nnot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to
such solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to
your solemn 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 your
felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the 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.

"Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your
hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify the
attachment.

"The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now
dear to you. It is justly so; for it is the main pillar in the edifice
of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home and
your peace abroad; of your prosperity, of that liberty which you so
highly prize. 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 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 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 may be in any event abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon
every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or
to enfeeble the sacred ties that now link together the various parts."

He then proceeds to caution his fellow-citizens against those
geographical distinctions of "North," "South," "East," and "West,"
which, by fostering ideas of separate interests and character, are
calculated to weaken the bonds of our union, and to create prejudices,
if not antipathies, dangerous to its existence. He shows, by a simple
reference to the great paramount interests of each of the different
sections, that they are insep