contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review,
some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of
no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me
all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a
people. These will be offered to you with more freedom, as
you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a
parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to
bias his counsel."

Again:

"But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes
and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many
artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction
of this 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
yourselves to think and speak of it as 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."

Are not these admonitions at the present moment peculiarly worthy of
our attention? And with them before us, can we invoke the action of
Congress for the alteration of the fundamental law of the Government
in any other ways than those provided in the Constitution? I earnestly
hope not. If we act at all, let us act in that regular method which
gives time for consultation, for consideration, and for action among
the people of all the States. It appears to me, that in adopting the
line of policy proposed by the majority of the committee, we are doing
the very thing which WASHINGTON warned us not to do.

He said further:

"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 inevita