own age and in advance of this age. For Europe he was an unpractical statesman, and in America he demanded what could not be granted. It does not follow, however, that his labors were in vain. He aroused the American mind to a higher sense of the power and dignity of the American nation, and he set forth the influence that England and the United States might exert in the affairs of the world whenever they should co-operate in an international public policy. He maintained the cause of universal liberty. At West Cambridge Kossuth said: “Liberty was not granted to your forefathers as a selfish boon; your destiny is not completed till, by the aid and influence of America, the oppressed nations are regenerated and made free.”
These words were not wholly visionary, and in these forty years since they were uttered some progress has been made. The empires of Brazil and France have been transformed into republics, slavery has been abolished in North and South America, the weak states of Italy have been united in one government, the German Empire has been created, and all in the direction of popular liberty and with manifest preparation for the republican form of government. Nor can it be said justly that there has been a retrograde movement in any part of the world. These changes would have come to pass without Kossuth; but it is to his credit that his teachings were coincident with the trend of events, and they may have contributed to the accomplished results.
In 1849 Mr. Webster compared Kossuth to Wycliffe, by the quotation of the lines:
“The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wycliffe’s dust shall spread abroad,
Wide as the waters be.”
It is not easy to form an opinion of Kossuth’s place as an orator, when considered in comparison or in contrast with
