Such a tendency has existed - does exist. Always the friend of my
countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them
from this high place to which their partiality has exalted me that
there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best interests -
hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted in its views,
selfish in its objects. It looks to the aggrandizement of a few even to
the destruction of the interests of the whole. The entire remedy is
with the people. Something, however, may be effected by the means which
they have placed in my hands. It is union that we want, not of a party
for the sake of that party, but a union of the whole country for the
sake of the whole country, for the defense of its interests and its
honor against foreign aggression, for the defense of those principles
for which our ancestors so gloriously contended. As far as it depends
upon me it shall be accomplished. All the influence that I possess
shall be exerted to prevent the formation at least of an Executive
party in the halls of the legislative body. I wish for the support of
no member of that body to any measure of mine that does not satisfy his
judgment and his sense of duty to those from whom he holds his
appointment, nor any confidence in advance from the people but that
asked for by Mr. Jefferson, "to give firmness and effect to the legal
administration of their affairs."

I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to
justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for
the Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals,
religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are
essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness; and to that
good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious
freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers and
has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence