contributes in different ways to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive 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 West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort-and what is, perhaps, of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensible outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the union, directed by an indissoluble community of interests as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold these essential advantages, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precari

ous.

"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 mass of means and

efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars among themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries, not tied together by the same government; which their own rivalship alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues, would stimulate and imbitter. Hence likewise they avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which, are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty; in this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.

"These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a system? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere spe

We

culations in such a case were criminal. are authorised to hope that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. 'Tis well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavour to weaken its bands.

"In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union, it occurs as matter of very serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for characterising parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern-Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavour to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within a particular district, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies. and heart-burnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound to

gether by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negociation by the executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at the event throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them, of a policy in the general government, and in the Atlantic States, unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain and that with Spain, which secure to them every thing they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. 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 those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?

"To the efficacy and permanence of your union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all allian

ces in all times, have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former by an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. The 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 security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and to your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government; but the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government, presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established go

vernment.

"All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, un