continent, because the cheapness and excellence of our productions,
added to the circumstance of vicinity, and the enterprise and
address of our merchants and navigators, will give us a greater
share in the advantages which those territories afford, than
consists with the wishes or policy of their respective sovereigns.
Spain thinks it convenient to shut the Mississippi against us on
the one side, and Britain excludes us from the Saint Lawrence on the
other; nor will either of them permit the other waters which are
between them and us to become the means of mutual intercourse and
traffic.
From these and such like considerations, which might, if
consistent with prudence, be more amplified and detailed, it is easy
to see that jealousies and uneasinesses may gradually slide into the
minds and cabinets of other nations, and that we are not to expect
that they should regard our advancement in union, in power and
consequence by land and by sea, with an eye of indifference and
composure.
The people of America are aware that inducements to war may
arise out of these circumstances, as well as from others not so
obvious at present, and that whenever such inducements may find fit
time and opportunity for operation, pretenses to color and justify
them will not be wanting. Wisely, therefore, do they consider union
and a good national government as necessary to put and keep them in
SUCH A SITUATION as, instead of INVITING war, will tend to repress
and discourage it. That situation consists in the best possible
state of defense, and necessarily depends on the government, the
arms, and the resources of the country.
As the safety of the whole is the interest of the whole, and
cannot be provided for without government, either one or more or
many, let us inquire whether one good government is not, relative to