All governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed.

Let moralists and dreamers say what they would, the course of America was toward mastery of the whole of North America.

Yes, and there was Oregon.

If the Louisiana Purchase of 1804 did not include Oregon, what of the Lewis and Clark expedition; what of the founding of Astoria by Mr.Astor of New York, on the shores of the Columbia River; what of the restoration of Astoria to the United States in 1818 after it had been forcibly seized by Great Britain in the War of 1812?
Douglas looked forward to the day when Great Britain would not have an inch of land from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Pole, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

All of this vast territory should be the abiding place of liberty forever.