RUSH, Richard (1780-1859). Autograph letter signed (“Richard Rush”) to Daniel Webster, Sydenham, near Philadelphia, 29 January 1851. 6 pages, 4to.
RUSH, Richard (1780-1859). Autograph letter signed (“Richard Rush”) to Daniel Webster, Sydenham, near Philadelphia, 29 January 1851. 6 pages, 4to. The ‘red spectre’ in Europe through American eyes. Rush, the son of Benjamin Rush, and a former U.S. ambassador to Britain and France, heaps fulsome praise on Secretary of State Webster for his 21 December 1850 letter to the Austrian Chargé d’Affaires, Johann Georg Hulsemann, who had sent a blistering protest to President Fillmore over what the Austrian saw as undue American interference in the Hungarian battle for independence from the Habsburg crown. “True it is,” Rush writes, “…that if your letter does not ‘resound through the Universe,’ it will at least wake up the cabinets of Europe…It will be likely to mark an epoch in our foreign relation, more distinctive than did the Monroe declaration.” Webster’s reply was a forceful denial of any intention to interfere, but an equally forceful assertion of the United States’ eagerness to lend moral support to people seeking to overthrow their monarchical rulers. “The United States… cannot, however, fail to cherish, always, a lively interest in the fortunes of Nations, struggling for institutions like their own.” As for the Hungarian independence movement, “as these extraordinary events appeared to have their origin in those great ideas of responsible and popular governments, on which the American Constitutions themselves are wholly founded, they could not but command the warm sympathy of the People of this Country.” Yet for all his praise, Rush admits that he too thought it was a mistake to take sides in Hungary. “It seemed to me like jumping between two raging volcanoes.” He was not at all comfortable about the radical movements sweeping Europe in that revolutionary era, and his letter gives voice—perhaps one of the earliest examples--of an idea that would dominate American diplomacy in the 20th century: fear of Communism. “With the success of that potent faction of Red Republicans and Socialists in France, calling themselves the masses but in reality not a tenth part of the downright numbers in France, or probably of any other people of Europe, but active, blind, deluded and the guiding portions of the headlong movements, eminently selfish, ingenious and wicked—woes would have come over Europe…such as mankind have probably not known since the barbarism that followed the days of Rome; because democracy, if succeeding in Europe, in this age, could scarcely avoid communism as its Ally.” He closes by urging Webster to support Congressional legislation to dock the pay of American diplomats who were absent from their posts without leave. The practice had become “flagrant” and the abuses “monstrous.” A fascinating look at American diplomatic thought and practices in the mid-19th century.
RUSH, Richard (1780-1859). Autograph letter signed (“Richard Rush”) to Daniel Webster, Sydenham, near Philadelphia, 29 January 1851. 6 pages, 4to.
RUSH, Richard (1780-1859). Autograph letter signed (“Richard Rush”) to Daniel Webster, Sydenham, near Philadelphia, 29 January 1851. 6 pages, 4to. The ‘red spectre’ in Europe through American eyes. Rush, the son of Benjamin Rush, and a former U.S. ambassador to Britain and France, heaps fulsome praise on Secretary of State Webster for his 21 December 1850 letter to the Austrian Chargé d’Affaires, Johann Georg Hulsemann, who had sent a blistering protest to President Fillmore over what the Austrian saw as undue American interference in the Hungarian battle for independence from the Habsburg crown. “True it is,” Rush writes, “…that if your letter does not ‘resound through the Universe,’ it will at least wake up the cabinets of Europe…It will be likely to mark an epoch in our foreign relation, more distinctive than did the Monroe declaration.” Webster’s reply was a forceful denial of any intention to interfere, but an equally forceful assertion of the United States’ eagerness to lend moral support to people seeking to overthrow their monarchical rulers. “The United States… cannot, however, fail to cherish, always, a lively interest in the fortunes of Nations, struggling for institutions like their own.” As for the Hungarian independence movement, “as these extraordinary events appeared to have their origin in those great ideas of responsible and popular governments, on which the American Constitutions themselves are wholly founded, they could not but command the warm sympathy of the People of this Country.” Yet for all his praise, Rush admits that he too thought it was a mistake to take sides in Hungary. “It seemed to me like jumping between two raging volcanoes.” He was not at all comfortable about the radical movements sweeping Europe in that revolutionary era, and his letter gives voice—perhaps one of the earliest examples--of an idea that would dominate American diplomacy in the 20th century: fear of Communism. “With the success of that potent faction of Red Republicans and Socialists in France, calling themselves the masses but in reality not a tenth part of the downright numbers in France, or probably of any other people of Europe, but active, blind, deluded and the guiding portions of the headlong movements, eminently selfish, ingenious and wicked—woes would have come over Europe…such as mankind have probably not known since the barbarism that followed the days of Rome; because democracy, if succeeding in Europe, in this age, could scarcely avoid communism as its Ally.” He closes by urging Webster to support Congressional legislation to dock the pay of American diplomats who were absent from their posts without leave. The practice had become “flagrant” and the abuses “monstrous.” A fascinating look at American diplomatic thought and practices in the mid-19th century.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
