subject is here well understood generally, which is a benefit to me. I
declare to you all, that I find more exact knowledge of the Hungarian
cause here, than in any other place I have been. Yet I am astonished to
see in a report of the proceedings of the United States Senate, that a
member rose and said that we were not struggling for the principle of
Freedom and of Liberty, but rather for the support of our ancient
Charter. This, gentlemen, is a misrepresentation of our cause. There is
a truth in the assertion that we were struggling for our _ancient
rights_, for the right of self-government is an ancient right. The
right of self-government was ours a thousand years ago, and has been
guaranteed to us by the coronation oaths of more than thirty of our
kings. I say that this right was guaranteed to us, yet it had become a
dead letter in the course of time. Before the Revolution of 1848 we were
long struggling to enforce our notorious but often invaded rights; but
the whole people were not interested in them: for although they were
constitutional rights, they were restricted in ancient times, not to a
particular _race_, but to a particular _class_, called Nobles.
These did not belong to the Magyars alone, but to all the races that
settled in the country, to the Sclaves, to the Wallachians, the Serbs,
and to others, whatever their race or their extraction. Yet none but the
_Nobles_ were privileged. We saw that for one class only to be
interested in these rights was not enough, and we wished to make them a
benefit to every man in the country, and to replace the old Constitution
by one which should give a common and universal right to all men to
vote, without regard to the tongue they speak or the Church at which
they pray. I need not enter further into the subject than to say, that
we established a system of practically universal suffrage, of equality
in representation, a just share in taxation for the support of the
State, and equality in the benefits of public education, and in all
those blessings which are derived from the freedom of a free people.