...Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States was destined or endowed by God with the mission of expanding across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Many people believed that it was the obvious destiny or America, which was “chosen” by God as a superior nations, to expand, as it is said, “from sea to shining sea.” The phrase was first coined in 1845 by journalist John L. O’Sullivan. He believed that the United States had been given a mission by God to spread democracy, not by force, but simply by spreading across the continent. Obscure at first, the phrase only became popular when Whig Robert Winthrop, who opposed manifest destiny, ridiculed the idea in public. There were many interpretations of manifest destiny, but most reflected the widespread feeling of Nationalism that was sparked by the conclusion of and victory in the War of 1812. The term manifest destiny was widely used and interpreted, but it always seemed to outline three basic themes. Those themes were virtue, mission, and destiny. Manifest destiny focused on virtue of America’s people and government. American Exceptionalism was the belief that America’s history was above the norm and uncommonly “good”. Exceptionalism showed in the beliefs of people who thought that God had selected America as a “City on a Hill”; a role model and an ideal for the rest of the world, especially still-developing areas. Also, many people believed that America’s people, the “Anglo-Saxon race” were, in terms of...
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...During the mid to late 1800s, the United States felt two waves of expansion, Manifest Destiny and Imperialism. Manifest Destiny, as a definition, stands for the westward expansion to reach the Pacific coast during the mid-1800s; Imperialism stood for the external expansion into locations beyond the North American continent. During the years of Manifest Destiny, with government support, the United States expanded and went on to add eighteen states through advances such as the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican War, and multiple treaties and deals with foreign governments. Such expansions towards the Pacific Coast brought the United States great resources and a large portion of land, propelling the country into an industrial age of progress and prosperity. Later in the century, Imperialism began and sought to expand the United States beyond...
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...Tammy Prater Survey of American History I HIST 2010 Spring 2014 “Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion A Brief History with Documents” By Carrie Duncan Manifest Destiny is an event, and a philosophy, that changed how the United States expanded from thirteen colonies into what it is today. The term, Manifest Destiny, was first used in 1845 by John O'Sullivan, to give explanation for the United States' right of expansion. He stated that"...the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federaltive development of self government entrusted to us. It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth." 1 The principle behind Manifest Destiny has been around since Christopher Columbus first discovered the Caribbean. Many years after Columbus' discovery of the New World, Europe and Mexico were wanting to expand, and control new territories in North America. This want for new territory, would cause boundary issues and fears to arise soon after the Revolutionary War with the fledgling government of the United States. These boundary issues and fears would help the supporters, who wanted to expand the United States borders, to push for acquiring new territories in...
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...Manifest Destiny The Effects and Repercussions Manifest Destiny is a term coined by John L. O’Sullivan in 1845. It started out as a measly little statement published in a popular American journal called the Democratic Review, but what it turned into was something more. Manifest Destiny was a popular idea circulating in the 1840’s and 50’s by people to describe the mission of expanding American from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The Merriam-Webster dictionary refers to it as “a future event that is sure to happen : a destiny that is clearly seen and cannot be changed”. And that’s just was the expansionists believed. When America was just beginning to take shape, Americans realized that it was inevitable that they would expand from the...
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...The belief of Manifest Destiny during the 1830’s to 1860’s along with territorial expansion in the United States played a major role in uniting the country. Territorial expansion contributed to the unification of the U.S. economically politically and socially. The term manifest destiny originated in the 1840’s expressing not only the expansion of land but also individual, political and economic expansion as well. Manifest Destiny created this vision for Americans that they had the right and the authority to unite together and take the land west of what they owned. Socially slavery would become an issue, economically the economy would become stable, and politically allies would be created through war. The belief of manifest destiny and action of territorial expansion unified the United States through multiple different scenarios. The political affect of expansion united the Americans in such cases as the U.S. Mexican War. War would bring the common people together to fight against a common enemy (Doc. 2). We can see that because of Americans ideal belief in manifest destiny it created a situation where we wanted land and decided to take it deliberately causing the U.S. Mexican War unifying the people of the United States as a whole. Wining this...
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...idea of “Manifest Destiny”; the belief that the Americans had a God-given right, based on racial superiority, to spread across the Pacific Ocean (Chavez 2). The motives that were really behind Manifest Destiny was the acquisition of new territory, and the Americans wanted territories which were relatively uninhabited by people they considered inferior. As Americans wandered in search of land towards the west, the reality that the majority of those lands had occupants living in them got overlooked. President Polk shared and guided the dream of manifest destiny, and offered to purchase some territory of Mexico. His aim was to convince Mexicans to get into a negotiation and surrender a portion of their land to America .However, the refusal of the offer by the Mexican government and the unbending of the Polk to populate the area resulted in tension in the two nations. President Polk told the congress that blood had been shed, and he provoked war with Mexicans. With the end of the Mexican War, the United States absorbed one third of that nation’s total area. Even though American’s gained a considerable amount of land, it created great political sectionalism in America. The Mexican American War was for the most part determined by Manifest Destiny that imparted nation building through territorial expansion, promoted the idea of American racial superiority and ultimately supported slavery's growth (Chavez 3). The westward movement of Americans in reply to manifest destiny is one...
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...In 1845, a democratic leader, John L. O'Sullivan, gave the movement its name. ".... the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federal tive development of self government entrusted to us. It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth." -John L. Sullivan Manifest Destiny was the belief in the United States that American settlers were destined to expand throughout the continent. Many settlers believed that God himself blessed the nation. Many citizens were concerned about adding more slave states. Manifest Destiny also brought up issues of religion, money,and race. Native Americans were looked at as not civilized. The Hispanics who ruled Texas were also seen as not civilized. The desire for more land brought more settlers to settle the land. Manifest Destiny also helped western settlement, Native American removal and war with Mexico. One example of a war with the Natives was the battle at the Marias River, known as “Custer's Last Stand”. This battle consisted of Custer attacking an unthreatening tribe and in the end getting massacred....
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...During the 19th century, American settlers wanted to expand westward for new territories. This expansion was known as manifest destiny. Many Americans wanted to enlarge the size of their country, so they could compete with other larger countries. Others wanted to expand America for economic reasons such as more land for farming, or for industrial purposes. While some viewed the expansion of the U.S. as a good thing, many others opposed the idea for various reasons. In the 1800s, the expansion of the United States gained many supporters and opposers. The expansion of the United States began in the 1800s. In 1803, while Thomas Jefferson was president, France had owned a large area of land between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River...
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...society as well as the Greeks and their democratic values. It was also meant to create a new American mythos to enshrine values, illustrate manifest destiny, and show that the United States was created by divine providence just as Rome was founded. We can see this in many of our monuments and artwork from the time period, as well as in the way the American story is told and taught to us. The Jefferson Memorials construction began in 1939 when President Franklin Roosevelt laid its cornerstone and was completed in 1943. It is dedicated to Thomas Jefferson our third president and was modeled after the Pantheon in Rome. It was...
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...Manifest Destiny Final Draft Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand west on the North American continent. “This was all done in the spirit of Manifest Destiny, a term coined in an 1845 editorial be John L. O’Sullivan.” (Uschan 51) People who had this belief thought God intended for the United States to expand. They thought the country's democratic political system was superior to any others, and therefore should spread across the land. Manifest Destiny was the driving force responsible for changing the face of American history. This philosophy created the nation we have today. The United States doubled in land because of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The United States purchased this land from Napoleon for $15 million dollars. Americans enjoyed more land and more opportunities. In this expansion it was discovered that Native Americans had occupied the land. Native Americans were forced to leave their land and travel 800 miles west in search for new land and a new home. About one quarter of the population did not survive the journey. Native Americans died from lack of food or not enough warm clothing for the snow. Slavery was increased because of the expansion of the United States. New farmland was introduced and more work was needed to get done. Manifest Destiny creates cultural and political imperialism. We gained California and New Mexico from the Mexican War because the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty ceded a number...
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...John L. O'Sullivan devised the term manifest destiny in 1840’s in place of a growing belief that the United States was destined by God to expand. The idea that the United States had a God given right to expand its territory was used to justify territorial growth and conquest of the west. The term manifest destiny didn’t just become a catch phrase which justified American efforts to conquer new territory but also to seek out new markets for its goods across the oceans. Manifest destiny was a defense of what is now called Imperialism. The settlers from the United States that gradually moved into the Mexican province of Texas was one of the clearest examples of manifest destiny in the nineteenth century. A series of reactions led to the annexation...
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...Expansionism of mid 19th Century With the election of president James K. Polk the notion of Manifest Destiny began to make its way through America. The idea insisted that it was in gods will to pursue the west coast of present day United States. The statement “Manifest Destiny of the mid- 1800s proved to be just as controversial as it was beneficial for our nation” is an extremely invalid assertion. The newly adapted concept (Manifest Destiny) started to prove that America was a Global Power. Manifest Destiny expanded our borders, prompted economic growth, and led to the advancement of the railroad system. The westward expansion led America to have an increase in the quality of the economy. The Gold Rush gave those who had previously failed and lived in poverty on the east a new beginning in the west. The movement westward, created jobs and industry, that stimulated the American infrastructure. The growth sparked the opportunity for some to open businesses to meet the needs of the miners. With people gaining more funds they were able to output more back into the American Market. The newly acquired land approximately doubled the area of the United States. With the increase in land America appeared to also have a rise in the ranks of world power. We were getting our way with England (one of the worlds most powerful nations) in the recent land negotiations over Oregon and Maine. Moreover, America also had a population boom. Immigrants from afar were coming to our...
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...American Spirit The American Spirit can defined by many people and by many events. The Alaska Purchase may not be an example of all the definitions of the American Spirit but it does cover a few. The Alaska Purchase at the time seemed like a great waste to the American people. It was given nicknames such as Seward's icebox and Seward's Folly. What Americans didn't know was how valuable it would become in the years to come. The Alaska Purchase is a good example of the American Spirit through intuition and perseverance. Almost everyone but William Seward, secretary of the state at the time, believed that Alaska was nothing but a barren ice block. However Seward knew what the new American frontier was actually like, mountain ranges, dazzling bays, lush forests and only in the upper quarter of Alaska was the barren frozen wasteland everyone expected. Seward knew that in this territory twice the size of France there had to be some useful resources from it (Gold 80). Seward was right, the territory already had an abundance of timber, a wealth of fisheries and fur, that could, when properly executed, could produce a healthy profit (Russell 45). Whales, more specifically, whale oil was a very important resource up until electricity and light bulbs lit up our world. Whale oil was used in virtually every oil lit lamp on the planet so when the whales would migrate north to Alaska, the valuable whale oil would be collected. These so far are only the resources Seward knew about and his...
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...Manifest Destiny Manifest Destiny was the expansion of the colonies and treaties, colonies claimed the land extending to the pacific ignoring European powers and violating treaties (Greenberg, 2012, 4). Manifest Destiny is the idea of continental expansion by the United States,from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, which occurred out of deep desire and need to conquer new lands and expanded borders. However, expansion was done out of racism, which violates the ideal of equality, and is unconstitutional. Andrew Jackson was in favor of Manifest Destiny because he wanted Mississippi and Alabama freed of indians to enable those states to grow in population. “By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid’’ (Jackson, 2012, 61). Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act a law in 1830. He made it sound like it would benefit everyone however he was doing it out of racism. Zenas Leonard believed...
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...O’Sullivan a New York journalist, coined the term "Manifest Destiny", which defines the recognition that Americans had a destiny given to them by God, to expand into the western territories “ The whole continent was to be theirs”(American Nations 300). John L. O'Sullivan was the first to popularly describe the pattern of western expansion throughout history, going as far back to the first settlers and their expansion to the west. O'Sullivan's term "Manifest Destiny" was used as a justification to acquire new territories. The War of Mexico was fought between the United States and Mexico in 1846 - 1848, over the Mexican territory. President Polk believed in the “Manifest Destiny” and felt he had to spread it across the country . The Mexican territory was a great way to expand “Manifest Destiny", he tried to acquire the lands by secretly negotiating, and renegotiating, but failed. In the end, Polk started a war on false pretenses, to gain the new territories. He declared war on Mexico, claiming the Mexico was invading U.S. territory. Polk used “Manifest Destiny” to justify starting a war with Mexico, when the Mexicans would not sell “The area that Polk wanted, lying in the path of the American expansion..” (The American Nation...
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