"Science,
liberal principles in government, and the true religion, might cast
their lights across the intervening sea. The valley of the Columbia
might become the granary of China and Japan, and an outlet to their
imprisoned and exuberant population.... Russia and the legitimates
menace Turkey, Persia, China, and Japan; they menace them for their
riches and dominions; the same Powers menace the two Americas for
the popular forms of their Governments. To my mind the proposition
is clear, that Eastern Asia and the two Americas, as they have
become neighbors, should become friends." [Footnote: Register of
Debates, I., 712.]
With true western passion he denounced the relinquishment of Texas
by the treaty of 1819. "The magnificent valley of the Mississippi is
ours," he proclaimed, "with all its fountains, springs, and floods
and woe to the statesman who shall undertake to surrender one drop
of its water, one inch of its soil, to any foreign power." He was
ready for a war with Spain, believing that it would give the United
States the Floridas and Cuba, "the geographical appurtenance of the
valley of the Mississippi"; that it would free the New from the Old
World; and that it would create a cordon of republics across the two
continents of North and South America.
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