The backwoodsmen had pushed the Spaniards from the Mississippi, had set up a slave-holding republic in Texas, and had conquered the Californian gold-fields, in the sheer masterful exercise of might.

It is true that they won great triumphs for civilization no less than for their own people; yet they won them unwittingly, for they were merely doing as countless other strong young races had done in the long contest carried on for so many thousands of years between the fit and the unfit.

But in 1898 the United States, while having gained in strength, showed that there had likewise been gain in justice, in mercy, in sense of responsibility.
Our conquest of the Southwest has been justified by the result.

The Latin peoples in the lands we won and settled have prospered like our own stock.

The sons and grandsons of those who had been our foes in Louisiana and New Mexico came eagerly forward to serve in the army that was to invade Cuba.