on of these advantages on the Union by which
they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those
advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their
brethren, and connect them with aliens?

14. 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
inevitably 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 unawed, 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
system is the right of the people to make and 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. The very idea of
the power and the right of the people to establish government,
presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established
government.

15. All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all
combinations and associations, under whatever plausible
character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract,
or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted
authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and
of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it
an artificial and extraordinary force--to put in the place of
the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a
small but artful and enterprising minority of the community;
and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties,
to make the public administration the mi