Before Spain lost Mexico her Philippine trade had actually passed across the Pacific, through the Mexican port of Acapulco, and across the Atlantic.
Yet these interesting historical facts were scarcely related in the mind of the public to the more immediate and tangible fact that the annexation of the Philippines gave the United States a far-flung territory situated just where all the powerful nations of the world were then centering their interest.
In opposition to those who disapproved of this extension of territory, it was argued more cogently that, in spite of the prevailing belief of the thirty preceding years, the United States had always been an expanding power, stretching its authority over new areas with a persistency and rapidity hardly equaled by any other nation, and that this latest step was but a new stride in the natural expansion of the United States.

But here again the similarity between the former and the most recent steps was more apparent than real.

Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California, and Oregon, had all been parts of an obvious geographical whole.

Alaska, indeed, was detached, but its acquisition had been partly accidental, and it was at least a part of the American continent and would, in the opinion of many, eventually become contiguous by the probable annexation of Canada.

Moreover, none of the areas so far occupied by the United States had been really populated.