He has, indeed, been even more of a nationalist than he has a reformer.

His most important literary work was a history of the beginning of American national expansion.

He has treated all public questions from a vigorous, even from an extreme, national standpoint.

No American politician was more eager to assert the national interest against an actual or a possible foreign enemy; and not even William R.
Hearst was more resolute to involve his country in a war with Spain.
Fortunately, however, his aggressive nationalism did not, like that of so many other statesmen, faint from exhaustion as soon as there were no more foreign enemies to defy.

He was the first political leader of the American people to identify the national principle with an ideal of reform.