University of Virginia Library

TO JAMES MONROE.

Dear Sir,—I have duly recd your favr. of the 5th,
followed by a copy of the public documents, for
which I give you many thanks. I shd. like to get a
copy of the Journals of the Convention.[10] Are they
to be purchased & where?

It appears to me as it does to you, that a coupling
of Missouri with Maine, in order to force the entrance
of the former thro' the door voluntarily opened to
the latter is, to say the least, a very doubtful policy.
Those who regard the claims of both as similar &
equal, and distrust the views of such as wish to
disjoin them may be strongly tempted to rèsort to
the expedient; and it wd. perhaps, be too much
to say that in no possible case such a resort cd. be
justified. But it may at least be said that a very
peculiar case only could supersede the general policy
of a direct & magnanimous course, appealing to the
justice & liberality of others, and trusting to the
influence of conciliatory example.

I find the idea is fast spreading that the zeal wth.
which the extension, so called, of slavery is opposed,
has, with the coalesced leaders, an object very

different from the welfare of the slaves, or the check
to their increase; and that their real object is, as you
intimate, to form a new state of parties founded on
local instead of political distinctions; thereby dividing
the Republicans of the North from those of
the South, and making the former instrumental in
giving to the opponents of both an ascendancy over
the whole. If this be the view of the subject at
Washington it furnishes an additional reason for a
conciliatory proceeding in relation to Maine.

I have been truly astonished at some of the
doctrines and deliberations to which the Missouri
question has led; and particularly so at the interpretations
put on the terms "migration or importation
&c." Judging from my own impressions
I shd. deem it impossible that the memory of any
one who was a member of the Genl. Convention,.
could favor an opinion that the terms did not exclusively
refer to Migration & importation into the
U. S. Had they been understood in that Body
in the sense now put on them, it is easy to conceive
the alienation they would have there created in
certain States; And no one can decide better than
yourself the effect they would have had in the State
Conventions, if such a meaning had been avowed
by the Advocates of the Constitution. If a suspicion
had existed of such a construction, it wd.
at least have made a conspicuous figure among the
amendments proposed to the Instrument.

I have observed as yet, in none of the views taken
of the Ordinance of 1787, interdicting slavery N. W.

of the Ohio, an allusion to the circumstance, that
when it passed, the Congs. had no authority to
prohibit the importaton of slaves from abroad;
that all the States had, & some were in the full
exercise of the right to import them; and, consequently,
that there was no mode in which Congs.
could check the evil, but the indirect one of narrowing
the space open for the reception of slaves. Had
a federal authority then existed to prohibit directly
& totally the importation from abroad, can it be
doubted that it wd. have been exerted? and that
a regulation having merely the effect of preventing
an interior dispersion of the slaves actually in the
U. S. & creating a distinction among the States in
the degrees of their sovereignty, would not have
been adopted, or perhaps, thought of?

No folly in the Spanish Govt. can now create
surprise. I wish you happily thro' the thorny
circumstances it throws in your way. Adieu &c.