Martin van Buren: What Greatness Really Means

Van Buren was then frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Yet he issued a public statement favoring annexation only if it could be accomplished without upsetting US relations with Mexico, despite his full knowledge that this qualification would cost him politically. "We have a character among the nations of the earth to maintain," Van Buren avowed. While "the lust of power, with fraud and violence in the train, has led other and differently constituted governments to aggression and conquest, our movements in these respects have always been regulated by reason and justice."[5]

http://mises.org/library/martin-van-buren-american-gladstone

http://mises.org/library/martin-van-buren-what-greatness-really-means

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/10/05/jeffrey-rogers-hummel/