by unselfish purpose, that will yet accomplish the recovery of the nations and guide the tumult of democracy now raging in all lands into steadfast forms of serenity, justice, and liberty.

Some 17,000 men, for varying lengths of time, have studied within the walls of this ancient University. This number will forever grow with the endless years. Let us pray God that when their race is run it may be said of you and of them-"They sought to work for mankind."

§ 73

SPEECH OF FAREWELL

By Abraham Lincoln

(Delivered at Springfield, Illinois, February 11, 1861.)

MY FRIENDS: No one not in my situation can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

See page 341.

CHAPTER XIII

SPEECHES OF RESPONSE

8 74

RESPONSE TO WELCOME

By Louis Kossuth

(Speech at Harrisburg at a reception in the capitol, in response to Governor Johnston's address of welcome, January 14, 1852.)

SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES OF PENNSYLVANIA: I came with confidence, I came with hope to the United States,—with the confidence of a man who trusts to the certainty of principles, knowing that where freedom is sown, there generosity grows, with the hope of a man who knows that there is life in his cause, and that where there is life there must be a future yet. Still, hope is only an instinctive throb with which Nature's motherly care comforts adversity. We often hope without knowing why, and like a lonely wanderer on a stormy night direct our weary steps toward the first glimmering window light, uncertain whether we are about to knock at the door of a philanthropist or of a heartless egotist. But the hope and confidence with which I came to the United States was not such. There was a knowledge of fact in it. I did not know what persons it might be my fate to meet, but I knew that meet I should with two living principles-with that of FREEDOM and that of NATIONAL HOSPITALITY.

Both are political principles here. Freedom is expansive like the light: it loves to spread itself; and hospitality here in this happy land is raised out of the narrow circle of private virtue into political wisdom. As you, gentlemen, are the representatives of your people, so the people of the United States at large are representative of European humanitya congregation of nations assembled in the hospitable hall of American liberty. Your people is linked to Europe, not only by the common tie of manhood, not only by the communicative spirit of liberty,—not

LOUIS KOSSUTH. Hungarian patriot. Born Monok, Hungaria, April 27, 1822; died at Turin, Italy, March 20, 1894; became president of the Hungarian Republic in 1849; after its overthrow by Austria and Russia, he fled the country and visited England and the United States.

only by commercia! intercourse, but by the sacred ties of blood. The people of the United States is Europe transplanted to America. And it is not Hungary's woes alone-it is the cause of all Europe which I am come to plead. Where was ever a son, who in his own happy days could indifferently look at the sufferings of his mother, whose heart's blood is running in his very veins? And Europe is the mother of the United States.

I hope to God that the people of this glorious land is, and will ever be, fervently attached to this, their free, great, and happy home. I hope to God that whatever tongue they speak, they are and will ever be American and nothing but American. And so they must be, if they will be free-if they desire for their adopted home greatness and perpetuity. Should once the citizens of the United States cease to be Americans, and become again English, Irish, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Swedish, French, America would soon cease to be what it is now-freedom elevated to the proud position of a power on earth.

But while I hope that all the people of the United States will never become anything but Americans, and that even its youngest adopted sons, though fresh with sweet home recollections, will know here no South, no North, no East, and no West-nothing but the whole country, the common nationality of freedom-in a word, America; still I also know that blood is blood-that the heart of the son must beat at the contemplation of his mother's sufferings. These were the motives of my confident hope. And here in this place I have the happy right to say, God the Almighty is with me; my hopes are about to be realized. Sir, it is a gratifying view to see how the generous sympathy of individuals for the cause which I respectfully plead is rising into public opinion. But nowhere had I the happy lot to see this more clearly expressed than in this great commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the mighty "Keystone State" of the Union. The people of Harrisburg spoke first: no city before had so distinctly articulated the public sympathy into acknowledged principles. It has framed the sympathy of generous instinct into a political shape. I will forever remember it with fervent gratitude. Then came the metropolis [Philadelphia],—a hope and a consolation by its very name to the oppressed, the sanctuary of American independence, where the very bells speak prophecy-which is now sheltering more inhabitants than all Pennsylvania did, when, seventy-five years ago, the prophetic bell of Independence Hall announced to the world that free America was born; which now, with the voice of thunder, will, I hope, tell the world that the doubtful life of that child has unfolded itself into a mighty power on earth. Yes, after Harrisburg, the metropolis spoke, a flourishing example of freedom's self-developing energy; and after

the metropolis, now so mighty a center of nations, and fit ally of international law-next came Pittsburg, the immense manufacturing workshop, alike memorable for its moral power and its natural advantages, which made it a link with the great valley of the West, a cradle of a new world, which is linked in its turn to the old world by boundless agricultural interests. And after the people of Pennsylvania have thus spoken, here now I stand in the temple of this people's sovereignty, with joyful gratitude acknowledging the inestimable benefits of this public reception, wherewith the elected of Pennsylvania, intrusted with the legislative and executive power of the sovereign people, gather into one garland the public opinion, and with the authority of their high position announce loudly to the world the principles, the resolution, and the will of the two millions of this great commonwealth. Sir, the words your Excellency has honored me with will have their weight throughout the world. The jeering smile of the despots, which accompanied my wandering, will be changed, at the report of these proceedings, to a frown which may yet cast fresh mourning over families, as it has over mine; nevertheless, the afflicted will wait to be consoled by the dawn of public happiness. From the words which your Excellency spoke, the nations will feel double resolution to shake off the yoke of despotism. The proceedings of to-day will, moreover, have their weight in the development of public opinion in other States of your united republic. Governor! I plead no dead cause. Europe is no corpse; it has a future yet, because it wills. Sir, from the window of your room, which your hospitality has opened to me, I saw suspended a musket and a powder horn, and this motto "Material Aid." And I believe that the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania is seated in that chair whence. the Declaration of American Independence was signed. The first is what Europe wants in order to have the success of the second. Permit me to take this for a happy augury; and allow me with the plain words of an honest mind to give you the assurance of my country's warm, everlasting gratitude, in which, upon the basis of our restored independence, a wide field will be opened to mutual benefit by friendly commercial intercourse, ennobled by the consciousness of imparted benefit on your side, and by the pleasant duty of gratitude on the side of Hungary, which so well deserves your generous sympathy.

§ 75

TRIBUTE TO WASHINGTON IRVING

By Charles Dickens.

(Response at the banquet given in his honor during his first visit to America, New York City, February 18, 1842. Washington Irving presided at the banquet.)

GENTLEMEN: I don't know how to thank you-I really don't know how. You would naturally suppose that my former experience would have given me this power, and that the difficulties in my way would have been diminished; but I assure you the fact is exactly the reverse, and I have completely balked the ancient proverb that “a rolling stone gathers no moss"; and in my progress to this city I have collected such a weight of obligations and acknowledgment-I have picked up such an enormous mass of fresh moss at every point, and was so struck by the brilliant scenes of Monday night, that I thought I could never by any possibility grow any bigger. I have made continually new accumulations to such an extent that I am compelled to stand still, and can roll no more!

Gentlemen, we learn from the authorities, that, when fairy stones, or balls, or rolls of thread, stopped at their own accord as I do notit presaged some great catastrophe near at hand. The precedent holds good in this case. When I have remembered the short time I have before me to spend in this land of mighty interests, and the poor opportunity I can at best have of acquiring a knowledge of, and forming an acquaintance with it, I have felt it almost a duty to decline the honors you so generously heap upon me, and pass more quietly among you. For Argus himself, though he had but one mouth for his hundred eyes, would have found the reception of a public entertainment once a week too much for his greatest activity; and, as I would lose no scrap of the rich instruction and the delightful knowledge which meet me on every hand (and already I have gleaned a great deal from your hospitals and common jails),—I have resolved to take up my staff, and go my way rejoicing, and for the future to shake hands with America, not at parties but at home; and, therefore, gentlemen, I say to-night, with a full heart, and an honest purpose, and grateful feelings, that I bear, and shall ever bear, a deep sense of your kind, your affectionate and your noble greetCHARLES DICKENS. English novelist. Born February 7, 1812, at Landport, England. Died on June 9, 1870, at Highan, England.