Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/154

 BRYANT HIS WELCOME TO KOSSUTH* (1851) Bom in 1794, died in 1878; admitted to the Bar in 1815; published " Thanatopsis " in 1816; became connected with the New York Evening Post in 1826, being Editor until his death; opposed the ex- tension of slavery and supported the Union cause. Let me ask you to imagine the contest, in which the United States asserted their inde- pendence of Great Britain, had been unsuccess- ful ; that our armies, through treason or a league of tyrants against us, had been broken and scattered ; that the great men who led them, and who swayed our councils — our Washington, our Franklin, and the venerable president of the American Congress — had been driven forth as exiles. If there had existed at that day, in any part of the civilized world, a powerful Re- public, with institutions resting on the same foundations of liberty, which our own country- men sought to establish, would there have been in that Republic any hospitality too cordial, any sympathy too deep, any zeal for their glorious but unfortunate cause, too fervent or too active to be shown toward these illustrious fugitives? Gentlemen, the case I have supposed is before 1 DeUvered at the banquet given by the Press of New York to Kossuth on December 15, 1851, Bryant presiding. 144