The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1852-02-14

r4y"Whie plaudits long and loud are greet
ing KossUTH in the Northwest, and material and
financial aid literally afforded him, the Southern
people are calmly considering the aims and ends
of his propositions and purposes
We extract from the Mobile Tribune the fol.
lowing reflections on this subject, which present
some strong views very forcibly.
KossuTHIsM The Kossuth fever at the last
accounts was raging in Pittsburg and Cincinnati
In the former place resolutions were adopted by
an immense meeting in favor of the policy
which that eloquent man announced in New
York.
But while excitement precedes and follows
Immediately his footsteps, it is very plainly
dying away in the eastern and middle S ates. II
is not rational and, therefore, this result. What
is called the claw of nations" is nothing more
than the law of policy All nations have vio-
lated it when it was their interest to do so ; and
we presunle it will continue thus forever until
that period--"the good time that is coming
when moral influences will be so strong as to
operate without reference to individual respons-
Utility. England, which is now in Europe the
cornerstone of Kossuthisni, has had no national
conscience. All along the pathway of her his
tory are s'rewn the wrecks of law and right
Even in our own c0untry--sO young and so
equtable-there have been violations frequent
ly of the great principle which Kossuth now
proposes, and which Mr.. Sumner and Mr.. Gid
dings and all that tribe of men, who belong to
purer era are laboring to make the country
the champion Of
The whole machinery of this sort of law il
defective. An individual, when his rights are
| ~ H., ~ 20 ~ 20 ibn ,oat
immediate one decide adversely to him, he car
appeal to one more distant. If that fail him he
has another one, and there his suit must end
unless he resort to the law of nature.
There is none of this instrumentality in wha
is called the law of nations, and that law, at best
amounts to nothing more than what is termed
Lynch law-for it makes nations their owl
judges of what is right and the only appellat,
| court it possesses ia the bayonet or cannon
| If such system were adopted, as much injus
| tce would be done as is now done under tn,
no law system.
We see, then, no relief for the wrongs com
planned of, except patience and set-reiance
| Distressed nations must wait, if they cannot
tempt aid from strangers, or work out their owr
redemption.
The centre Of justice is the individual and
as you widen the circle from that centre, the
attraction which preserves justice and orde
diminishes Even in our own country, just as
far as you go from the individual man, mora
| gravitatiOn ceases. A man will do in our mu
nicipal councils, what he would be ashamed tc
do as an individual. The moral responsibility
diminishes in our legislature, and is least of al
in our Congress-
All this is the result Of natural law, which
is made up mainly of twofold motive, first
the divisblity of the responsibility, and, second
y, the remoteness of this responsibility from it
source. To make an effective law for nations
you have got to alter this character of the man
and that is not to be done by beginning you
work on nations.