You ask me what I think of Kossuth. The history of Kossuth is but partly told. An opinion of him now, is, of course, founded on the past and present. But so decisive have been the manifestations in regard to his abilities and aims, that we may confidently say he is the great man of the age. I don’t mean that there is no other man who is responsible for as great or greater physical and intellectual endowments and education. We measure men by what they do, not by what they are able to do. He is great, because he has manifested great thoughts and corresponding deeds. In this regard he has no superior.

When I speak of Kossuth as great, I mean that the divine elements of power, wisdom, and goodness are so mixed in him, as to qualify him to embrace the largest interests, and attract the agencies to secure those interests. That his eye sees, and his heart feels, and his philanthropy embraces a larger area, and is acknowledged by a larger portion of the human family than any other living man. I do not say there are not men living whose hearts are as large, whose abilities are as great, and whose virtues are as exalted as Kossuth’s. Men, too, whose great qualities under like contingencies would, and by future contingencies may, brighten into a glory as large as his. Nor would I say it does not often require as great, or even greater talents and virtues to accomplish deeds of humanity or patriotism on a theatre vastly less dazzling and imposing. It is not necessary to my argument to exclude such conclusions. When God decrees great events, he brings upon the stage and qualifies the human instrumentalities by which such events are accomplished; and that, too, at the very time they are needed. We don’t know the future; but if we are to measure the present and the past in the life of Kossuth, leaving alone the shadows which coming events cast in the path of our hopes, we must rank Kossuth with the greatest, and if we couple his heart with his deeds, with the best of mankind.

I am aware that the opinion I here give of the great Magyar, is widely different from the opinions of some others for whom I have very high respect. Gerrit Smith honors Kossuth; but he honors him only as a patriot, a christian patriot. Professor Atler of McGranville College in an oration that does him credit as a philosopher and orator, says, that “he who thinks the largest thought is the ruler of the world,”—and yet he dwarfs the character of Kossuth to the simple patriot of Hungary. To my mind, these are strange conclusions. It is the greatest thoughts illustrated by corresponding action that denotes the ruler of the world. It is the external manifestation of the mighty spiritual that demonstrates the right to rule mankind. Apply that rule to Kossuth, and I maintain his right to the sceptre of the world.

The brotherhood of nations is an idea to which philanthropy only could give birth. Its home is in the hearts of all good men, and yet, until Kossuth came before the world, that idea had been esteemed so vast in its circumference, so out of the reach of means, so far beyond the grasp of present experience and possibility, that he would have been thought a fanatic or a fool who attempted it. He, indeed, by power strictly personal, not only seized upon it as a practical thought, and nobly argued it, but has actually and bravely entered upon the experiment, and forced it upon the conceptions of the world, and organized, not in our country only, but in Europe, plans and parties for its realization. Here is not only a great thought, but a great deed. To gather up the philanthropic minds or the patriot minds of the world to embrace such an enterprise as not only a dutiful but practicable scheme, is an achievement that leaves out of sight any other achievement of eighteen hundred years.

It is not the development of abstract principles in science, in philosophy, or in religion, that establishes the highest claim to the world’s gratitude and admiration. It is the successful application of those principles to human life and conduct, the setting them to work to restore the world to the shape and aspect which God gave it, that demonstrates the God-like in man. It is the manifestation of a great idea upon the external, as God’s great thoughts are manifested by the landscape, the ocean, and the heavens, by which we arrive at the spiritual power that conceived them. A patriot indeed! The great Hungarian did attempt to link America to his great purpose by appeals to her patriotism. It was the only common sentiment between our country and him. It is America’s loftiest thought. Her beau-ideal of public virtue. I don’t mean that there was no Christianity or philanthropy in the United States when Kossuth came amongst us; but I do mean that, as a nation, we had none of them. He came on an errand of practical philanthropy; to appeal to our national heart, and cause the only cord of humanity in it that could be touched, to vibrate in unison with his own in behalf of the down-trodden nations of the world. He wished to engage its organic power in behalf of national law. Had Kossuth appealed to any higher principle, he would have overshot his mark. Love of country is common, to the Christian and to the mere patriot. In the latter it is only selfishness, in the former genuine philanthropy. American patriotism was the only aperture through which he could reach our nation’s heart, to raise it to the higher region of philanthropy, and place it in his own bosom, and impregnate it with his own holy sentiments, that their sympathies might circulate together for a common brotherhood. He represented Hungary. He appeared at our door as an outraged brother, to enlist us in behalf of a brother’s rights and wrongs. He sought to excite in the nation’s bosom the activity of a common principle, due at all times, and from nations no less than individuals. It is the core of Christianity, described in these words, “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

Our Washington had told us “to cultivate peace with all nations, and form entangling alliances with none.” Our sensual and short-sighted statesmen construed the sentiment as the rule of active power. Instead of adopting it as Washington probably intended it, as a rule of temporary policy, they inculcated the notion that we were to cut ourselves clear from the family of nations, and live only for ourselves. The large patriotism of Washington they had shrunken to the merest selfishness. We may well thank God for the providence which sent Kossuth among us, to relieve his fame from the suspicion of having begot, and our country from the sin of cherishing, so weak and dishonoring a delusion. Heaven-assisted man only could have dreamed of believing a nation so securely blinded. Like the prophet of God, whose lips were touched with celestial fire, he breathed upon the spell, and it vanished. The nation’s eyes were opened. It saw, and all true men admitted, that the sentiment was designed and adapted only to our infancy, and, to use his own figure, no more fitting our manhood, than the clothes of an infant are fitting the full grown man.

Now I admit we had philanthropists, wise men, orators, and some statesmen, who asserted the doctrine of the human brotherhood, yet we had no Kossuth to dissolve (if I may so speak) this Washingtonian delusion. Kossuth touched it and it disappeared. The nation seemed to have come to a new birth. Its heart, like the rock in the desert which was touched by the staff of the prophet, opened, and its imprisoned waters poured over the world. We all felt as the bondman feels who is set free by a strong man. From that moment we grew larger, saw farther, and felt our hearts moving over an unlimited area of humanity. From that moment we felt that a new day was dawning. From that moment the principle of the human brotherhood struck its deep roots in our soil, as immovable as our mountains, as irradicable as our religion. Nor was it in America alone that this sentiment was then awakened. Touched by his notes, it trembled in the bosom of Europe. The heart of humanity throbbed with a common sympathy throughout the civilized world. Kossuth and Mazzini, crushed from beneath, ascended above the despotisms of the world in the clear upper sky, and, in sight of heaven and earth, reflected God’s light and curse upon them; and called into being the activities which we hope is to tumble them in a common ruin, as the precursor of the holy compact which shall secure all human rights.

It is objected that Kossuth did not denounce our slavery. The same objection has equal strength against the philanthropy of Paul and Jesus. I shall not dwell on this point. He did denounce American slavery. The presence of Kossuth was a killing rebuke, his words a consuming fire to it. The former is still felt as an incurable wound, and the latter still scorches to the very centre of its vitality. I have it from high authority, when Kossuth first came upon the soil, and into the atmosphere of American slavery, his soul was so shocked and disgusted by its offensiveness, that he proposed to abandon his mission in those States where it existed, and denounce it specifically; and was only deterred from doing so, by his sense of the more comprehensive claims of that mission, which embraced the utter destruction of all human oppression. I drop this topic with the remark, that this objection, and all objections to his philanthropy, within my knowledge, were made antecedent to his inimitable speech in New York city, in behalf of his mother and sisters, a short time before he took his departure for Europe. If there is not Christianity, philanthropy, anti-slavery in that speech, we may despair of finding it in earth, or even in the heavens. I have never read anything so representative of heaven’s mercy, or angels’ eloquence, as that. Oh! I wish the world knew it by heart. Methinks if it did, all wrong and oppression would disappear from among men.

I was going to speak of the future, and of Mazzini, the twin apostle of liberty, whose exile was wrung from the heart of poor Italy. But the subject exceeds the brevity which must govern me. These rulers of the world are linked with the mighty events which are fast becoming history. From their hiding-places in London, they are moving and controlling the passions which seem ready to break forth and obliterate every cruel code under the sun, and hasten the time when all men shall feel as brethren, and mingle their hearts in anthems of gratitude and love.

Syracuse, Nov. 14, 1852.