d, to improve the reason
of the people, and encourage them in the use of it, the liberality of
this State will support this institution, and give fair play to the
cultivation of reason. Can you ever find a more eligible occasion of
visiting once more your native country, than that of accompanying Mr.
Correa, and of seeing with him this beautiful and hopeful institution
_in ovo_.

Although I had laid down as a law to myself, never to write, talk, or
even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs, and therefore
had ceased to read newspapers, yet the Missouri question aroused
and filled me with alarm. The old schism of federal and republican
threatened nothing, because it existed in every State, and united them
together by the fraternism of party. But the coincidence of a marked
principle, 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