggle, in which the future of the Christian world—­yes, the future of the United States themselves is to be decided.  The people of the United States will not remain indifferent and inactive spectators and will not authorize, will not approve, any policy of indifference.  You yourself have told me so, sir.

In the position of every considerable country there is a necessity of a certain course, to adopt which cannot be avoided, and may be almost called destiny.  The duty as well as the wisdom of statesmen consists in the ability to steer, in time, the vessel into that course, which, if they neglect to do in time, the price will be higher and the profit less.

There is scarcely anything which has more astonished me than the fact—­that, for the last thirty-seven years, almost every Christian nation has shared the great fault of not caring much about what are called foreign matters, foreign policy.  Precisely the great nations, England, France, America, which might have regulated the course of their governments for a very considerable period, abandoned almost entirely that part of their public concerns, which with great nations is the most important of all, because it regulates the position of the country in its great national capacity.  The slightest internal interest was discussed publicly and regulated previously by the nation, before the government had to execute it; but, as to the most important interest—­the national position of the country and its relations to the world, Secret Diplomacy, a fatality of mankind, stepped in, and the nations had to accept the consequences of what was already done, though they subsequently reproved