Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 2

This is the indictment that the Abolitionists bring against him. It is not that he does not love Hungary. It is not that he is a coward and that his philanthrophy shrinks before the public opinion of America. No! We do not know that he was ever afraid of anything below God. Though no coward, he is selfish,--just as selfish as all patriotism is. He loves his own land, and to that land he is willing to sacrifice the duty he owes to truth. “An advocate,” said Lord Brougham, defending Queen Caroline, “by the sacred duty which he owes his client, knows in the discharge of that office but one person in the world,--that client and none other. To save that client by all expedient means; to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to himself,--is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction which he may bring upon any other.” Now that, in another form, is Kossuth's patriotism. “I love Hungary,” says he; “stand aside all ye other races! I will so mould my language, I will so pour out my eulogy, I will so lavish my praise, that I will save her; let other races take care of themselves.”

This, then, is the criticism of the Antislavery reformer: Whoever strengthens the American Union strengthens the chain of the American slave; whoever praises the policy of this country since the Constitution began, whether in Florida or Mexico, strengthens the public opinion which supports it; whoever strengthens that opinion is a foe to the slave. Louis Kossuth has thrown at the feet of the Union party the weight of his gigantic name, and every conscience that had begun to be troubled is put to sleep: “Kossuth is free from American prejudices, unbiassed and disinterested. He tells me to love ”