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2. "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. ... But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Holmes, 1820The concerns expressed by Jefferson in the letter are best understood as a response toa. federal efforts to control American Indian populations.b. competing ideas about geographical boundaries.c. concerns over the rights and responsibilities of individual citizens.d. debates over the extension of slavery into the western territories.

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