I will go further. Even that doctrine of neutrality which Washington taught and bequeathed to you, he taught not as a constitutional principle—a lasting regulation for all future time, but only as a matter of temporary policy. I refer in that respect to the very words of his Farewell Address. There he states explicitly that "it is your policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." These are his very words. Policy is the word, and you know that policy is not the science of principle, but of exigencies; and that principles are, of course, by a free and powerful nation, never to be sacrificed to exigencies. The exigencies pass away like the bubbles of a shower, but the nation is immortal: it must consider the future also, and not only the egotistical dominion of the passing hour: it must be aware that to an immortal nation nothing can be of higher importance than immortal principles. Again, in the same address Washington explicitly says, in reference to his policy of neutrality, that "with him a predominant motive has been to gain time to your country to settle and mature its institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it the command of its own fortunes." These are highly memorable words, gentlemen. Here I take my ground; and casting a glance of admiration over your glorious land, I confidently ask you, gentlemen, are your institutions settled and matured or are they not? Are you, or are you not, come to such a degree of strength and consistency as to be the masters of your own fortunes? Oh! how do I thank God for having given me the glorious view of this country's greatness, which answers this question for me! Yes! you have attained that degree of strength and consistency in which your less fortunate brethren may well claim your protecting hand.
One word more on Washington's doctrines. In one of his letters, written to Lafayette, he says:—"Let us only have twenty years of peace, and our country will come to such a degree of power and wealth that we shall be able, in a just cause, to defy any power on earth whatsoever." "In a just cause!" Now, in the name of eternal truth, and by all that is dear and sacred to man, since the history of mankind is recorded, there has been no cause more just than the cause of Hungary. Never was there a people, without the slightest reason, more sacrilegiously, more treacherously attacked, or by fouler means than Hungary. Never has crime, cursed ambition, despotism, and violence, united more wickedly to crush freedom, and the very life, than against Hungary. Never was a country more mortally aggrieved than Hungary is. All your sufferings—all your complaints, which, with so much right, drove your forefathers to take up arms, are but slight grievances in comparison with those immense deep wounds, out of which the heart of Hungary bleeds! If the cause of our people is not sufficiently just to insure the protection of God, and the support of right-willing men—then there is no just cause, and no justice on earth. Then the blood of no new Abel will moan towards Heaven. The genius of charity, Christian love, and justice will mourningly fly the earth; a heavy curse will fall upon morality—oppressed men will despair, and only the Cains of mankind walk proudly with impious brow about the ruins of liberty on earth.
Now, allow me briefly to consider how your Foreign Policy has grown and enlarged itself. I will only recall to your memory the message of President Monroe, when he clearly stated that the United States would take up arms to protect the American Colonies of Spain, now free republics, should the Holy (or rather unholy) Alliance make an attempt either to aid Spain to reduce the new American republics to their ancient colonial state, or to compel them to adopt political systems more conformable to the policy and views of that alliance. I entreat you to mark this well, gentlemen. Not only the forced introduction of monarchy, but in general the interference of foreign powers in the contest, was declared sufficient motive for the United States to protect the colonies. Let me remind you that this declaration of President Monroe was not only approved and confirmed by the people of the United States, but that Great Britain itself joined the United States, in the declaration of this decision and this policy. I further recall to your memory the instructions given in 1826 to your Envoys to the Congress of Panama, Richard Anderson and John Sergeant, where it was clearly stated that the United States would have opposed, with their whole force, the interference of the continental powers in that struggle for independence. It is true, that this declaration to go even to war, to protect the independence of foreign States against foreign interference, was restricted to the continent of America; for President Monroe declares in his message that the United States can have no concern in European straggles, being distant and separated from Europe by the great Atlantic Ocean. But I would remark that this indifference to European concerns is again a matter, not of principle but of temporary exigency—the motives of which have, by the lapse of time, entirely disappeared—so much that the balance is even turned to the opposite side.
President Monroe mentions distance as a motive of the above-stated distinction. Well, since the prodigious development of your Fulton's glorious invention, distance is no longer calculated by miles, but by hours; and, being so, Europe is of course less distant from you than the greater part of the American continent. But, let even the word distance be taken in a nominal sense. Europe is nearer to you than the greatest part of the American continent—yea! even nearer than perhaps some parts of your own territory. President Monroe's second motive is, that you are separated from Europe by the Atlantic. Now, at the present time, and in the present condition of navigation, the Atlantic is no separation, but rather a link; as the means of that commercial intercourse which brings the interest of Europe home to you, connecting you with it by every tie of moral as well as material interest.
There is immense truth in that which the French Legation in the United States expressed to your government in an able note of 27th October past:—"America is closely connected with Europe, being only separated from the latter by a distance scarcely exceeding eight days' journey, by one of the most important of general interests—the interest of commerce. The nations of America and Europe are at this day so dependent upon one another, that the effects of any event, prosperous or otherwise, happening on one side of the Atlantic, are immediately felt on the other side. The result of this community of interests, commercial, political, and moral, between Europe and America—of this frequency and rapidity of intercourse between them, is, that it becomes as difficult to point out the geographical degree where American policy shall terminate, and European policy begin, as it is to trace out the line where American commerce begins and European commerce terminates. Where may be said to begin or terminate the ideas which are in the ascendant in Europe and in America?"
It is chiefly in New York that I feel induced to urge this, because New York is, by innumerable ties, connected with Europe—more connected than several parts of Europe itself. It is the agricultural interest of this great country which chiefly wants an outlet and a market. Now, it is far more to Europe than to the American continent that you have to look in that respect. On this account you cannot remain indifferent to the fate of freedom on the European continent: for be sure, gentlemen—and I would say this chiefly to the gentlemen of trade—should absolutism gain ground in Europe, it will, it must, put every possible obstacle in the way of commercial intercourse with republican America: for commercial intercourse is the most powerful convoyer of principles, and be sure the victory of absolutism on the European continent will in no quarter have more injurious national consequences than against your vast agricultural and commercial interests. Then why not prevent it, while it is still possible to do so with comparatively small sacrifices, rather than abide that fatal catastrophe, and have to mourn the immense sacrifices it would then cost?
Even in political considerations, now-a-days, you have stronger motives to feel interested in the fate of Europe than in the fate of the Central or Southern parts of America.