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 discrepancy was observable as to promise anything
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, and civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our
free institutions. Our Confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the
terms and principles governing a common copartnership. 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 Constitution.

It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to cultivate a
spirit of concord and harmony among the various parts of our
Confederacy. Experience has abundantly 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