rs between themselves,
which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries not tied together
by the same government; which their own rivalships alone would be
sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances,
attachments, and intrigues, would stimulate and imbitter. 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. . . . .

_Party Spirit._--I have already intimated to you the danger of parties
in the State, with particular references to the founding them on
geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive
view, and warn you in the most solemn manner, against the baleful
effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its
root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under
different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled,
or repressed; but in those of the popular form, it is seen in its
greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the
spirit of revenge natural to party dissensions, which in different
ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is
itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more
formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which
result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose
in the absolute power of an individual; and, sooner or later, the
chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his
competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own
elevation on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which
nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and
continual mischiefs of the spirit of party, are sufficient to make it
the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain
it. . . . .

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks
upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the
spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is probably tr