ation 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 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 this 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 make and to alter their constitutions of government.--But the
constitution which at any time exists, until 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 government.

"All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations under whatever plausible character, with the real design
to di