moral and political, with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared would never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion, and renewing irritations, until it would kindle such mutual and mortal hatred, as to render separation preferable to eternal discord.  I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration.  I now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance, and the direct consequence of this question:  not by the line which has been so confidently counted on; the laws of nature control this; but by the Potomac, Ohio, and Missouri, or more probably, the Mississippi upwards to our northern boundary.  My only comfort and confidence is, that I shall not live to see this; and I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers’ sacrifices of life and fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment which was to decide ultimately whether man is capable of self-government.  This treason against human hope will signalize their epoch in future history, as the counterpart of the medal of their predecessors.

You kindly inquire after my health.  There is nothing in it immediately threatening, but swelled legs, which are kept down mechanically, by bandages from the toe to the knee.  These I have worn for six months.  But the tendency to turgidity may proceed from debility alone.  I can walk the round of my garden; not more.  But I ride six or eight miles a day without fatigue.  I shall set out for Poplar Forest within three or four days; a journey from which my physician augurs much good.

I salute you with constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLII.—­TO JOHN HOLMES, April 22, 1820

TO JOHN HOLMES.

Monticello, April 22, 1820.

I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question.  It is a perfect justification to them.  I 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 I am not distant.  But this momentous question, like a fire-bell 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 new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.  I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way.  The cession of that kind of property (for so it is