by an armed and powerful fleet. It was, indeed, to the ambition of the leading states of Greece to control the do mestic concerns of the others, that the destruction of that celebrated confederacy, and subsequently of all its members, is mainly to be attributed. And it is owing to the absence of that spirit that the Helvetic confederacy has for so many years been preserved. Never has there been seen in the institutions of the separate members of any confederacy more elements of discord. In the principles and forms of government and religion, as well as in the circumstances of the several cantons, so marked a discrepance was observable, as to promise any thing but harmony in their intercourse, or permanency in their alliance; and yet, for ages neither has been interrupted. Content with the positive benefits which their union produced, with the independence and safety from foreign aggression which it secured, these sagacious people respected the institutions of each other, however repugnant to their own principles and prejudices.

Our confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the same forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the exercise of the powers with which the Constitution clothes them. The attempt of those of one state to control the domestic institutions of another, can only result in feelings of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of disunion, violence, civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our free institutions. Our confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the terms and principles governing a common co-partnership. There is a fund of power to be exercised under the direction of the joint councils of the allied members, but that which has been reserved by the individual members is intangible by the common government, or the individual members composing it. To attempt it finds no support in the principles of our Con stitution.

It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutual ly to cultivate a spirit of concord and harmony among the various parts of our confederacy. Experience has abun dantly taught us, that the agitation, by citizens of one part of the Union, of a subject not confided to the general Government, but exclusively under the guardianship

of the local authorities, is productive of no other conse quences than bitterness, alienation, discord, and injury to the very cause which is intended to be advanced. Of all the great interests which appertain to our country, that of union-cordial, confiding, fraternal union-is by far the most important, since it is the only true and sure guaranty of all others.

In consequence of the embarrassed state of business and the currency, some of the states may meet with difficulty in their financial concerns. However deeply we may regret any thing imprudent or excessive, in the engagements into which states have entered for purposes of their own, it does not become us to disparage the state Governments, nor to discourage them from making proper efforts for their own relief. On the contrary, it is our duty to encourage them, to the extent of our constitutional authority, to apply their best means, and cheerfully to make all necessary sacrifices, and submit to all necessary burdens, to fulfil their engagements and maintain their credit; for the character and credit of the several states form a part of the character and credit of the whole country. The resources of the country are abundant; the enter prise and activity of our people proverbial; and we may well hope that wise legislation and prudent administration, by the respective governments, each acting within its own sphere, will restore former prosperity.

Unpleasant and even dangerous as collisions may sometimes be between the constituted authorities or the citizens of our country, in relation to the lines which separate their respective jurisdictions, the results can be of no vital injury to our institutions, if that ardent patriotism, that devoted attachment to liberty, that spirit of moderation and forbearance for which our countrymen were once distinguished, continue to be cherished. If this continues to be the ruling passion of our souls, the weaker feeling of the mistaken enthusiast will be corrected, the utopian dreams of the scheming politician dissipated, and the complicated intrigues of the demagogue rendered harmless. The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm for every injury which our institutions may receive. On the contrary, no care that can be used in the construction of our Government, no division of powers, no distribution

of checks in its several departments, will prove effectual to keep us a free people, if this spirit is suffered to decay: and decay it will without constant nurture. To the neg. lect of this duty the best historians agree in attributing the ruin of all the republics with whose existence and fall their writings have made us acquainted.

The same causes will ever produce the same effects; and as long as the love of power is a dominant passion of the human bosom, and as long as the understandings of men can be warped and their affections changed, by ope rations upon their passions and prejudices, so long will the liberties of a people depend on their own constant attention to its preservation. The danger to all wellestablished free Governments arises from the unwillingness of the people to believe in its existence, or from the influence of designing men, diverting their attention from the quarter whence it approaches to a source from which it can never come. This is the old trick of those who would usurp the government of their country. In the name of democracy they speak, warning the people against the influence of wealth, and the danger of aristocracy. History, ancient and modern, is full of such examples. Cæsar became the master of the Roman people and the Senate, under the pretence of supporting the democratic claims of the former against the aristocracy of the latter. Cromwell, in the character of Protector of the liberties of the people, became the Director of England, and Bolivar possessed himself of unlimited power with the title of his country's Liberator. There is, on the contrary, no single instance on record, of an extensive and well-established republic being changed into an aristocracy. The tendencies of all such governments, in their decline, is to monarchy: and the antagonist principle to liberty, there, is the spirit of faction-a spirit which assumes the character, and in times of great excitement imposes itself upon the people as the genuine spirit of freedom, and, like the false Christs, whose coming was foretold by the Saviour, seeks, and were it possible, would impose upon the true and most faithful disciples of liberty. It is in periods like this that it behooves the people to be most watchful of those to whom they have entrusted power. And although

there is at times much difficulty in distinguishing the false from the true spirit, a calm and dispassionate investigation will detect the counterfeit, as well by the character of its operations, as the results that are produced. The true spirit of liberty, although devoted, persevering, bold, and uncompromising in principle-that secured-is mild, and tolerant, and scrupulous as to the means it employs; whilst the spirit of party, assuming to be that of liberty, is harsh, vindictive and intolerant, and totally reckless as to the character of the allies which it brings to the aid of its cause. When the genuine spirit of liberty animates the body of a people to a thorough examination of their affairs, it leads to the excision of every excrescence which may have fastened itself upon any of the departments of the Government, and restores the system to its pristine health and beauty. But the reign of an intolerant spirit of party, amongst a free people, seldom fails to result in a dangerous accession to the Executive power-introduced and established amidst unusual professions of devotion to democracy.

The foregoing remarks relate, almost exclusively, to matters connected with our domestic concerns. It may be proper, however, that I should give some indications to my fellow-citizens of my proposed course of conduct in the management of our foreign relations. I assure them, therefore, that it is my intention to use every means in my power to preserve the friendly intercourse which now so happily subsists with every foreign nation. And that although, of course, not well informed as to the state of pending negotiations with any of them, I see, in the personal characters of their sovereigns, as well as in the mutual interests of our own, and of the governments with which our relations are most intimate, a pleasing guaranty that the harmony so important to the interests of their subjects, as well as of our citizens, will not be interrupted by the advancement of any claim or pretension upon their part to which our honor would not permit us to yield. Long the defender of my country's rights in the field, I trust that my fellow citizens will not see, in my earnest desire to preserve peace with foreign powers, any indication that their rights will ever be sacrificed, or the

honor of the nation tarnished, by any admission on the part of their Chief Magistrate, unworthy of their former glory. In our intercourse with our aboriginal neighbours, the same liberality and justice which marked the course prescribed to me by two of my illustrious predecessors, when acting under their direction in the discharge of the duties of Superintendent and Commissioner, shall be strictly observed. I can conceive of no more sublime spectacle-none more likely to propitiate an impartial and common Creator-than a rigid adherence to the principles of justice, on the part of a powerful nation, in its transaction with a weaker and uncivilized people, whom circumstances have placed at its disposal.

Before concluding, fellow citizens, I must say something to you on the subject of the parties at this time existing in our country. To me it appears perfectly clear that the interest of that country requires that the violence of the spirit by which those parties are at this time governed, must be greatly mitigated, if not entirely extinguished or consequences will ensue which are apalling to be thought of.

If parties in a Republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends beyond that, they become destructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror. We have examples of republics, where the love of country and of liberty at one time were the dominant passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the continuance of the name and forms of free government, not a vestige of these qualities remaining in the bosoms of any one of its citizens. It was the beautiful remark of a distinguished English writer, that "In the Roman Senate, Octavius had a party, and Anthony a party, but the Commonwealth had none." Yet the Senate con tinued to meet in the Temple of Liberty, to talk of the sacredness and beauty of the Commonwealth, and gaze at the statues of the elder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii; and the people assembled in the forum, not as in the days of Camillus and the Scipios, to cast their free votes for annual magistrates, or pass upon the acts of the