and prosperity; watching for its preservation, with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. 1796.

AMERICANS, UNITED IN SYMPATHY AND INTEREST.

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 just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, in a common cause, fought and triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess, are the work of joint counsels and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and

successes.

THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION, OUR INTEREST.

Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds, in the productions of the latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow, and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of the 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 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 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 indispensable outlets for its productions, to the weight, influence, and future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as ONE NATION, Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious,

THE POWER OF THE UNION.

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 mass of means and efforts, greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and what is of inestimable value, they must derive from the Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same government, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will 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.

THE EXTENT OF THE UNION.

Is there a doubt, whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve

it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized 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. It is 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 endeavor to weaken its bands.

CAUSES OF DISTURBANCE OF THE UNION.

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished, for characterizing parties by Geographical discriminations, "Northern" and "Southern," "Atlantic" and "Western;" whence designing men may endeavor 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 particular districts, 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 together by fraternal affection.

The inhabitants of our Western Country have lately had a useful lesson on this head. They have seen, in a negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that 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 any foreign relations, toward 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 ?

UNION, NOT MERE ALLIANCE.

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the Whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions, which all alliances in all times have expe.ienced.