In his first speech in
Faneuil Hall he said, "Would it had been possible for me to have come
to America either before that contest was engaged, or after it will be
decided! I came, unhappily, in a bad hour." That Kossuth attributed
too much importance to that circumstance, there can be no doubt.
Other, deeper-seated and more adverse causes were at work. The advice
and instructions of Washington as to the danger of entangling foreign
alliances were accepted as authority by many, and as binding traditions
by all. Consequently, there was not, and could not have been, any time
in the century when his appeal would have been answered by an
aggressive step, or even by an official declaration in behalf of his
cause.
Co-operating with this general tendency of public opinion, there
existed a latent sentiment in the slave States and everywhere among
the adherents and defenders of slavery that the mission of Kossuth was
a menace to that peculiar institution. Of this face he was convinced
by his visit to Washington and his brief tour in the slave States. At
Worcester a man in the crowd had shouted, "We worship not the man, but
we worship the principle." The slave-holders were interested in the
man, but they feared his principles; and well they might fear his
principles for he was the avowed enemy of all castes and all artificial
distinctions among men.
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