nations is very indefinite, and
most certainly it has but little relation, if indeed it can be said
justly to have any relation, to what he called "absolutism." Moreover,
it is very doubtful whether any interference by one nation in the
affairs of another nation, in whatever considerate way such
interference might by presented, could produce aught but evil, in
arousing the passions of jealously and hostility. Had England and the
United States tendered any advice even in the affairs of Austria,
Hungary and Russia, such advice would have been rejected by the
nations, and indignities would have been heaped upon the officious
parties. All that part of Kossuth's mission to England and the United
States was hopeless from the beginning, and it seems to be an
impeachment of his wisdom to assume that he ever entertained the
thought that either country could or would make the cause of Hungary
its own, whatever might be the general or official opinion as to the
justice of the contest that Hungary had carried on.

His speeches and his private conversations justify the inference that
he had a hope that in some way the influence of England and the United
States might be exerted effectually in behalf of Hungary, and that
through that influence the activity of Russia might be arrested.
Although he looked to France for aid to the cause of Hungary, he
regarded the _coup d'etat_ of Napoleon as an adverse event,--as a step
and an important step in the direction of "absolutism." On one
occasion he said: "Look how French Napoleonish papers frown
indignantly at the idea that the Congress of the United States dared to
honor my humble self, declaring those honors to be not only offensive
to Austria, but to all the European powers."

Mr. Webster delivered a speech in Boston in the month of November,
1849, when it was apprehended that Russia might assume the task of
demanding of Turkey the surrender of Kossuth and others, and of
executing them for crimes against Austria. On that occasion Mr.
Webster claimed that the Emperor of Russia was "bound by the law of
nations"; and to that declaration Kossuth often referred. The full
text of Mr. Webster's speech leaves upon the mind the impression that
what he then called "the law of nations" was only that general judgment
of the civilized nations before which the Czar of Russia "would stand
as a criminal and malefactor in the view of the public law of the
world." Having this declaration in mind,