of
these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so
careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will
acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the
affection, and the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to
it.

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop; but a solicitude for your welfare,
which can not end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger
natural to that 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 the
permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be afforded to you
with the more freedom, as you can only see them in the disinterested
warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive
to bias his counsel; nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your
indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar
occasion.

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

The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now
dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your
peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty
which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to forsee 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 most 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 can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon
the first dawning of every attempt