vor a particular quarter of the country
instead of fulfilling the duties of his station with impartial justice
to all; and the possible dissolution of the Union has at length become
an ordinary and familiar subject of discussion. Has the warning voice of
Washington been forgotten, or have designs already been formed to sever
the Union? Let it not be supposed that I impute to all of those who have
taken an active part in these unwise and unprofitable discussions a want
of patriotism or of public virtue. The honorable feeling of State
pride and local attachments finds a place in the bosoms of the most
enlightened and pure. But while such men are conscious of their own
integrity and honesty of purpose, they ought never to forget that the
citizens of other States are their political brethren, and that however
mistaken they may be in their views, the great body of them are equally
honest and upright with themselves. Mutual suspicions and reproaches may
in time create mutual hostility, and artful and designing men will
always be found who are ready to foment these fatal divisions and to
inflame the natural jealousies of different sections of the country.
The history of the world is full of such examples, and especially the
history of republics.

What have you to gain by division and dissension? Delude not yourselves
with the belief that a breach once made may be afterwards repaired.
If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider
and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled
in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and
determined by the sword. Neither should you deceive yourselves with
the hope that the first line of separation would be the permanent one,
and that nothing but harmony and concord would be found in the new
associations formed upon the dissolution of this Union. Local interests
would still be found there, and unchastened ambition. And if the
recollection of common dangers, in which the people of these United
States stood side by side against the common foe, the memory of
victories won by their united valor, the prosperity and happiness they
have enjoyed under the present Constitution, the proud name they bear as
citizens of this great Republic--if all these recollections and proofs
of common interest are not strong enough to bind us together as one
people, what tie will hold united the new divisions of empire when these
bonds have been broken an