The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
UNITY / MISSOURI QUESTION
The banks, bankrupt law, manufactures, Spanish treaty, are nothing.
These are occurrences which, like waves in a storm, will pass under
the ship. But the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose the
Missouri country by revolt, and what more, God only knows. From the
battle of Bunker's Hill to the Treaty of Paris, we never had so
ominous a question. It even damps the joy with which I hear of your
high health, and welcomes to me the consequences of my want of it. I
thank God that I shall not live to witness its issue.
Sed haec hactenus.
to John Adams, 10 December 1819
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