32 Expansion and Peace 



So it has been in the history of our own country. 

 Of course our whole national history has been one 

 of expansion. -Under Washington and Adams we 

 expanded westward to the Mississippi; under Jef 

 ferson we expanded across the continent to the 

 mouth of the Columbia ; under Monroe we expand 

 ed into Florida; and then into Texas and Califor 

 nia ; and finally, largely through the instrumentality 

 of Seward, into Alaska ; while under every adminis 

 tration the process of expansion in the great plains 

 and the Rockies has continued with growing ra 

 pidity. While we had a frontier the chief feature 

 of frontier life was the endless war between the 

 settlers and the red men. Sometimes the imme 

 diate occasion for the war was to be found in the 

 conduct of the whites and sometimes in that of the 

 reds, but the ultimate cause was simply that we were 

 in contact with a country held by savages or half- 

 savages. 



Where we abut on Canada there is no danger 

 of war, nor is there any danger where we abut 

 on the well-settled regions of Mexico. But else 

 where war had to continue until we expanded 

 over the country. Then it was succeeded at once 

 by a peace which has remained unbroken to the 

 present day. In North America, as elsewhere 

 throughout the entire world, the expansion of a 

 civilized nation has invariably meant the growth 



