However they may be settled, the great fact will remain essentially the
same, that the two continents of this Western Hemisphere shall yet bear
up a stupendous social, political, and religious structure, wrought by
the American mind, moulded and coloured by the hues of American
thought, and animated and united by an American soul. It seems equally
certain that, whatever the divisions of territory may be, these United
States are the living centre, from which already flows the resistless
stream which will ultimately absorb in its own channel, and bear on its
own current, the whole thought of the two Americas. * * * If, then, I
have not over-rated the moral and intellectual vigour of the people of
this nation, and of the policy lately avowed to be acted upon--that the
further occupation of American soil by the Governments of Europe is not
to be suffered,--then the inference is a direct one, that the stronger
elements will control and absorb the lesser, so that the same causes
which melted the red races away will send the influence of the United
States not only over the territory north of Panama, but across the
Isthmus, and southward to Magellan.
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