By the frame of the Government under which we live this same
people have wisely given their public servants but little power
for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return
of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While
the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by
any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the
Government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be
an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you
would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by
taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of
you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution
unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own
framing under it; while the new Administration will have no
immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were
admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the
dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate
action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm
reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are
still competent to adjust in the best way all our present
difficulty.
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