A fearful and angry struggle instantly followed. This
alarmed thinking men more than any previous question, because, unlike all
the former, it divided the country by geographical lines. Other questions
had their opposing partisans in all localities of the country and in
almost every family, so that no division of the Union could follow such
without a separation of friends to quite as great an extent as that of
opponents. Not so with the Missouri question. On this a geographical line
could be traced, which in the main would separate opponents only. This
was the danger. Mr. Jefferson, then in retirement, wrote:
"I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers or to 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 I am not distant. But this
momentous question, like a firebell in the night, awakened and filled me
with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is
hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final
sentence. A geographical line coinciding with a marked principle, moral
and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men,
will never be obliterated, and every irritation will mark it deeper and
deeper.
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