quently, they respected what was considered as a dead matter, known to the preceding administrations, and offering nothing new to call for investigations, which those nearest the dates of the transactions had not thought proper to institute. In the course of the communications made to me on the subject of the conspiracy of Aaron Burr, I sometimes received letters, some of them anonymous, some under names true or false, expressing suspicions and insinuations against General Wilkinson. But only one of them and that anonymous, specified any particular fact, and that fact was one of those which had already been communicated to a former administration. No other information within the purview of the request of the House is known to have been received by any department of the Government from the establishment of the present Federal Government. That which has recently been communicated to the House of Representatives, and by them to me, is the first direct testimony ever made known to me, charging General Wilkinson with the corrupt receipt of money; and the House of Representatives may be assured that the duties which this information devolves on me shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality. Should any want of power in the court to compel the rendering of testimony, obstruct that full and impartial inquiry, which alone can establish guilt or innocence, and satisfy justice, the legislative authority only will be competent to the remedy.*-SPECIAL MESSAGE. viii, 90. (Jan. 1808.)

8669. UNION (The Federal), Love for. -Sincere love I shall forever strive to cultivate with all our sister States.-TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. FORD ED., ii, 298. (Wg., 1780.)

8670. UNION (The Federal), Massachusetts federalists and.-The design of the leading federalists, then having direction of the State [Massachusetts], to take advantage of the first war with England to separate

the Northeast States from the Union has dis

tressingly impaired our future confidence in them. In this, as in all other cases, we must do them full justice, and make the fault all their own, should the last hope of human liberty be destined to receive its final stab from them.-To DR. WILLIAM EUSTIS. ix, 237. (M., Oct. 1809.)

FORD ED.,

8671. UNION (The Federal), Miseries of secession.-What would you think of a discourse on the benefit of the Union and miseries which would follow a separation of the States, to be exemplified in the eternal and wasting wars of Europe, in the pillage and profligacy to which these lead, and the abject oppression and degradation to which they reduce its inhabitants? Painted by your vivid pencil, what could make deeper impres* In a subsequent message Jefferson informed Congress that the Clark letters had been found, and transmitted some extracts from them. As to combinations with foreign agents for the dismemberment of the Union they contained nothing new, "nor have we found any intimation of the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the United States from any foreign nation ".-EDITOR.

sions, and what impressions could come more home to our concerns, or kindle a livelier sense of our present blessings?-To MR. OGILVIE. v, 605. (M., 1811.)

8672. UNION (The Federal), Nourish.and of such a portion of civil liberty as no Possessed of the blessing of self-government, other civilized nation enjoys, it now behooves us to guard and preserve them by a continuance of the sacrifices and exertions by which they were acquired, and especially to nourish that Union which is their sole guarantee.— R. TO A. NEW LONDON PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. viii, 166. (1809.)

8673. UNION (The Federal), Pennsylvania, Virginia and.—I wish and hope you may consent to be added to our [Virginia] Assembly itself. There is no post where you can render greater services, without going out of your State. Let but this block stand firm on its basis, and Pennsylvania do the same, our Union will be perpetual, and our General Government kept within the bounds and form of the Constitution.-To JAMES MADISON. iv 162. FORD ED., vii, 110. (M., Jan. 1797.)

8674. UNION (The Federal), Rock of safety. A solid Union is the best rock of our safety.-To C. W. F. DUMAS. iii, 260. (Pa., 1791.)

8675.

* *

To cherish the Federal Union as the only rock of our safety,* [is one of] the landmarks by which we are to guide ourselves in all our proceedings.SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE. viii, 21. FORD ED., viii, 187. (Dec. 1802.)

8676. UNION (The Federal), Safety in. It is a momentous truth, and happily of universal impression on the public mind, that our safety rests on the preservation of our Union.-TO THE RHODE ISLAND ASSEMBLY. iv, 397. (W., May 1801.)

8677.

I trust the Union of

these States will ever be considered as the palladium of their safety, their prosperity and glory, and all attempts to sever it, will be frowned on with reprobation and abhorrence. -To GOVERNOR TOMPKINS. viii, 153. (1809.)

8678. UNION (The Federal), Sectional ascendency.-If on a temporary superiority of one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no federal government can ever exist.-To JOHN TAYLOR. iv, 246. FORD ED., vii, 264. (Pa., 1798.)

8679. UNION (The Federal), Self-government and.-I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission,

State

8682. UNION (The Federal), rights and.—I am for preserving to the States the powers not yielded by them to the Union, and to the Legislature of the Union its

constitutional share in the division of powers; and I am not for transferring all the powers of the States to the General Government, and all those of that Government to the Executive branch.-TO ELBRIDGE GERRY. iv, 268. FORD ED., vii, 327. (Pa., 1799.)

8683. UNION (The Federal), Strength. -If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this Government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in full tide of successful experiment, abandon a Government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it is the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels, in the forms of kings, to govern him? Let history answer this question.-FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. viii, 2. FORD ED., viii, 3. (1801.)

8684. UNION (The Federal), War and. -If we engage in a war during our present passions, and our present weakness in some quarters, our Union runs the greatest risk of not coming out of that war in the shape in which it enters it.-TO ELBRIDGE GERRY. iv, 188. FORD ED., vii, 150. (M., June 1797.)

8685. UNION (The Federal), Washington and.-I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts. Yet when we review the mass which opposed the original

coalescence, when we consider that it lay chiefly in the Southern quarter, that the Legislature have availed themselves of no occasion of allaying it, but on the contrary whenever the Northern and Southern prejudices have come into conflict, the latter have been sacrificed and the former soothed; that the owers of the [public] debt are in the Southern and the holders of it in the Northern division; that the anti-federal champions are now strengthened in argument by the fulfilment of their predictions; that this has been brought about by the monarchical federalists themselves, who, having been for the new government merely as a stepping stone to monarchy, have themselves adopted the very constructions of the Constitution, of which, when advocating its acceptance before the tribunal of the people, they declared it insusceptible; the same government for its intrinsic merits, that the republican federalists, who espoused they denied as prophecy, having now become are disarmed of their weapons; that which true history, who can be sure that these things may not proselyte the small number which other side? And this is the event at which I was wanting to place the majority on the tremble, and to prevent which I consider your head of affairs as of the last importance. The [President Washington] continuing at the confidence of the whole Union is centred in Your being at the helm, will be more than answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people in any quarter into violence and secession. North and South will hang together, if they have you to hang on; and, if the first correction of

you.

a

numerous representation [in Congress] should fail in its effect, your presence will give time for trying others not inconsistent with the Union and peace of the States.-To PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. iii, 363. FORD ED., vi, 4. (Pa.. May 1792.)

* instance.

8686. UNION (The Federal), Western interests and.-Our true interest will be best promoted by making all the just claims of our fellow citizens, wherever situated, our own; by urging and enforcing them with the weight of our whole influence; and by exercising in ***, every * * a just government in their concerns, and making common cause even where our separate interest would seem opposed to theirs. No other conduct can attach us together; and on this attachment depends our happiness. To JAMES MONROE. i, 605. FORD ED., iv, 263. (P., 1786.)

8687. This measure [dividing States] with the disposition to shut up the the Western country into fewer and smaller Mississippi, gives me serious apprehensions of the severance of the Eastern and Western parts of our confederacy. It might have been

made the interest of the Western States to remain united with us, by managing their interests honestly, and for their own good. But, the moment we sacrifice their interests to our own, they will see it is better to govern themselves. The moment they resolve to do this, the point is settled. A forced connection is

895

neither our interest, nor within our power.TO JAMES MADISON. ii, 66. FORD ED., iv, 333. (P., Dec. 1786.)

8688.

i,

I fear, from an expression in your letter, that the people of Kentucky think of separating, not only from Virginia (in which they are right), but also from the Confederacy. I own, I should think this a most calamitous event, and such an one as every good citizen on both sides should set himself against.-To ARCHIBALD STUART. 518. FORD ED., iv, 188. (P., Jan. 1786.) 8689. Whether we remain in one confederacy, or break into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children and descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty and the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power.To DR. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. iv, 525. FORD ED., viii, 295. (W., Jan. 1804.) See CENTRALIZATION, COLONIES, CONFEDERATION, CONSTITUTION, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and UNITED STATES.

8690. UNITED STATES, Assumption of title.-We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, do in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these States reject and

renounce

United States

8691. UNITED STATES, Benign influence. The station which we occupy among the nations of the earth is honorable, but awful. Trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world the only monument of human rights, and the sole depositary of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, whence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence. All mankind ought then, with us, to rejoice in its prosperous, and sympathize in its adverse fortunes, as involving everything dear to man. And to what sacrifices of interest, or convenience, ought not these considerations to animate us? To what compromises of opinion and inclination, to maintain harmony and union among ourselves, and to preserve from all danger this hallowed ark of human hope and happiness. R. TO A. CITIZENS OF WASHINGTON. viii, 157. (1809.)

8692. UNITED STATES, Continental influence. When our strength shall permit us to give the law of our hemisphere it should be that the meridian of the mid-Atlantic should be the line of demarcation between peace and war, on this side of which no act of hostility should be committed, and the lion and the lamb lie down in peace together.-To DR. CRAWFORD. vi, 33. (1812.)

8693. UNITED STATES, Destinies of.a wide and A rising nation, spread over fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye,-when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking.—FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. viii, 1. FORD ED., viii, 2. (1801.)

8694. UNITED STATES, Disputed territory.-Spain sets up a claim to possessions within the State of Georgia. founded on her having rescued them by force from the British, during the late war. The following view of the subject seems to admit no reply: The several States, now comprising the United States of America, were, from their first establishment, separate and distinct societies, dependent on no other society of men whatever. They continued at the head of their respective governments the executive magistrate who presided over the one they had left. and thereby secured, in effect, a constant amity with that nation. In this stage of their government, their several boundaries were fixed; and particularly the southern boundary of Georgia, the only one now in question, was established at the 31st degree of latitude from the Apalachicola westwardly; and the westwith a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."-EDITOR

ern boundary, originally the Pacific Ocean, was, by the Treaty of Paris, reduced to the middle of the Mississippi. The part which our chief magistrate took in a war waged against us by the nation among whom he resided, obliged us to discontinue him, and to name one within every State. In the course of this war, we were joined by France as an ally, and by Spain and Holland as associates having a common enemy. Each sought that common enemy wherever they could find him. France, on our invitation, landed a large army within our territories, continued it with us two years, and aided us in recovering sundry places from the possession of the enemy. But she did not pretend to keep possession of the places rescued. Spain entered into the remote western part of our territory, dislodged the common enemy from several of the posts they held therein, to the annoyance of Spain; and perhaps thought it necessary to remain in some of them, as the only means of preventing their return. We, in like manner, dislodged them from several posts in the same western territory, to wit: Vincennes, Cahokia, Kaskaskia, &c., rescued the inhabitants, and retained constantly afterwards both them and the territory under our possession and government. At the conclusion of the war, Great Britain, on the 30th of November, 1782, by treaty acknowledged our Independence, and our boundary, to wit, the Mississippi to the West, and the completion of the 31st degree, &c., to the South. In her treaty with Spain, concluded seven weeks afterwards, to wit, January 20th, 1783, she ceded to her the two Floridas (which had been defined in the proclamation of 1763), and Minorca; and by the eighth article of the treaty, Spain agreed to restore without compensation, all the territories conquered by her, and not included in the treaty either under the head of cessions or restitutions, that is to say, all except Minorca and the Floridas. According to this stipulation, Spain was expressly bound to have delivered up the possessions she had taken within the limits of Georgia, to Great Britain, if they were conquests on Great Britain, who was to deliver them over to the United States; or rather she should have delivered them over to the United States themselves, as standing, quoad hoc, in the place of Great Britain. And she was bound by natural right to

deliver them to the same United States on a much stronger ground, as the real and only proprietors of those places which she had taken possession of, in a moment of danger, without having had any cause of war with the United States, to whom they belonged, and without having declared any; but on the contrary, conducting herself in other respects as a friend and associate.-(Vattel, L. 3, 122.) -MISSISSIPPI RIVER INSTRUCTIONS. vii, 570. Ford Ed., v, 461. (1792.)

Georgia should be the completion of the 32d degree of North latitude, the commissioners [appointed to negotiate with Spain to secure the free navigation of the Mississippi], may safely deny all knowledge of the fact, and refuse conference on any such postulatum. Or, should they find it necessary to enter into any argument on the subject, they will, of course, do it hypothetically; and in that way may justly say, on the part of the United States: Suppose that the United States, exhausted by a bloody and expensive war with Great Britain, might have been willing to have purchased peace by relinquishing, under a particular contingency, a small part of their territory, it does not follow that the same United States, recruited and better organized, must relinquish the same territory to Spain without striking a blow. The United States, too, have irrevocably put it out of their power to do it, by a new Constitution, which guarantees every State against the invasion of its territory. A disastrous war, indeed, might, by necessity, supersede this stipulation (as necessity is above all law), and oblige them to abandon a part of a State; but nothing short of this can justify, or obtain such an abandonment.-MISSISSIPPI RIVER INSTRUCTIONS. vii, 572. FORD ED., V, 463. (1792.)

8696.

It is an established principle, that conquest gives only an inchoate right, which does not become perfect till confirmed by the treaty of peace, and by a renunciation or abandonment by the former proprietor.

Had Great Britain been that former proprietor, she was so far from confirming to Spain the right to the territory of Georgia, invaded by Spain, that she expressly relinquished to the United States any right that might remain in her; and afterwards completed that relinquishment by procuring and consolidating with it the agreement of Spain herself to restore such territory without compensation. It is still more palpable that a war existing between two nations, as Spain and Great Britain, could give to neither the right to seize and appropriate the territory of a third, which is even neutral, much less which is an associate in the war, as the United States were with Spain. See, on this Puffensubject, Grotius, L. 3, c. 6 § 26. dorf, L. 8, c. 6. § 17, 23. Vattel, L. 3 § 197. 198. MISSISSIPPI RIVER INSTRUCTIONS. 572. FORD ED., v, 463. (1792.)

vii,

8697. A disastrous war might, by necessity, supersede this stipulation [the provision of the Constitution guaranteeing every State against the invasion of its territory] (as necessity is above all law), and oblige them to abandon a part of a State; but nothing short of this can justify, or obtain such an abandonment.-MISSISSIPPI RIVER

INSTRUCTIONS. vii, 573. FORD ED., V, 464. (1792.)

8698. UNITED STATES, Enduring.— When the General Government shall become incompetent [to the objects of governmen: specially assigned to it] instead of flying to monarchy or that tranquillity which it is the