There is one other point on which I file my _caveat_. This treaty must
not be a precedent for a system of indiscriminate and costly annexion.
Sincerely believing that republican institutions under the primacy of
the United States must embrace this whole continent, I cannot adopt
the sentiment of Jefferson, who, while confessing satisfaction in
settlements on the Pacific coast, saw there in the future nothing but
“free and independent Americans,” bound to the United States only by
“ties of blood and interest,” without political unity,[31]--or of
Webster, who in the same spirit said of settlers there, “They will
raise a standard for themselves, and they ought to do it.”[32] Nor am
I willing to restrict myself to the principle so tersely expressed by
Andrew Jackson, in his letter to President Monroe: “Concentrate our
population, confine our frontier to proper limits, until our country,
to those limits, is filled with a dense population.”[33] But I cannot
disguise my anxiety that every stage in our predestined future shall
be by natural processes, without war, and I would add even without
purchase. There is no territorial aggrandizement worth the price of
blood. Only under peculiar circumstances can it become the subject
of pecuniary contract. Our triumph should be by growth and organic
expansion in obedience to “preëstablished harmony,” recognizing always
the will of those who are to become our fellow-citizens. All this must
be easy, if we are only true to ourselves. Our motto may be that of
Goethe: “Without haste, without rest.” Let the Republic be assured in
tranquil liberty, with all equal before the law, and it will conquer by
its sublime example. More happy than Austria, who acquired possessions
by marriage, we shall acquire them by the attraction of republican
institutions.
“Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube;
Nam quæ Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.”[34]
The famous epigram will be just as applicable to us, inasmuch as our
acquisitions will be under the sanction of wedlock to the Republic.
There may be wedlock of a people as well as of a prince. Meanwhile
our first care should be to improve and elevate the Republic, whose
sway will be so comprehensive. Plant it with schools; cover it with
churches; fill it with libraries; make it abundant with comfort, so
that poverty shall disappear; keep it constant in the assertion of
Human Rights. And here we may fitly recall those words of Antiquity,
which Cicero quoted from the Greek, and Webster in our day quoted from
Cicero: “You have a Sparta; adorn it.”[35]