your peace abroad; of your fafety; of your profperity; of that very liberty which you fo highly prize. But as it is eafy to forefee, that from different caufes, and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortrefs against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be moft conftantly and actively (though covertly and infidioufly) directed, it is of infinite moment that you fhould properly estimate the immenfe value of your national union to your collective and individual happnefs; that you should cherith a cordial, habitual, and immoveable attachment to it, ac cuftoming yourselves to think and fpeak of it as of the palladium of your political fafety and profperity; watching for its prefervation with jealous anxiety; difcountenancing whatever may fuggest even a fufpicion that it can in any event be abandoned and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of any attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the reft, or to enfeeble the facred ties which now link together its various parts.

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For this you have every induce ment of fympathy and intereft. Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, muft always exalt the juft pride of patriotiim more than any appellation derived from local difcriminations. With flight thades of difference, you have the fame religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a

common caufe fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you poffefs are the work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, fufferings, and fucceffes.

But thefe confiderations, however powerfully they addrefs themfelves to your fenfibility, are greatly outweighed by thofe which apply more immediately to your intereft. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preferving the union of the whole.

The north, in an unrestrained intercourfe with the fouth, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the pro-ductions of the latter, great additional refources of maritime and commercial enterprife, and precious materials of manufacturing induftry. The fouth, in the fame intercourfe, benefiting by the agency of the north, fees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand; turning partly into its own channels the feamen of the north, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mais of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime ftrength, to which itfelf is unequally adapted. The eaft, in a like intercourie with the weft, already finds, and in the progreflive improvement of interior communication by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The welt derives from the cat fupplies requifite to its growth and comfort;

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and what is perhaps of ftill greater confequence, it muft of neceffity cwe the fecure enjoyment of indifpenfable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime ftrength of the Atlantic fide of the union, directed by an indiffoluble community of intereft as one nation. Any other tenure by which the weft can hold this effential advantage, whether derived from its own feparate ftrength, or from an apoftate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, muft be intrinfically precarious.

While every part of our country feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find, in the united mafs of means and efforts, greater firength, greater refource, proportionably greater fecurity from external danger, a lefs frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and what is of ineftimable value! they muft derive from union an exemption from thofe broils and wars between themfelves, which fo frequently afflict neighbouring countries, not tied together by the fame government; which their own rivalfhips alone would be fufficient to produce, but which oppofite foreign alliances, attachinents and intrigues, would ftimulate and imbitter. Hence, likewife, they will avoid the neceflity of thofe overgrown eftablithments, which, under any form of government, are inaufpicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hoftile to republican liberty; in this fenfe it is that your union ought to be confidered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the prefervation of the other.

Thefe confiderations fpeak a perfuafive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibits the continuance of the union as a primary object of patriotic defire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace fo large a fphere? Let experience folve it. To liften to mere fpeculations in fuch a cafe were criminal. We are authorised to hope that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of go vernments for the refpective fubdivifions, will afford a happy iffue to the experiment. 'Tis well worth a fair and full experiment. With fuch powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience thall not have demonftrated its impracticability, there will always be reafon to diftruft the patriotism of thofe, who in any quarter may endeavour to weaken its bands.

In contemplating the caufes which may disturb our union, it occurs as matter of ferious concern, that any ground fhould have been furnished for characterifing parties by geographical difcriminations, northern and fouthern, Atlantic and weftern; whence defigning men may endeavour to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interefts and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular diftricts, is to mifreprefent the opinions and aims of other diftricts. You cannot fhield yourfelves too much against the jealoufies and heart-burnings which fpring from thefe mifreprefentations: they tend to render alien to each other thofe who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western country

have lately had an ufeful leffon on this head; they have feen, in the negotiation by the executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the fenate of the treaty with Spain, and in the univerfal fatisfaction at the event throughout the United States, a decifive proof how unfounded were the fufpicions propagated among them of a policy in the general government, and in the Atlantic ftates, unfriendly to their interefts in regard to the Miffiffippi: they have been witnefes to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which fecure to them every thing, they could defire, in refpect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their profperity. Will it not be their wifdom to rely for the prefervation of thefe advantages on the union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to thofe advilers, if fuch there are, who would fever them from their brethren, and connect with aliens?

To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a government for the whole is indifpenfible. No alliances, however ftrict, between the parties, can be an adequate fubftitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Senfible of this momentous truth you have improved upon your firft effay, by the adoption of a conftitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full inveftigation, and mature deliberation, com

pletely free in its principles, in the diftribution of its powers, uniting fecurity with energy, and containing within itself a provifion for its own amendment, has juft claim to your confidence and your support Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiefcence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The bafis of our political fyftems is the right of the people to make and to alter their conftitutions of government; but the conftitution, which at any time exifts, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is facredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to eftablifh government, prefuppofes the duty of every individual to obey the eftablished government.

All obfiructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and affociations, under whatever plaufible character, with the real defign to direct, controul, counteract. or awe the regular deliberation and action of the conftituted authorities, are deftructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They ferve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force- to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a fmall but artful and enterprifing minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public adminiftration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of confiftent and wholesome plans, digefted by common councils, and modified by mutual interefts.

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