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"The van of the Caucasian race now atop the Rocky Mountains, and spread down upon the shores of the Pacific. In a few years a great population will grow up there, luminous with the accumulated lights of European and American civilization. Their presence in such a position cannot be without its influence upon eastern Asia....Civilization, or extinction has been the fate of all people who found themselves in the track of the advancing Whites, and civilization, always the preference of the Whites, has been pressed as an object, while extinction has followed as a consequence of its resistance. The Black and Red races have often felt their ameliorating influence."Congressional Speech by Senator Thomas Hart Benton, 1846Congressional Globe, May 28, 1846.The excerpt above is best understood in the context of the

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