t of liberty had fled,
and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man, had sought protection in the
wilds of Scythia or Scandinavia; and so under the operation of the same
causes and influences it will fly from our Capitol and our forums. A
calamity so awful, not only to our country, but to the world, must be
deprecated by every patriot and every tendency to a state of things
likely to produce it immediately checked. Such a tendency has
existed--does exist. Always the friend of my countrymen, never their
flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them from this high place to
which their partiality has exalted me that there exists in the land a
spirit hostile to their best interests--hostile to liberty itself. It
is a spirit contracted in its views, selfish in its objects. It looks to
the aggrandizement of a few even to the destruction of the interests of
the whole. The entire remedy is with the people. Something, however, may
be effected by the means which they have placed in my hands. It is union
that we want, not of a party for the sake of that party, but a union of
the whole country for the sake of the whole country, for the defense of
its interests and its honor against foreign aggression, for the defense
of those principles for which our ancestors so gloriously contended. As
far as it depends upon me it shall be accomplished. All the influence
that I possess shall be exerted to prevent the formation at least of
an Executive party in the halls of the legislative body. I wish for the
support of no member of that body to any measure of mine that does not
satisfy his judgment and his sense of duty to those from whom he holds
his appointment, nor any confidence in advance from the people but that
asked for by Mr. Jefferson, "to give firmness and effect to the legal
administration of their affairs."

I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify
me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for
the Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals,
religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are
essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness; and to
that good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious
freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers and
has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence
those of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every
interest of our belo