anxiety; difcountenancing whatever may fuggeft even a fufpicion that it can in any event be abandoned; 22. And indignantly frowning on the firft dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the reft, or to enfeeble the facred ties which now link together the various parts. 23. For this you have every inducement 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, must always exalt the juft pride of patriotifm, more than any appellation derived from local difcriminations. 24. With flight fhades 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 effort, of common dangers, fufferings and fucceffes. But thefe confiderations, however powerfully they addrefs themselves to your fenfibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preferving the union of the whole. 26. The north, in an unrestrained intercourse with the fouth, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter, great additional refources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing induftry. The fouth in the fame intercourfe, benefitting by the agency of the north, fees its agriculture grow, and its commerce expand. 27. 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 increafe the general mafs of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime ftrength, to which itlelf is unequally adapted. 28. The east, in a like intercourfe with the west, already finds, and in the progreffion of interior communications, by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. 29. The weft derives from the eaft fupplies requifite to its growth and comfort; and what is, perhaps, of till greater confequence, it muft of neceffity owe 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 interest as one nation. 30. Any other tenure by which the west can hold this effential advantage, whether derived from its own feparate ftrength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinfically precarious. 31. While, then, every part of our country thus 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 ftrength, greater refource, proportionably greater fecurity, from external danger, a lefs frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; 32. And what is of ineftimable value! they must derive from union, an exemption from thofe broils and wars between themselves, which fo frequently afflict neighboring countries, not ti together by the fame government; which their own rivalihips alone would be fufficient to produce, but which oppofite foreign alliances, attachments and intrigues would ftimulate and embitter. 33. Hence they would avoid the neceffity of thofe overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government are inaufpicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hoftile to republican liberty. 34. 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. 35. These confiderations speak a perfuafive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary object of a patriotic defire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace fo large a fphere? Let experience folve it. 36. To listen to mere fpeculation in fuch a cafe, would be criminal. We are authorised to hope that a proper or ganization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivifions, will afford a happy iffue to the experiment. 37. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With fuch powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experiment fhall not have demonftra ted its impracticability, there will always be reason to diftruit the patriotifin of thofe, who, in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands. 38. In contemplating the claufes which may disturb our union, it occurs as a matter of ferious concern, that any ground fhould be furnished for characterifing parties, by gegraphical difcriminations-northern and Southern-Atlantic and watern; whence defigning men may excite a belief, that there is a real difference of local interests and views. 39. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to mifrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot fhield yourselves too much against the jealoufies and heart burnings which spring from thefe mifreprefentations; they tend to render alien to each other thofe who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. 40. The inhabitants of our western country have lately `had a useful lesson on this head: they have feen, in the negociation by the executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the fenate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the univerfal fatisfaction at that 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 states unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Miffifippi; 41. They have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which fecure to them every thing they could defire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their profperity. 42. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the UNION by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to thofe advi fers, if fuch they are, who would fever them from their brethren, and connect them with aliens ? 43. To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a government for the whole is indifpenfable. No alliances, however ftrict, between the parts can be an adequate fubftitute; they will inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. 44. Senfible of this momentous truth, you have improved on 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. 45. This government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted on full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting fecurity with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a juft claim to your confidence and your support. 46. Refpect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The bafis of our political fystems is the right of the people to make and to alter their conftitutions of government. 47. But, the conftitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is facred, obligatory on all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government, prefuppofes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. 48. All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and affociations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract or awe the regular deliberation and action of the conftituted authorities, are deftructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. 49. They serve 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 small but artful and enterprifing minority of the community; 50. And, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the illconcerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of confiftent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests. 51. However combinations or affociations of the above defcription, may now and then anfwer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men, will be enabled to fubvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; deftroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. 52. Towards the prefervation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy itate, it is requifite, not only that you fteadily difcountenance irregular oppolition to its acknowledged authority, but also that you refìst with care, the spirit of innovation on its principles, however fpecious the pretexts. 53. One method of affault may be to effect in the forms of the conftitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the fyftem, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. 54. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as neceffary to fix the true character of government, as of other human inftitutions; That experience is the fureft ftandard, by which to teft the real tendency of the exifting conftitution of a country-that facility in changes on the credit of mere hypoth-1 efis and opinion, expofes to perpetual change, from the endlefs variety of hypothefis and opinion; 56. And remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common intereft, in a country fo extenfive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is confiftent with the perfect fecurity of liberty, is indifpenfable. Liberty itself will find in fuch a government, with powers properly diftributed and adjufted, its fureft guardian. 57. It is, indeed, little elfe than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the fociety within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the fecure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of perfon and property. 58. I have already intimated to you, the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take |