siest way of being powerful, and the
happiest invention in government which the circumstances of America can
admit of.--Because it collects from each state, that which, by being
inadequate, can be of no use to it, and forms an aggregate that serves
for all.

The states of Holland are an unfortunate instance of the effects of
individual sovereignty. Their disjointed condition exposes them to
numerous intrigues, losses, calamities, and enemies; and the almost
impossibility of bringing their measures to a decision, and that
decision into execution, is to them, and would be to us, a source of
endless misfortune.

It is with confederated states as with individuals in society; something
must be yielded up to make the whole secure. In this view of things
we gain by what we give, and draw an annual interest greater than the
capital.--I ever feel myself hurt when I hear the union, that great
palladium of our liberty and safety, the least irreverently spoken of.
It is the most sacred thing in the constitution of America, and that
which every man should be most proud and tender of. Our citizenship
in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any
particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we
are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is
AMERICANS--our inferior one varies with the place.

So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed to
conciliate the affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep
the mind of the country together; and the better to assist in this
foundation work of the revolution, I have avoided all places of profit
or office, either in the state I live in, or in the United States; kept
myself at a distance from all parties and party connections, and even
disregarded all private and inferior concerns: and when we take into
view the great work which we have gone through, and feel, as we ought
to feel, the just importance of it, we shall then see, that the
little wranglings and indecent contentions of personal parley, are as
dishonorable to our characters, as they are injurious to our repose.

It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which
it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me
in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those
who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only
line that could cement and save her, A DECLARATION OF IN