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Letter to Kossuth
This
remarkable letter, published in the Boston Investigator (XXXIII, 41 (Feb. 17,
1864)), was located by Shawn Wilbur. For Kossuth, see the note to the previous
selection. Kossuth had gone from resistance fighter to ruler, a success that
Warren regarded as no less a danger than complete failure. He adduces the great
revolutionaries of France, and history has since provided many examples of
noble fighters of oppression who mutated into oppressors: Mao and Lenin, of
course, come particularly to mind.
For
the Boston Investigator.
A
Letter to Louis Kossuth
Governor
of Hungary
Boston,
Feb. 1, 1864
Beloved
and Honored Man:
When
you visited this country years ago, and put forth those heart-stirring appeal
in behalf of your bleeding country, my sympathies went out towards you with
more than a brotherıs yearning, with an intensity that no other man in the
political sphere ever commanded from me. This almost idolatry, however, was
mixed with a tinge of sadness from the fear of your ultimate disappointment from
a cause apparently too subtle for ready detection. This was, that in resisting
tyranny, your national policy might include the mistake which would convert
itself into a tyranny. My fears are already confirmed at the very first step
taken by your committee in their report of the 24th December. They say, on your
responsibility, that they ³will know how, and are determined to secure
obedience to its (their) orders and the accomplishment of the measures which it
(they) must take.² Here is, again, the whole issue between the freedom to
differ, (or the right of individuality,) and the demand for conformity; the
latter being the very essence of tyranny, against which you would array your
countrymen, and ask for the sympathies of the civilized world.
That you, with your great
heart and deep humanity yearnings should fall into this common error, confirms,
more than anything else ever did, my standing excuse for Robespierre, Marat,
Danton, and despots and tyrants all over the world, and through all the ages.
It is simply a mistakea fatal oversight.[1]
The mistake is inventing well meant systems or theories, and then endeavoring
to enforce obedience thereto, by treating involuntary dissent as a crime.
Opinions and preferences
are as involuntary in their action as the circulation of the blood; and to
threaten dissenters with the ³fate of traitors,² as your Committee have done,
is to proclaim that your cause is, for the present, already lost. Remember that
the freedom of dissent in subordinates might have saved Gorgeyıs armyobedience
to Gorgeyıs ³orders² lost it, and perhaps defeated your cause at that time.[2]
Look, my brother, at this
distracted and already desolate country (America) and behold the consequences
of this same fatal error. The people here, in 1776, arrayed themselves against
despotism, and resolved on having ³Free Institutions;² but no sooner are these
institutions put into words on paper than it is found that no two persons
understand them alike. In order to have them administered at all, they must be
administered by some one person, according to his particular interpretation of
them, which is a return to despotism; and which, as usual, threatens the ³fate
of traitors² to all who remain faithful to the original idea of American
freedom! Are we never to see a prospective end to the blind imitation of
barbarian precedents?
You and your committee will
soon find grave subjects arising, upon which you will find it impossible to
agree, and no external power on earth can make any two persons agree when their
mental capacities make them to differ. Difference is inevitable. It grows our
of the inherent and inalienable individuality of every person and every thing;
and the true statesman, instead of making war upon this diversity, will foster
and cherish difference of opinion and preferences as the very balance wheel of
society; and will provide for this diversity and its full exercise to the
greatest practical extent; and instead of threatening dissenters from political
creeds with ³the fate of traitors,² the true statesman will see that when two
parties differ, one is as much a dissenter or traitor (in the vulgar sense in
which the latter word is commonly used) as the other.
This word ³traitor,² so
flippantly and ignorantly used in this country just now, against some of its
very best and wisest citizens (because they dissent from the policy of our
centralized government) has, as it appears to me, no proper application to any
person who has not voluntarily accepted some specific, definite trust, and betrayed
that trust; and in this sense, it is applicable to those who being entrusted
with power in order to promote public peace and prosperity, defeat these very
ends, and bring on war and destruction instead; but, as this may happen through
incompetency, I do not use the offensive word traitor even towards them.
I entreat you to hesitate in
forming any institutions. You cannot form any that will work successfully any
more than you can form fruit upon a tree. To be successful they must be allowed
to grow, like fashions, customs, or the use of the railroad, according to their
demonstrated utility, or the preferences felt for them.
A child may lead where a god
cannot govern; and Kossuth should be the counsellor - not the governor - of
Hungary.
With most respectful and
fraternal regard, I give you my particular address.
JOSIAH
WARREN
Counsellor
in Equity
15
Scollayıs Building
Boston,
Mass., America.
[1] Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794,
Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793), Georges Danton (1759-1794): radical leaders in the
French Revolution.
[2] Artúr Görgey
(1818-1916), Hungarian military man, who had a long and stormy relation with
Kossuth.
