10 janv. 1820 - Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, 22 April 1820

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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 Missouri1 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.

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