bly experience the infractions and
interruptions which all alliances in all times have
experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have
improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a
Constitution of Government better calculated than your
former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious
management of your common concerns. This Government, the
offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unmoved,
adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation,
completely free in its principles, in the distribution of
its powers, uniting security with energy, and _containing
within itself a provision for its own amendment_, has a just
claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its
authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its
measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of
true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the
right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions
of Government. But the Constitution which at any time
exists, _till changed by an explicit and authentic act of
the whole_ people, is sacredly obligatory upon all."

And again:

"Toward the preservation of your Government, and the
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not
only that you should steadily discountenance irregular
oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you
resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its
principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of
assault may be to affect in the forms of the Constitution
alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and
thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all
the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time
and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true
character of governments, as of other human institutions."

And still further:

"If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or
modification of the constitutional powers be in any
particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the
way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no
change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be
the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which
free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always
greatly overbalance in p