reflection, after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth; if an
attachment to the Constitution of the United States, and a conscientious
determination to support it until it shall be altered by the judgments
and wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it; if a
respectful attention to the constitutions of the individual States and a
constant caution and delicacy toward the State governments; if an equal
and impartial regard to the rights, interest, honor, and happiness of
all the States in the Union, without preference or regard to a northern
or southern, an eastern or western, position, their various political
opinions on unessential points or their personal attachments; if a love
of virtuous men of all parties and denominations; if a love of science
and letters and a wish to patronize every rational effort to encourage
schools, colleges, universities, academies, and every institution for
propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of the
people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in
all its stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the
only means of preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies, the
spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the
profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which
is the angel of destruction to elective governments; if a love of equal
laws, of justice, and humanity in the interior administration; if an
inclination to improve agriculture, commerce, and manufactures for
necessity, convenience, and defense; if a spirit of equity and humanity
toward the aboriginal nations of America, and a disposition to meliorate
their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us, and our
citizens to be more friendly to them; if an inflexible determination to
maintain peace and inviolable faith with all nations, and that system of
neutrality and impartiality among the belligerent powers of Europe which
has been adopted by this Government and so solemnly sanctioned by both
Houses of Congress and applauded by the legislatures of the States and