My first wish is to see this plague to Mankind [war] banished from the Earth….Rather than quarrel abt territory, let the poor, the needy, & oppressed of Earth, and those who want Land, resort to the fertile plains of our Western Country, to the second Land of Promise, & there dwell in peace, fulfilling the first great Commandment.8 In this version of American expansion, the west became an American asylum rather than an empire, indeed a refuge for those foreigners seeking to escape from the oppressive monarchies across the Atlantic.
