University of Virginia Library

67. LETTER LXVII.
MAJOR DOWNING'S LETTER OF FRIENDSHIP AND ENCOURAGEMENT TO
GOVERNOR KOSSUTH, OF HUNGARY, SOON AFTER HIS ARRIVAL IN NEW
YORK.

Dear Governor:—I hope you won't feel slighted because I
haint writ to you afore. The truth is, I haven't had no time.
I've been so busy for about a month past, I couldn't get time
to write no how. Uncle Joshua and I have been hard to work
all the time, day and night, reading your speeches and the
duins of the meetins in New York and England. We begun
a week or two before you got to York, and have been at it
ever since. We commonly get up and go at it before breakfast,
and take turns reading, and keep it up till bed time—
that is, till nine o'clock in the evenin'; for that's the time we
Downingville folks go to bed. So I hope you won't feel slighted
because I haven't found time to write to you afore now, and I
hope you haven't felt lonesome since you've been in York. I
see you are on the way to Philadelphy, and Baltimore, and

Washington; and if you should feel lonesome in them places,
jest turn about and come down here to Downingville, and
we'll try to cheer you up and make you feel at home. I say
this because I have took a great liking to you, and I always
mean what I say. I've took a greater liking to you than anybody
else since I lost my dear old friend, Gineral Jackson.
May be it is because you are so much like him. Fact, in some
things it seems to me you are jest like him. Old Hickory was
the man what “took the responsibility” when he wanted to
do anything, and I see you are jest so—you an't afraid to
take the responsibility; and, what's better still, you are
trying to encourage other folks to take the responsibility tu.
Old Hickory was a great hand to make principles, and then
fight 'em through. And there, agin, I think you are a good
deal like him. And, by the way, I begin to feel quite a
liking for President Bonaparte, of France; for I see he's took
the responsibility at last, and been makin' principles, and
fightin' of 'em through. There's some smart folks in the
world yet; and it's well there is, for it's pretty likely there'll
be a use for 'em before another year is out. And then another
thing which makes me think you are so much like Old Hickory
is the hoorahs. Why, it seems to me I can hear 'em all the
way from York to Downingville; and it carries me right back
to old times, when the whole country was ringing with
“Hoorah for Jackson.”

I think, dear Governor, you better stop here till next summer,
and not go back to Hungary. We shall have to make a
new President next summer, and you might get in to be
President jest as easy as a cat could lick her ear; and a
President, you know, is higher than Governor. Hadn't you
better take it? I know you can get it if you'll only say the
word. Our parties in this country have been so broke to
pieces, and mixed up lately, that nobody could tell who to

pitch upon for President; and we've been a good deal worried
for fear we shouldn't make out to choose any President at all
next summer. And I an't sure but what you've got here just
in the nick of time to get us out of this scrape; for, if you'll
only stand as a candidate, you'll go in all holler. I never
knew it to fail, when the hurrahs got up so strong as they
have been since you got to York. We've got about twenty
parties in this country now; there's the old Whig party, and
the old Democrat party, and the Woolyhead Whigs, and the
Silver Gray Whigs, and the Hunker Democrats, and the Barnburner
Democrats, and the Seward party, and the Union
Safety Committee party, and the Liberty party, and the regular
Free-Soil party, and the regular Vote-Yourself-a-Farm
party, and the old Abolition party, and the old Secession
party (which sprouted up out of the old Nullification party
that I and Old Hickory killed off), and the Co-operation
Secessionists, and the Out-and-out Go-alone Secessionists;
and now there's two new parties added that an't hardly three
weeks old yet—the Intervention party, and the Non-Intervention
party; and I believe these are divided again into the
party for Intervention, without war, and the party for Intervention,
war or no war.

It was lucky you took a stand and put your foot down,
when you first got to New York, that you wouldn't be mixed
up with any of our parties in this country; for if you had
once fairly got mixed in with 'em, you would a found yourself
in such a snarl that I am afraid you would wish yourself back
to Turkey again before you would ever get out of it. And
it's lucky, on another account, that you haven't mixed up
with any of our twenty parties; for now you are the only
man in the country that can get their votes. As you
haven't said nothin' agin none of 'em, they can all turn round
and vote for you, and if you'll only say the word they'll do it,

and be glad of the chance; for that seems to be the only way
they can get handsomely out of the everlasting snarl they've
got into all over the country. You needn't be afraid there's
anything in the way agin your being President. To be sure,
there is some little rules laid down about it in our Constitution,
but that can all be managed well enough; it only wants
somebody to take the responsibility. Folks can't always go
according to the Constitution when they get into a bad snarl;
they have to make new principles to go by. See how President
Bonaparte has jest got out of his snarl; the Constitution
didn't stand in his way a bit; he's jest sot up a new principle,
and fit it out. And you see he's come out all straight,
and now can wind his yarn anywhere to suit himself.

I don't see nothin' in the way to prevent your getting in to
be President, if you've a mind to. You haven't mixed up
with no party, so you wouldn't have to fight agin no party,
and it's pretty likely no party wouldn't fight agin you. But
there's another thing makes it more sure than all that: You
know this is a free country, and all the offices belongs to
everybody; and them that can make the best and the most
stump speeches commonly gets in. Now, I know we haven't
got anybody in this country, from Maine to Texas, nor from
Dan to Beer Sheba, that can hold a candle to you in that kind
of business. Of course, when I say this, I mean the old Bible
Dan and Beer Sheba; there is another Dan in this country,
that if you should happen to run afoul of, I don't know but
the case might be different.

Now, it seems to me, you better go in for the Presidency,
instead of going back to Hungary; a bird in the hand is
worth two in the bush anyhow; and the country is fairly
under your thumb now, but Hungary is still under the paw of
the Russian bear. So that although you are the Governor of
Hungary, it's likely enough there would be a pesky hard

scratch before you could govern it, if you went back. But I
see some of the papers say that you an't Governor of Hungary
now, although they don't deny but you was once. I wish
them papers had better manners; they might jest as well say
that I an't a Major now, because I an't all the time riding a
hoss-back at the head of a regiment of sogers. No, no; that
won't do—its nonsense and impudence tu. The rule in this
country is, once a Major always a Major, and once a Governor
always a Governor. A man's title belongs to him as much as
his name does. My Major belongs to me, and your Governor
belongs to you, and nobody hasn't any right to take it away
from us any more than he would have to upset a nation.
Because it's a principle, and founded in everlasting justice;
therefore, it is not only the law of this country, but it is the
true and just law of nations; and our Government and our
country not only ought to respect it themselves, but to make
others respect it.

“Well, now, dear Governor, if you shouldn't think it best
to accept my offer about the Presidency, and should rather go
back and run your chance in Hungary, the next question is
to see what can be done for you on that score. You say, you
want that we—that is, all America and the universal Yankee
nation—should say you have a fair right to be called Governor
of Hungary. Agreed; I've already proved that you have
that right, and shall have it as long as you live. There won't
be no more trouble on that score. That question is disposed
of forever, I hope.

In the next place, you want us to say that Hungary got her
independence of Austria fairly, and ought to have it. Agreed
to that, too. We say it, and will stand to it, all weathers.
Hungary fit it out like a man, and ought to be free forever,
and a thousand years afterward. And the traitor Gorgey
ought to have his neck stretched, and the Russian bear ought

to have his toe nails cut off and his nose muzzled, so that he
couldn't bite and scratch anybody agin, nor interfere in other
folks' domestic affairs.

In the next place, you say you want “something else,”
which, as near as I can find out by the papers, means money
matters, and food, and raiment, and clothes, and a few guns,
and the like of that, because you are going back to have
another tussle with Austria and Russia. Agreed to that, too.
You shall have all you want. Jest hold your basket and we'll
fill it, if it is a dozen times a day. I see money is beginning
to pour in upon you in a thousand little streams, and some
pretty large rivers; and it won't be long before you'll have a
whole mint of it, besides guns, and knapsacks, and cartridgeboxes.
When I read some of your speeches to our folks about
your poor, down-trodden country, it made the tears come, I
tell ye. Cousin Nabby said she would knit stockins all
winter, and send 'em over for your sogers, so they shouldn't
have to go barefoot, as ours did in the Revolution. Aunt
Keziah said, them two great cheeses that she was going to
buy a silk gown with, she would sell for money and send it to
the Kossuth fund in New York. Uncle Joshua said he would
sell his three-year old steers, for he could do his plowing next
summer with the old oxen, and send the money to you. Cousin
Sargent Joel sot in a deep study; at last says he, “I don't
know as I've got anything to send but that little piece of remonstrance,”
and he pointed to his old rifle that hung up
against the wall; says he, “I'll send that over to Hungary to
shoot the old Russian Bear if he comes growling round agin.”
And then he sot thinking a minute longer, and he jumped up
and smit his fists together, and says he, “No, I won't send it;
I'll go and carry it myself.” So you see, dear Governor, there
isn't much danger but what you'll get “something else.”

In the next place, when you come to the scratch, you want

[ILLUSTRATION]

AID AND COMFORT FOR GOVERNOR KOSSUTH.

[Description: 688EAF. Page 355. In-line image. A man stands in a room while others watch him. He holds a rifle by the barrel with its butt on the floor. Two men and two women watch him. He stands defiantly.] our Government and this whole nation to hold the Russian
Bear back and not let him meddle, while Hungary and Austria
has a fair tussle. And you want we should give him fair
warning before-hand, and tell him he shan't meddle, no how;
and, if we do, you think he'll mind us. Maybe he would, and
maybe he wouldn't; and if he wouldn't, what then? Then
you want us to go right at him, and fight him down, and make
him mind, because it's right and just; and now we've got to
be a great and powerful nation, it is our duty to look round
and take care of the world, and make all the folks do right.

Well, now, dear Governor, as to that, I don't know but we
aught to stop and think about it a little. In the first place,

we have a rule here that “all just government derives its
powers from the consent of the governed.” So, if we've got
to look round and govern the world, hadn't we aught to get
the world's consent first? And, as you want to take hold of
Russia first, I s'pose she is the first one we aught to ask consent
of. And if the Russian will consent that we shall hold
him back, we'll hold him back and run the risk of it.

And in the next place, dear Governor, it might be very well
for us to take care of the world, and carry out the laws of
nations, and make everybody do right everywhere, if there
wasn't no danger of our getting more than our hands full.
But only look at it. Suppose, when Hungary begins her tussle,
the Russian should show his teeth and grab hold of her.
Then we should have to send over an army and ships to help
drive him back. Then suppose Poland should start up and
want to be free—and she has as bloody a right to be free as
any nation in the world—then we must send an army to take
care of Poland, for the Russians would fight most awfully there.
And there's France, too. You say “the Government of
France is on the side of the oppressors, and the nation of
France is one of the oppressed nations.” Then, of course, it
will be our next duty to send an army and put down the Government
of France, and let the nation go free. And then,
besides the East Indies, and China, and Circassia, and lots of
other places that the geography tells about, there's a good
many things that we should have to look after nearer home.
When fillibusters go to upset Cuba, we must send our ships
and armies to take care of that. And, then, in Mexico and
South America there's troubles all the time to look after.

Now, don't you think, dear Governor, there might be a
leetle danger of our getting our hands full? But, come what
may, dear Governor, I shall remain your friend forever,