uncle the Hon. John Sargent, the Hon. Horace Binney, and other distinguished counsellors, who concur with me in the sentiment, I feel, most reluctantly I assure you, that such sentiments are incendiary in their character and effect; and as the conservator of the public morals and peace of the country, having sworn to comply with the Constitution of the United States and the State of Pennsylvania, on taking upon myself the office of Attorney-General of the County of Philadelphia, I shall be obliged to bring any such sentiments to the notice of the Grand Inquest of the county for their action and consideration.

Respectfully,

W. B. REED, Attorney-General.

Kossuth thus comments on this letter:

"Now, such a letter, and yet a forgery, indeed, is a despicable trick; but though it is a forgery, still there is one thing which forces me to some humble remarks, precisely because I know not whence comes the blow. I am referring to these words: Your intervention or non-intervention sentiments are unsuited to the region of Pennsylvania, situated as she is on the borders of several slave-holding States.' I avail myself of this opportunity to declare once more that I never did or will do anything which, in the remotest way, could interfere with the matter alluded to, nor with whatever other domestic question of your united Republic, or of a single State of it. I have declared it openly several times, and on all and every opportunity I have proved to be as good as my word. I dare say that even the pledge of the word of honor of an honest man should not be considered a sufficient security in that respect. The publicly avowed basis of my human claims, and the unavoidable logic of it would prove to be a decisive authority.

"What is the ground upon which I stand before the mighty tribunal of the public opinion of the United States? It is the sovereign right of every nation to dispose of its own

domestic concerns. [Great applause.] What is it I humbly ask of the United States? It is that they may generously be pleased to protect this sovereign right of every nation against the encroaching violence of Russia. It is, therefore, eminently clear that, this being my ground, I cannot and will not meddle with any domestic question of this Republic. [Applause.] Indeed, I more and more perceive that, to speak with Hamlet, there are more things in heaven and earth than were dreamed of in my philosophy.' [Laughter and applause.] But still, I will stand upright, on however slippery ground, by taking hold of that legitimate fence of not meddling in your domestic questions."

What, then, is the shadowy line by which, while he claims our sympathy and aid for Hungary, he separates the slave's claim from his own? Simply this, Hungary asks for rights which ancient charters secured to her; the slave has no charters, no parchments to show, therefore, we ought to love and aid the Magyar; therefore, Douglass can claim nothing of Kossuth! And can the soul of Kossuth rise no higher than the level of human parchments? Or can he plead for liberty with such bated breath and whispered humbleness, that to serve his purpose he can remember always to forget the self-evident rights which God gave, to which the slave has as much right as the noblest Magyar of them all? More than this, can he find it in his heart to strengthen by his silence, by his example, and his name, the hands of the ruthless violator of those rights; cry "glorious" and "amen," while the black is robbed of his hard toil, of the Bible, of chastity, wife, husband, and child, only to persuade slave-holders to aid in securing for the Magyar peasant the right to vote, and for the Magyar noble the right to legislate? The world thought his lips had been touched by a coal from the altar of the living God, and lo! he has bargained away his very

utterance, and presents himself before us thus cheaply bought and gagged!

His parallel of the non-intervention of States is not a just one. No one asks England to interfere with our slave question. But, on the other hand, she pronounces no opinion on our government in general; she does not expend herself in glowing, unqualified, and indiscrimi nate eulogy of our institutions, or strengthen the hands of their friends by holding them up to the world as the first hope of redemption to oppressed nations, and the fairest model of republican perfection. The same is true of Kossuth. While at home, all the world asked of him was to stand in his lot, and do gallant battle for his land and people. When he comes here, and gives the listening world his judgment of our institutions, mingling himself thus, whether he will or no, with our great national struggle, — he owes it to truth, to liberty, and the slave, that such judgment should be a true, discriminating, and honest one. If the opinion he has pronounced be his honest judgment, what will men say of that heart whose halting sympathies allowed him to overlook a system of oppression which Wesley called the "vilest the sun ever saw," and which made Jefferson "tremble for his country, when he remembered that God was just"? If it be not his honest judgment, but only fawning words, uttered to gain an end, what will men say of the Jesuit who thought he owed it to Hungary to serve her, or, indeed, imagined that he could serve her, by lips that clung not to the truth? When Rome's ransom was weighing out, the insolent conqueror flung his sword into the scale against it. So at the moment when the fate of the slave hangs trembling in the balance, and all he has wherewith to weigh down the brute strength of his oppressor is the sympathy of good men and the indignant protest of the world, Kos

suth, with the eyes of all nations fixed upon him, throws the weight of his great name, of his lavish and unqualified approbation into the scale of the slave-holder, crying out all the while, "Non-intervention!"

Truly these eyes that see no race but the Magyar, and no wrongs but those of Hungary, may be the eyes of a great Hungarian and a great patriot, but God forbid they should be the eyes of a man or a Christian!

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Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Every heart responds to the classic patriot, and feels that it is indeed good and honorable to die for one's country; but every true man feels likewise, with old Fletcher of Saltoun, that while he "would die to serve his country, he would not do a base act to save her."

CRISPUS ATTUCKS.

Speech delivered at the Festival commemorative of the Boston Massacre, in Faneuil Hall, March 5, 1858.

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ADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I am very glad to stand

here in an hour when we come together to do honor to one of the first martyrs in our Revolution. I think we sometimes tell the story of what he did with too little appreciation of how much it takes to make the first move in the cold streets of a revolutionary epoch. It is a very easy thing to sit down and read the history; it is a very easy thing to imagine what we would have done, it is a very different thing to strike the first blow. It is a very hard thing to spring out of the ranks of common, every-day life submission to law, recognition of established government and lift the first musket. The man or the dozen men who do it, deserve great, pre-eminent, indisputable places in the history of the Revolution. It is an easy thing to fight when the blood is hot; but this man whose memory we commemorate to-night stepped out of common life, every-day quiet, and lifted his arm among the very first against the government. It is only pre-eminent courage that can do this. To-day, in yonder capital of Paris, the whole government rests on a thin film of ice. A hundred men in arms in the streets would break it; that hundred men cannot be found, a hundred men willing to risk their lives, with a cold, unmoved populace behind