Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva (pronounced [ljo kout], Hungarian: udvardi s kossuthfalvi Kossuth Lajos, Slovak: udovt Kot, anglicised as Louis Kossuth; 19 September 1802 20 March 1894) was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman and governor-president of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 184849.With the help of his talent in oratory in political debates and public speeches, Kossuth emerged from a poor gentry family into regent-president of the Kingdom of Hungary. As the influential contemporary American journalist Horace Greeley said of Kossuth: "Among the orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior."Kossuth's powerful English and American speeches so impressed and touched the famous contemporary American orator Daniel Webster, that he wrote a book about Kossuth's life. He was widely honoured during his lifetime, including in Great Britain and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe. Kossuth's bronze bust can be found in the United States Capitol with the inscription: Father of Hungarian Democracy, Hungarian Statesman, Freedom Fighter, 18481849.

The Hungarian Declaration of Independence declared the independence of Hungary from the Habsburg Monarchy during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. It was presented to the National Assembly in closed session on 13 April 1849 by Lajos Kossuth, and in open session the following day, despite political opposition from within the Hungarian Peace Party. The declaration was passed unanimously the following day.Kossuth issued the declaration himself, from the Protestant Great Church of Debrecen. The declaration accused the Habsburgs of crimes, saying

The House of Lorraine-Habsburg is unexampled in the compass of its perjuries [...] Its determination to extinguish the independents of Hungary has been accompanied by a succession of criminal acts, comprising robbery, destruction of property by fire, murder, maiming [...] Humanity will shudder when reading this disgraceful page of history. [...] "The house of Habsburg has forfeited the throne".

In a banquet speech before the Corporation of New York, Kossuth urged the United States to recognize Hungarian independence, saying

The third object of my humble wishes, gentlemen, is the recognition of the independence of Hungary. [...] our Declaration of Independence was not only voted unanimously in our Congress, but every county, every municipality, has solemnly declared its consent and adherence to it; so it became not the supposed, but by the whole realm positively, and sanctioned by the fundamental laws of Hungary.