To the confidence and consolation derived from these sources it
would be ungrateful not to add those which spring from our present
fortunate condition. Though not altogether exempt from
embarrassments that disturb our tranquillity at home and threaten
it abroad, yet in all the attributes of a great, happy, and
flourishing people we stand without a parallel in the world.
Abroad we enjoy the respect and, with scarcely an exception, the
friendship of every nation; at home, while our Government quietly
but efficiently performs the sole legitimate end of political
institutions--in doing the greatest good to the greatest number--
we present an aggregate of human prosperity surely not elsewhere
to be found.

How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every citizen,
in his own sphere of action, whether limited or extended, to exert
himself in perpetuating a condition of things so singularly happy!
All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if
we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen
to possess. Position and climate and the bounteous resources that
nature has scattered with so liberal a hand--even the diffused
intelligence and elevated character of our people--will avail us
nothing if we fail sacredly to uphold those political institutions
that were wisely and deliberately formed with reference to every
circumstance that could preserve or might endanger the blessings
we enjoy. The thoughtful framers of our Constitution legislated
for our country as they found it. Looking upon it with the eyes of
statesmen and patriots, they saw all the sources of rapid and
wonderful prosperity; but they saw also that various habits,
opinions and institutions peculiar to the various portions of so
vast a region were deeply fixed. Distinct sovereignties were in