honest prudence of ordinary household times, measuring eternity with that
thimble with which they are wont to measure the bubbles of small party
interest, and, taking the dreadful roaring of the ocean for a storm in a
water-glass;--let those who believe the weather to be calm, because they
have drawn a nightcap over their ears, and, burying their heads in pillows
of domestic comfort, do not hear Satan sweeping in a hurricane over the
earth; let envy, ambition, blindness, and the pettifogging wisdom of small
times,--let all these artistically investigate the question of my official
capacity, or the nature of my public authority; let them scrupulously
discuss the immense problem whether I still possess, or possess no longer,
the title of my once-Governorship; let them ask for credentials, discuss
the limits of my commission, as representative of Hungary. I pity all such
frog and mouse fighting.

I claim no official capacity,--no public authority, no
representation;--boast of no commission, of no written and sealed
credentials. I am nothing but what my generous friend, the senator from
Michigan, has justly styled me, "a private and banished man." But, in that
capacity I have a nobler credential for my mission than all the clerks of
the world can write,--the credential that I am a "man;" the credential that
I am a "patriot;" the credential that I love with all sacrificing devotion
my oppressed fatherland and liberty; the credential that I hate tyrants,
and have sworn everlasting hostility to them; the credential that I feel
the strength to do good service to the cause of freedom; good service, as
perhaps few men can do, because I have the iron will, in this my breast, to
serve faithfully devotedly, indefatigably, that noble cause.

I have the credential that I trust to God in heaven, to justice on earth;
that I offend no laws, but cling to the protection of the laws. I have the
credential of my people's undeniable confidence and its unshaken faith; to