Let them send whom they will, it
does not diminish my influence one particle."
The consequences of the Expedition, therefore, have not corresponded
to the original expectation of its projectors. So far as the political
condition of the Territory is concerned, the result, filtered down,
amounts simply to a demonstration of the impolicy of applying the
doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty as a rule for its government. The
administration of President Polk was an epoch in the history of
the continent. By the annexation of Texas a system of territorial
aggrandizement was inaugurated; and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by
which California, Utah, and New Mexico were acquired, was a legitimate
result. Every child knows that the tendency is toward the acquisition of
all North America. But the statesmen who originated a policy so
grand did not stop to establish a system of Territorial government
correspondent to its necessities. The character of such a Territorial
policy is now the principal subject upon which the great parties of
the nation are divided; and its development will constitute the chief
political achievement of the generation.
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