ll retained, to the prejudice of
our interests not less than of our rights. Are we in a condition to
resent or to repel the aggression? We have neither troops, nor
treasury, nor government. Are we even in a condition to remonstrate
with dignity? The just imputations on our own faith, in respect to the
same treaty, ought first to be removed. Are we entitled, by nature and
compact, to a free participation in the navigation of the Mississippi?
Spain excludes us from it. Is public credit an indispensable resource
in time of public danger? We seem to have abandoned its cause as
desperate and irretrievable. Is commerce of importance to national
wealth? Ours is at the lowest point of declension. Is respectability
in the eyes of foreign powers a safeguard against foreign
encroachments? The imbecility of our government even forbids them to
treat with us: our ambassadors abroad are the mere pageants of mimic
sovereignty.

Is a violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom of
national distress? The price of improved land, in most parts of the
country, is much lower than can be accounted for by the quantity of
waste land at market, and can only be fully explained by that want of
private and public confidence which are so alarmingly prevalent among
all ranks, and which have a direct tendency to depreciate property of
every kind. Is private credit the friend and patron of industry? That
most useful kind which relates to borrowing and lending is reduced
within the narrowest limits, and this still more from an opinion of
insecurity than from a scarcity of money. To shorten an enumeration of
particulars which can afford neither pleasure nor instruction, it may
in general be demanded what indication is there of national disorder,
poverty, and insignificance that could befall a community so
peculiarly blest with natural advantages as we are, which does not
form a part of the dark catalog of our public misfortunes?

This is the melancholy situation to which we have been brought by
those very maxims and counsels which would now deter us from adopting
the proposed constitution; and which, not content with having
conducted us to the brink of a precipice, seem resolved to plunge us
into the abyss that awaits us below. Here, my countrymen, impelled by
every motive that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us
make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquillity, our dignity, our
reputation. Let us at last break the fatal