ks forward to the protection of a maritime strength,
to which itself is unequally adapted. The _East_, in a like intercourse
with the _West_, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of
interior communications by land and water, will more and more find, a
valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or
manufactures at home. The _West_ derives from the _East_ supplies
requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still
greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the _secure_ enjoyment of
indispensable _outlets_ for its own productions to the weight,
influences, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the
Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as _one_
nation. Any other tenure by which the _West_ can hold this essential
advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an
apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be
intrinsically precarious.

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and
particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find
in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater
resource, proportionally greater security from external danger, a less
frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of
inestimable value, they must derive from Union an exemption from those
broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict
neighboring countries not tied together by the same Governments, 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