able depositaries of their trust is the credit due.  Had the people of the United States been educated in different principles, had they been less intelligent, less independent, or less virtuous, can it be believed that we should have maintained the same steady and consistent career or been blessed with the same success?  While, then, the constituent body retains its present sound and healthful state everything will be safe.  They will choose competent and faithful representatives for every department.  It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty.  Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found.  The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.  Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force.  Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

Dangers from abroad are not less deserving of attention.  Experiencing the fortune of other nations, the United States may be again involved in war, and it may in that event be the object of the adverse party to overset our Government, to break our Union, and demolish us as a nation.  Our distance from Europe and the just, moderate, and pacific policy of our Government may form some security against these dangers, but they ought to be anticipated and guarded against.  Many of our citizens are engaged in commerce and navigation, and all of them are in a certain degree dependent on their prosperous state.  Many are engaged in the fisheries.  These interests are exposed to invasion in the wars between other powers, and we should disregard the faithful admonition of experience if we did not expect it.  We must support our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties.  A people who fail to do it can scarcely be said to hold a place among independent nations.  National honor is national property of the highest value.  The sentiment in the mind of every citizen is national strength.  It ought therefore to be cherished.

To secure us against these dangers our coast and inland frontiers should be fortified, our Army and Navy, regulated upon just principles as to the force of each, be kept in perfect order, and our militia be placed on the best practicable footing.  To put our extensive coast in such a state of defense as to secure our cities and interior from invasion will be attended with expense, but the work when finished will be permanent, and it is fair to presume that a single campaign of invasion by a naval force superior to our own, aided by a few thousand land troops, would expose us to greater expense, without taking into the estimate the loss of property and distress of our citizens, than would be sufficient for this great work.  Our land and naval forces should be moderate, but adequate to the necessary purposes—­the