oppression fallen in any quarter of our Union?  Who has been deprived of any right of person or property?  Who restrained from offering his vows in the mode which he prefers to the Divine Author of his being?  It is well known that all these blessings have been enjoyed in their fullest extent; and I add with peculiar satisfaction that there has been no example of a capital punishment being inflicted on anyone for the crime of high treason.

Some who might admit the competency of our Government to these beneficent duties might doubt it in trials which put to the test its strength and efficiency as a member of the great community of nations.  Here too experience has afforded us the most satisfactory proof in its favor.  Just as this Constitution was put into action several of the principal States of Europe had become much agitated and some of them seriously convulsed.  Destructive wars ensued, which have of late only been terminated.  In the course of these conflicts the United States received great injury from several of the parties.  It was their interest to stand aloof from the contest, to demand justice from the party committing the injury, and to cultivate by a fair and honorable conduct the friendship of all.  War became at length inevitable, and the result has shown that our Government is equal to that, the greatest of trials, under the most unfavorable circumstances.  Of the virtue of the people and of the heroic exploits of the Army, the Navy, and the militia I need not speak.

Such, then, is the happy Government under which we live—­a Government adequate to every purpose for which the social compact is formed, a Government elective in all its branches, under which every citizen may by his merit obtain the highest trust recognized by the Constitution; which contains within it no cause of discord, none to put at variance one portion of the community with another; a Government which protects every citizen in the full enjoyment of his rights, and is able to protect the nation against injustice from foreign powers.

Other considerations of the highest importance admonish us to cherish our Union and to cling to the Government which supports it.  Fortunate as we are in our political institutions, we have not been less so in other circumstances on which our prosperity and happiness essentially depend.  Situated within the temperate zone, and extending through many degrees of latitude along the Atlantic, the United States enjoy all the varieties of climate, and every production incident to that portion of the globe.  Penetrating internally to the Great Lakes and beyond the sources of the great rivers which communicate through our whole interior, no country was ever happier with respect to its domain.  Blessed, too, with a fertile soil, our produce has always been very abundant, leaving, even in years the least favorable, a surplus for the wants of our fellow-men in other countries.  Such is our peculiar felicity that there is not a part of our Union that