of imminent peril for the preservation of our political existence?
These remain without any proper or satisfactory provision for their
discharge. Have we valuable territories and important posts in the
possession of a foreign power which, by express stipulations, ought
long since to have been surrendered? These are still retained, to
the prejudice of our interests, not less than of our rights. Are we
in a condition to resent or to repel the aggression? We have
neither troops, nor treasury, nor government.1 Are we even in a
condition to remonstrate with dignity? The just imputations on our
own faith, in respect to the same treaty, ought first to be removed.
Are we entitled by nature and compact to a free participation in
the navigation of the Mississippi? Spain excludes us from it. Is
public credit an indispensable resource in time of public danger?
We seem to have abandoned its cause as desperate and irretrievable.
Is commerce of importance to national wealth? Ours is at the
lowest point of declension. Is respectability in the eyes of
foreign powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments? The
imbecility of our government even forbids them to treat with us.
Our ambassadors abroad are the mere pageants of mimic sovereignty.
Is a violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom
of national distress? The price of improved land in most parts of
the country is much lower than can be accounted for by the quantity
of waste land at market, and can only be fully explained by that
want of private and public confidence, which are so alarmingly
prevalent among all ranks, and which have a direct tendency to
depreciate property of every kind. Is private credit the friend and
patron of industry? That most useful kind which relates to
borrowing and lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and
this still more from an opinion of insecurity than from the scarcity
of money. To shorten an enumeration of particulars which can afford