Already endangered by our greatness, we cannot advance without imminent peril to our institutions,
union, prosperity, virtue, and peace.... the Indians have melted before the white man, and the
mixed, degraded race of Mexico must melt before the Anglo-Saxon. Away with this vile sophistry!
There is no necessity for crime. There is no fate to justify rapacious nations, any more than to justify
gamblers and robbers, in plunder. We boast of the progress of society, and this progress consists in
the substitution of reason and moral principle for the sway of brute force.... We talk of accomplishing
our destiny. So did the late conqueror of Europe (Napoleon); and destiny consigned him to a lonely
rock in the ocean, the prey of ambition which destroyed no peace but his own.
