US Presidency
1870

It will not be presumptuous, after the foregoing sketch, to say, with entire consideration for the sovereignty and national pride of the Spanish American Republics, that the United States, by the priority of their independence, by the stability of their institutions, by the regard of their people for the forms of law, by their resources as a government, by their naval power, by their commercial enterprise, by the attractions which they offer to European immigration, by the prodigious internal development of their resources and wealth, and by the intellectual life of their population, occupy of necessity a prominent position on this continent, which they neither can nor should abdicate, which entitles them to a leading voice, and which imposes upon them duties of right and of honor regarding American questions, whether those questions affect emancipated colonies or colonies still subject to European dominion.