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 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 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 endeavour
to weaken its bands.

"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
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 can not 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
negoti