truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the
batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and
actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of
infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of
your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that
you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it;
accustoming yourself to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of
your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with
jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion,
that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the
first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country
from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together
the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens,
by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to
concentrate your affections. The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you,
in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of
Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local
discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same
religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a
common cause fought and triumphed together; the Independence and Liberty
you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts, of common
dangers, sufferings, and successes.

But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to
your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those, which apply more
immediately to your interest. Here, every portion of our country finds
the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the
Union of the whole.

The _North_, in an unrestrained intercourse with the _South_ protected
by the equal laws of a common Government, finds, in the productions of
the latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial
enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The
_South_, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the
_North_, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning
partly into its own channels the seamen of the _North_, it finds its
particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes in
different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national
navigation, it loo