Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/237

Rh our States are judged at half-century intervals, it will appear that they are moving with regular and certain steps towards better conditions. There is not one American State in which the condition of the people in matters of education, in personal and public morals, in industrial intelligence, in wealth and in the means of further improvement, has not been advanced, essentially, in the last fifty years. If all the apprehensions touching the evils and dangers of self-government in Ireland were well founded, there is an assurance in our experience that the people themselves would discover and apply an adequate remedy.

Kossuth was an orator; and every orator is of necessity something of a prophet. He is more than a historian who deals only with the past, illustrated with reflections, called philosophical, concerning the events of the past. With the orator those events are recalled and reviewed for encouragement or warning. The eye of the orator is turned to the future. The peroration of Mr. Webster’s speech in reply to Hayne contains a prophetic description of the Civil War as it was experienced by the succeeding generation. Fisher Ames’ bold prediction as to the disposition of convicts to found and to maintain good government has been realized in the history of Van Diemen’s Land. Said Ames: “If there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect together, and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice—that justice under which they fell—the fundamental law of their state.”

Nor did the spirit of prophecy desert Kossuth, in regard to Louis Napoleon. In 1852 he said: “The fall of Louis Napoleon, though old monarchial elements should unite to throw him up, can have no other issue than a republic.—a republic more faithful to the community of freedom in Europe than all the former revolutions have been.”