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Show 288 OPINIONS OF MADISON, ,JEFFERSON, ETC. laws which arc vigorously enforced; that in our revolutionary struggle, the SLates in whi eh slavery existed sustained their. hare in the common burdens, furni shed their equal quotas of troops, and paid their equal share of taxe. ; that slavery, though a national evil, is felL most sensibly by the tales in which it exists ; t hat it would be destructive to the whites to confine it th ere, and t o the blacks, as the di. tri. bution of them over an extensive terri Lory, and among many owners, will seem·e them a better trentmen t; that the ex. tension of it to new SLates cann ot po::;sibly injure the old, as th ey will claim all ih ir rights, since no aLLempL can ever bo made or ideo. entertained, of requiring Lllcm to admit slavery· I ) that an aLLempL to fix on the Slates having slavery any odiurn is unmerited, and would be ungenerous. Jfr. Jr:f(<>n;on to Pn 'sidcnt ll fom·oe.-E.ctract from a letter dated Jlfontice llo, llfarch 3d, 1820. "I am indebted to you for your two letters of February 7th and 19th. rrhiH Misso uri questi on, hy a gpographical line of division , is the most portento us one I have ever conicmplatecl. * * * * is ready to risk the Union for any chuncr of re toring hi ' party Lo power nnd wriggl ing himself to the head of it; nor i ' * * * * * * * wi th· out his hopes, nor scrupulous us to the means of fulfi ll ing them. I hope I shall be spared the pains or wi tnessing it, either by tltc good sense of the people, or by the more certain reliance- the hnnd of death. On this or thai side of the Styx, I am cve t· and devo tedly yours." In a letter, dated on the 13th of April, 1 20, he says ; ~~ The old schism of F ccleral and Rcpnulicnn threatened nothing, becansc it existed in cv ry Stat e, and united them together by the fraLcrnism of part y ; hut the coincidence of a marked principle, moral and poliLicaJ , wi lh a geographical line, once conceived, I feared, woulcl never more be obliieraterl from the mind ; that it would be recurring on every OPINIONR OF MAlH.'ON, .T.U:FFETI.,' N, E'r C. 2 8 ~ occasion, and renewing irritations nn til it would kindle snch mntnal n,n <l morLnl h:1.Lred, aR to rc11der· se paration preferable to eternal di::worrl. 1 have been nntong::;t the most r-;anguine in believ ing that our Union would be of long dnm· tion. I HOW doubt it much ; and. sec the event at no gt'('nt distance, and the di rect conscqncncc of this question. On the 20Lh of Decem bcr, 1820, be wrote thus : "Nothing hns ever presented so threatening an aspect as whn.t is call ed the Missonri qncsLion. 'rho P cderu.lists, completely put down, and despairing of ever riHing agnin under the old di visions of Whig and 'rory, devised a new one, of Rlaveholuing and non·Rlavchol<l ing Stn.t R, which, while it had a semblance of being moral, was at the same time o·eographical, an<l calculated i0 give them asrr ndcn<'y uy debauching their old opponents to a coaliLion wiLb 1hcm. Moral, the question cer tainly is not, hccanse the removal of slaves from one late to another, no more than their removal from one coun try to another, woulclnevcr make a sln.vc of one human being who woul<l not l>e so wiLhouL it. Indce(l, if there he any ruornlity in the question, iL is on the other si(lc, because, by spreading them over u. larger surface their happin ess would be increased, and. the bnrdcn of their future li bemLion lightcncn, l>y bringing a greater number of should ers under it. llowcvcr, it seemed to throw dnst in to the eyes of the people, and to fanaticize them, while to the knowing oncR it gave a geographical and preponderating lin e of the P otomac and Ohio, throwing fourteen Stutes to the North and East nnd ten t o the South and West. With thcsr, therefore, it is merely a qncstion of power. Tint with this gcogrnphi ·al minori t.y iL is a question of existence; for if Congress once goes out of the Constitution to arrogate tho right of regnl atlng the condition of tho inhab itants of the ~ Latcs, its majo ri ty may, nncl prolmhly will declare, thot the co nd ition of nll wi thin the Un iLcd SLntcs shal1 be 1hat of frccclorn ; in whi ch case all the whiLes sonth of Lhe Potomac 1!1 |
