As for Great Britain: she had already run her network of possessions
and fortifications around the United States. She was intriguing for
California, and for Texas, and she had her eye on Cuba; she was
insidiously trying to check the growth of republican institutions on
this continent and to ruin our commerce. "It therefore becomes us to
put this nation in a state of defense; and when we are told that this
will lead to war, all I have to say is this, violate no treaty
stipulations, nor any principle of the law of nations; preserve the
honor and integrity of the country, but, at the same time, assert our
right to the last inch, and then, if war comes, let it come. We may
regret the necessity which produced it, but when it does come, I would
administer to our citizens Hannibal's oath of eternal enmity, and not
terminate the war until the question was settled forever. I would blot
out the lines on the map which now mark our national boundaries on
this continent, and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent
itself. I would not suffer petty rival republics to grow up here,
engendering jealousy of each other, and interfering with each other's
domestic affairs, and continually endangering their peace. I do not
wish to go beyond the great ocean--beyond those boundaries which the
God of nature has marked out, I would limit myself only by that
boundary which is so clearly defined by nature."[206]

The vehemence of these words startled the House, although it was not
the only belligerent speech on the Oregon question. Cooler heads, like
J.Q. Adams, who feared the effect of such imprudent utterances falling
upon British ears, remonstrated at the unseemly haste with which the
bill was being "driven through" the House, and counselled with all the
weight of years against the puerility of provoking war in this
fashion. But the most that could be accomplished in the way of
moderation was an amendment, which directed the President to give