"This work is submitted to the public with an uncommon degree of solicitude and anxiety. The subject it embraces, and the objects it has in view, are of inexpressible magnitude. The former is the present critical situation of the United States, with the causes that have led to that situation ; the latter, the mitigation of party rage and rancour, and the restoration of harmony. It is no longer doubtful that a conspiracy exists in New England, among a few of the most wealthy and influential citizens, to effect a dissolution of the union, at every hazard, and to form a separate confederacy. This has been believed by some of our citizens for years, and strenuously denied by others, deceived by the mask the conspirators wore, and by their hollow professions. But it requres more than Boeotian stupidity and dulness, to hesitate on the subject, after the late extraordinary proceedings, which cannot possibly have any other object."--Preface to the first edition, Philadelphia, Nov. 8, 1814.