5308. MISSOURI QUESTION, Geographical line.—[further continued].
This momentous question,
like a fire bell in the night, awakened
and filled me with terror. I considered it
at once as the knell of the Union. It is
hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this
is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A
geographical line, coinciding with a marked
principle, moral and political, once conceived
and held up to the angry passions of men,
will never be obliterated; and every new irritation
will mark it deeper and deeper.—
To John Holmes. Washington ed. vii, 159.
Ford ed., x, 157.
(M.
April. 1820)
