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_