To the people of the United States:

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the misguidance of the subsisting American government, you are called upon to deliberate on the current condition the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of our country, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of a nation in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on fear and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.