not champions of
liberty, emulating the fame of our Revolutionary fathers, nor are you an
oppressed people, contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than
colonial vassalage. You are free members of a flourishing and happy
Union. There is no settled design to oppress you. You have indeed felt
the unequal operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not
unconstitutionally, passed; but that inequality must necessarily be
removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on to the
unfortunate course you have begun a change in public opinion had
commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the public debt and the
consequent necessity of a diminution of duties had already produced a
considerable reduction, and that, too, on some articles of general
consumption in your State. The importance of this change was underrated,
and you were authoritatively told that no further alleviation of your
burthens was to be expected at the very time when the condition of the
country imperiously demanded such a modification of the duties as should
reduce them to a just and equitable scale. But, as if apprehensive of
the effect of this change in allaying your discontents, you were
precipitated into the fearful state in which you now find yourselves.

I have urged you to look back to the means that were used to hurry you
on to the position you have now assumed and forward to the consequences
it will produce. Something more is necessary. Contemplate the condition
of that country of which you still form an important part. Consider its
Government, uniting in one bond of common interest and general
protection so many different States, giving to all their inhabitants the
proud title of _American citizen_, protecting their commerce, securing
their literature and their arts, facilitating their intercommunication,
defending their frontiers, and making their name respected in the
remotest parts of the earth. Consider the extent of its territory, its
increasing and happy population, its advance in arts which render life
agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind. See education
spreading the lights of religion, morality, and general information into
every cottage in this wide extent of our Territories and States. Behold
it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and
support. Look on this picture of happiness and honor and say, _We too
are citizens of America_. Carolina is one of these proud States; her
arms