be hailed as the symbol of dominion? [The annexation of Canada!] * * *
It cannot be disguised that the idea is gathering strength among us,
that the territorial mission of this nation is to obtain and hold at
least all that lies north of Panama. * * * Whether the millions that
are to dwell on the great Pacific slope of our continent are to
acknowledge our banner, or rally to standards of their own; whether
Mexico is to become ours by sudden conquest or gradual absorption;
whether the British provinces, when they pass from beneath the sceptre
of England, shall be incorporated with us, or retain an independent
dominion;--are perhaps questions which a not distant future may decide.
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."

The "New Era" of which America is the "Herald" is, he tells us, to be
marked by three grand characteristics,--