itself is equally 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
own productions to the weight, influence, and the further 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 connexion with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
    While then every part of our country thus feels and 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 union an
exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring
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 unauspicious 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 you to the preservation
of the other.
    These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting an 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 sphere?--Let experience solve it.  to listen
to mere speculation in such a case were criminal.  We 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 impractibility, 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 a matter of 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 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 the 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
ot 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 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 experienced.  Sensible
of thus momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution
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 security with energy, and containing within
itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and 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 systems is the right of the people
to maker 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 presupposed the
duty of every individual to obey the established government.
    All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever
plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation
and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of
fatal tendency.  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
enterprising 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