If] this country [knew] itself . . . it would feel the necessity of laying an immediate curb on its passion for extended territory. . . . It is full time that we should lay on ourselves serious, resolute restraint. Possessed of a domain, vast enough for the growth of ages, it is time for us to stop in the career of acquisition and conquest. Already endangered by our greatness, we cannot advance without imminent peril to our institutions, union, prosperity, virtue, and peace. . . . There is no necessity for crime. There is no fate to justify rapacious [greedy] nations any more than to justify g

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