Democratic banner., 1849-07-16
his celebrated letter to John Holmes-date,
MONTICELLO, April %, 1890:

UecH 81 hIuu as VI SCid mC Vi thO ~
ter to your constituents on the Missouri
question. 1t is a perfect justification Of
them. had for a long time ceased to read
newspapers, or pay any attention to public
affairs, confident they were in good hands,
and content to be a passenger in our bark
to the shore from which | am not distant
But this momentous question, like a FIRE
bell in the mig hit, awakened and filed me
with terror. considered il, at once, a.
the knell of the Union. 1t is hushed in
deed for the moment. But this is a reprive
only, not q final sentence. A geographical
line coinciding with a marked principle,
moral ard political, once conceived and
held up to the angry passions of men, will
never be obliterated; and every new irrita-
ton will mark it deeper and deeper. But
as it is, we have the wolf by The ears and
we can neither hold MIN, nor safely lei him
Igo. Justice is in one scale, and self pre-
servation in the other. Ofone thing / am GER
tain, that as the passage of sldvesifrom one
State to another would not make asiave Of
a single human being, who would not be 50
without it, so their diffusion over a greater
surface, would make them Individually hap
pier, and proportionately facilitate the ac-
accomplishment of their emancipation, By d.
viding the burthen on a greater number OF
coadjutors. An abstinence, too, from this
act of power would remove the jealousy
excited by the understanding of Congress
to regulate the condition of the different
descriptions Of men composing a State
This certainly is the exclusive right of ev-
cry State, which nothing in the constitution
has taken from them, and given to the gen.
eral government. Could Congress, for ex-
ample, say that the now freemen of Con-
necticut, shall not be freemen, or that they
shall not emigrate into any other State.?"
This, fellow-citizens, it what Mr.. Jeffer-
son said when the Missouri question was
peDding; which question is now called the
second precedent. And so far from Mr..
Jefferson approving that restriction, he says
it came upon him like a fire bell in the night,
and filled him with terror, which would
hardly nave been the case, if he himself had
been in favor of restriction. No, he con-
sidered it as the knell of the Union; and
Mr.. Jefferson was the last man to have en-
couraged the sounding Of those death notes;
and Justice to his great name, and to his il
,llustrious character, demands a viDdicatioR
of his fame against all such aspersions.
We have now seen that Mr.. Jefferson was
against the "Proviso;'' that the ordinances
of 1887 was designed for a particular pur.
pose, different from the prOviso, and was
passed before our present constitution was
brought into being. Thus far, then, in the
history of our government, there is no pre-
cedent.
Next comes the action Of Congress in
1920, to which Mr.. Jefferson was so much
opposed; and what was settled by that act?
You all know that act was the result CT a
compromise; the restriction extending to the
line of SO deg. 80 minutes, and the balance
left untrammelled, on the principle of non
intervention, Just where the constitution
designed it, and is therefore as much a pre-
cedent for our doctrine as theirs. But it is
said the making of the compromise is an adj
mission of power. Not at all. That COM
promise was passed by the aid of those who
D denied the power; and they justified them
{ selves on the ground, that as the Union was
in imminent peril, and as the North had
evinced determination TO place the r~estric-
ton on the ,UhOie Territory, that therefore
it was the duty of those who denied the
power, to compromise the question, and
thereby save the Union, and save their con-
stitutional rights over a portion of the Ter
ritory, rather than lose all. These consid-
CREATIONS induced them to yield TO the COM
~promise line: and as evidence of the fact i
will read you the following extract of a
publication supposed to have been written
with the appreciation of President Monroe:
}, washington, Feb. IL, 1920.
But what is the question
which the proposed compromise presents?
1t is simply whether you will sare anypart
Of the country. By the compromise you
will give up nothing which you can retain;
while by seeming to yield to it voluntarily,
you would by manifesting your moderation,
place your opponents, so much the more in
the wrong; there being a large majority in
the House of Representatives in favor Of
, restricting States as well as Territories
You have nothing to hope from that quarter,
, and | can assure you there is a very deci-
ded majority in the Senate in favor of ex-
'.cluding slavery from all unsettled territory
r 0O \ q ---- ~ Il L.