without impairing the just rights of the States or affecting those of
individuals? How sustain and pass with glory through the late war?
The Government has been in the hands of the people. To the people,
therefore, and to the faithful and able depositaries of their trust is
the credit due. Had the people of the United States been educated in
different principles, had they been less intelligent, less independent,
or less virtuous, can it be believed that we should have maintained the
same steady and consistent career or been blessed with the same success?
While, then, the constituent body retains its present sound and
healthful state everything will be safe. They will choose competent
and faithful representatives for every department. It is only when
the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into
a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty.
Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The
people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement
and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to
preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional
measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of
preserving our liberties.

Dangers from abroad are not less deserving of attention. Experiencing
the fortune of other nations, the United States may be again involved
in war, and it may in that event be the object of the adverse party to
overset our Government, to break our Union, and demolish us as a nation.
Our distance from Europe and the just, moderate, and pacific policy of
our Government may form some security against these dangers, but they
ought to be anticipated and guarded against. Many of our citizens are
engaged in commerce and navigation, and all of them are in a certain
degree dependent on their prosperous state. Many are engaged in the
fisheries. These interests are exposed to invasion in the wars between