Commerce will be cherished by me

[This is from a letter I wrote to the General Assembly of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations on May 26, 1801.]

To preserve the peace of our fellow citizens, promote their prosperity and happiness, reunite opinion, cultivate a spirit of candor, moderation, charity, and forbearance towards one another, are objects calling for the efforts and sacrifices of every good man and patriot. Our religion enjoins it; our happiness demands it; and no sacrifice is requisite but of passions hostile to both.

It is a momentous truth, and happily of universal impression on the public mind, that our safety rests on the preservation of our Union. Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others, and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belongs our external and mutual relations, to each State severally the care of our persons, our property, our reputation, and religious freedom. This wise distribution, if carefully preserved, will prove, I trust from example, that while smaller governments are better adapted to the ordinary objects of society, larger confederations more effectually secure independence and the preservation of republican government.

I am sensible of the great interest which your State justly feels in the prosperity of commerce. It is of vital interest also to States more agricultural, whose produce, without commerce, could not be exchanged. As the handmaid of agriculture therefore, commerce will be cherished by me both from principle and duty.