Georgian
Robert Toombs, like many other political leaders of antebellum times,
followed Secretary of State John Quincy Adam’s 1821 dictum that “she
[America] goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the
well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion
and vindicator only of her own.” Hungarian revolutionary Louis Kossuth
visited Wilmington, North Carolina in 1852; he raised a great deal of
money though it was quickly absorbed by his own expenses “and large
Hungarian retinue.”
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Traditional American Foreign Policy of Old
“[Toombs
spoke] at a congressional banquet at Willard’s Hotel in commemoration
of Washington’s birthday [in 1852] and took this occasion, along with
other speakers present, to attack the Hungarian rebel chieftain, Louis
Kossuth, who was in the United States enlisting money and support for
the continuation of the struggle against Austrian domination. In
strongly conservative . . . terms, he condemned the solicitations of the
popular revolutionary, saying Kossuth wished the United States to “turn
knight-errant, imitate the knight of La Mancha [Don Quixote], and
travel up and down the world, revenging or righting the wrongs of all
injured nations.”
The
United States, should not, he said, interfere with the institutions of
another country, in view of the difficulty it was having agreeing on the
proper principles of its own internal policy. Let it look after its own
affairs and steer clear of European entanglements. Those nations who
desired to be free had only to will it.
The
New York Daily Times, ardent Kossuth champion, deplored the addresses,
saying that the “mantle of Washington was [being] made to protect the
interests and the political crimes of despots of Europe.” The Kossuth
rage continued for some time in the United States but finally evaporated
when it appeared the Hungarian wanted active intervention by the United
States in Europe, something traditional American policy opposed.”
(Robert Toombs of Georgia, William Y. Thompson, LSU Press, 1994 (original 1966), pp. 82-83)
