of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preferving the Union of the whole.

10. The North, in an unreftrained intercourfe with the South, 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 South, 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 increafe the general mafs of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime ftrength, to which itfelf is unequally adapted. The Eaf, in a like intercourfe with the Weft, already finds, and in the progreffive improvement 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. The Weft derives from the Eaft fupplies requifite to its growth and comfortand what is perhaps of ftill greater confequence, it must of neceflity owe the fecure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime ftrength of the Atlantic fide of the Union, directed by on 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 conne&ion with any foreign power, must be intrinfically precarious.

11. While then every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular intereft in Union, all the parties combined cannot fail to find in the united maïs of means and efforts greater ftrength, greater resources, proportionably greater fecurity from external danger, a lefs frequent interi uption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value ! they muft derive from Union an exemption from thofe broils and wars be

tween themselves, which fo frequently afflict neighboring countries, not tied together by the fame government; which their own rivalfhips alone would be fufficient to produce, but which oppofite foreign alliances, attach. ments and intrigues would ftimulate and embitter.— Hence likewife they will avoid the neceffity of those overgrown military eftablifhments, 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.

12. Thefe confiderations fpcak a perfuafive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic defire. Is there a doubt, whether a common gov ernment can embrace fo large a sphere? Let experience folve it. To listen to mere fpeculation in, fuch a cafe were criminal. We are authorised to hope that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments 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 fhall not have demonftrated its impracticability, there will always be reafon to diftruft the patriotifm of those, who in any quarter may endeavour to› weaken its bands.

13. In contemplating the caufes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as a matter of ferious concern, that any ground fhould have been furnished for characterifing parties by geographical difcriminations-northern and fouthern--Atlantic and wefern; whence defigning men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interefts and views. One of the exped Suts of party to acquire influence, within particular to mifreprefent the opinions and ainus of You cannot fhield yourleives too mava

io, is

jealoufies and heart burnings which fpring from these mifreprefentations: they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western country have lately had a useful leffon on this head: they have feen, in the negociation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, 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 interefts in regard to the MiffiSippi they have been witneffes 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. Will it not be their wifdom to rely for the prefervation of these advantages on the UNION by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to thofe advifers, if fuch there are, who would fever them from their brethren, and connect them with aliens ?

14. 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 muft inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Senfible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, 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 investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting fecurity with energy, and containing within itself a provifion for its own amendment, has a juft claim to your confidence and your fupport. Refpect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiefcence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the funda

mental maxims of true Liberty. The bafis of our political fyftems is the right of the people to make and alter their Constitutions of Government-But, the constitution which at any time exifts till 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 establish government prefupposes the duty of every individual to obey the eftablished government.

15. All obftructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and affociations, under whatever plausible character, with the real defign to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the conAituted authorities, are deftructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They ferve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary forceto put in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterpri fing minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of confiftent and wholefome plans digefted by common councils, and modified by mutual interests. However combinations. or affociations of the above defcription may now and then anfwer popular ends, they are likely in the courfe 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 ufurp to themselves the reins of government; deftroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

16. Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your prefent happy ftate, it is requifite, not only that you fpeedily discountenance irregular oppofitions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you refift with care the fpirit of innovation upon its principles however fpecious the pretexts. 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.

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 governments, 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 upon the credit or mere hypothefis and opinion, expofes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothefis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interefts, 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 itfelf will find in fuch a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its fureft guardian. It is, indeed, little elfe than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to con fine each member of the fociety within the limits prefcri bed by the laws, and to maintain all in the fecure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of perfon and property.

17. I have already intimated to you, the danger of parties in the ftate, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical difcriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most folemn manner against the baneful effects of the fpirit of party, generally. This fpirit, unfortunately, is infeparable from our nature, having its root in the ftrongest paffions of the human mind.-It exifts under different fhapes in all governments, more or lefs ftifled, controled, or repreffed; but in those of the popular form, it is feen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one faction over another, fharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party diffention, which, in different ages and Countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itfelf frightful defpotifm.-But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent defpotifm.-The diforders and miferies, which refult, gradually incline the minds of men to feek fecurity and repose in the abfolute power of an individual: and fooner or later the chief of fome prevailing faction, more able or