5315. MISSOURI QUESTION, Separation.—[continued].
Should the schism [on
the Missouri question] be pushed to separation
it will be for a short term only; two or
three years' trial will bring them back, like
quarrelling lovers to renewed embraces, and
increased affections. The experiment of separation
would soon prove to both that they
had mutually miscalculated their best interests.
And even were the parties in Congress
to secede in a passion, the soberer people
would call a convention and cement again
the severance attempted by the insanity of
their functionaries. With this consoling
view, my greatest grief would be for the
fatal effect of such an event on the hopes and
happiness of the world. We exist, and are
quoted, as standing proofs that a government,
so modelled as to rest continually on the will
of the whole society, is a practicable government.
Were we to break to pieces, it would
damp the hopes and the efforts of the good,
and give triumph to those of the bad through
the whole enslaved world. As members,
therefore, of the universal society of mankind,
and standing in high and responsible
relation with them, it is our sacred duty to
suppress passion among ourselves, and not to
blast the confidence we have inspired of
proof that a government of reason is better
than one of force.—
To Richard Rush. Washington ed. vii, 182.
(M.
1820)
