5314. MISSOURI QUESTION, Separation.—
The Missouri question aroused and
filled me with alarm. The old schism of
federal and republican threatened nothing,
because it existed in every State, and united
them together by the fraternism of party.
But the coincidence of a marked principle,
moral and political, with a geographical line,
once conceived, I feared would never more
be obliterated from the mind; that it would
be recurring on every occasion and renewing
irritations, until it would kindle such mutual
and mortal hatred, as to render separation
preferable to eternal discord. I have been
among the most sanguine in believing that
our Union would be of long duration. I now
doubt it much, and see the event at no great
distance, and the direct consequence of this
question; not by the line which has been so
confidently counted on; the laws of nature
control this; but by the Potomac, Ohio and
Missouri, or more probably, the Mississippi
upwards to our northern boundary. My only
comfort and confidence is, that I shall not
live to see this; and I envy not the present
generation the glory of throwing away the
fruits of their fathers' sacrifices of life and
fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment
which was to decide ultimately
whether man is capable of self-government.
This treason against human hope, will signalize
their epoch in future history, as the
counterpart of the medal of their predecessors.—
To William Short. Washington ed. vii, 158.
(M.
April. 1820)
