The annexation to the United States of the adjacent parts of the continent both north and south, seems to be, according to the phr...ase of 1844, our "manifest destiny." I am not in favor of artificial stimulants to this tendency. But I think I see plainly that it is now for the interest of both Canada and the United States that properly and in order, and with due regard to the feelings of Great Britain, the two countries should come under one government. If it were known that we would probably pay the whole or part of the Canadian debts, or would assume to pay them, would it not stimulate the feeling in favor of annexation in Canada?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Oregon [matter] and the annexation of Texas are now all- important to the security and future peace and prosperity of our unio...n, and I hope there are a sufficient number of pure American democrats to carry into effect the annexation of Texas and [extension of] our laws over Oregon. No temporizing policy or all is lost.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a philanthropist in general, and a friend to the Polynesians in particular, I hope that these Edens of the South Seas, blessed ...with fertile soils and peopled with happy natives, many being yet uncontaminated by the contact of civilization, will long remain unspoiled in their simplicity, beauty, and purity. And as for annexation, I beg to offer up an earnest prayer--and I entreat all present and all Christians to join me in it--that the banns of that union should be forbidden until we have found for ourselves a civilization morally, mentally, and physically higher than one which has culminated in almshouses, prisons, and hospitals.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It was evident that they had not advanced since the settlement of the country, that they were quite behind the age, and fairly rep...resented their ancestors in Normandy a thousand years ago. Even in respect to the common arts of life, they are not so far advanced as a frontier town in the West three years old. They have no money invested in railroad stock, and probably never will have. If they have got a French phrase for a railroad, it is as much as you can expect of them. They are very far from a revolution, have no quarrel with Church or State, but their vice and their virtue is content. As for annexation, they have never dreamed of it; indeed, they have not a clear idea what or where the States are. The English government has been remarkably liberal to its Catholic subjects in Canada, permitting them to wear their own fetters, both political and religious, as far as was possible for subjects. Their government is even too good for them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, ...all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers and Government defaulters, and show them how amusing it is to arrest them and try them and then turn them loose--some for cash and some for "political influence." We can make them ashamed of their simple and primitive justice.... We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need. "Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If I had not come to America, where I felt free to formulate tentatively insights at which I had empathically arrived, I would hav...e accomplished very little. I would never have begun to publish, to teach, to undertake research. Because if one does not find an assenting echo to one's ideas, if one is passed over, as I was in Vienna, then one cannot create. To create, after all, is to believe that what one says will count.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Other nations have tried to check ... the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence f...or the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »