e; and particularly not, when success is only torn out
of the hands of patriotism by foreign violence, and by the most
sacrilegious infraction of the common laws of all humanity. All this is
useless to say. I must bear many things--must bear even malignity--but
can bear it more easily, because against the insult of some who plead
the cause of despots in your republic, I have for consolation the
tranquillity of my conscience, the love of my countrymen, the
approbation of generous friends, and the sympathy of millions in that
very land where I meet the title of an "_imported rebel_."

I was saying, sir, that I yield to no man on earth in reverence to the
memory of the immortal WASHINGTON! Indeed, I consider it not
inconsistent with this reverence to say: Never let past ages bind the
life of future;--let no man's wisdom be _Koran_ to you, dooming
progress to stagnation, and judgment to the meagre task of a mere
rehearsing memory.

Thus I would speak, should even that which I advocate, be contrary to
what Washington taught--even then I would appeal from the thoughts of a
man, to the spirit of advanced mankind, and from the eighteenth century
to the present age.

But fortunately I am not in that necessity; what I advocate is not only
not in contradiction, but in strict harmony with Washington's
principles, so much so that I have nothing else to wish than that
Washington's doctrine should be quoted fairly as a system, and not by
picking out single words, and concealing that which gives the
interpretation to these words.

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