Essay On Manifest Destiny

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During the mid-1800s, many prominent Americans saw Manifest Destiny as a necessary and beneficial expansion of their political institutions and social values. Manifest Destiny led people to venture out west and to settle on new land, but the controversial slave issue also came to the new territories. A rift between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions was created which became linked to sectional conflict. The dispute over slavery and free-men in the north and south led to the Missouri Compromise. The Compromise of 1850 is another example of sectionalism in which the United States admitted California as a free state, while Utah and New Mexico were left with no restrictions on slavery. A third example is the Kansas-Nebraska Act in which congress decided to let Kansas and Nebraska be open to popular sovereignty on the issue of slavery. The conflict over slavery introduced sectional disputes, as the nation pursued what it called its Manifest Destiny, which, in turn, became a significant cause of the Civil War.

Manifest Destiny is the idea that the Americans were destined to settle in the new territories and connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It was the belief that God supported American expansion westward, adding to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 which, under President Jefferson, had doubled the size of the United States. A journalist by the name of John L. O'Sullivan wrote an article in 1839, through which he coined the term manifest destiny and predicted a divine destiny for the United States. Not only does this destiny have to do with westward expansion, but also each state would share the same values.

In 1820, the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, in w...

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...e new territories, and these debates led to a sectional crisis between the states. The Missouri Compromise was the started debates about slavery in the new territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act led to further extending sectionalism by allowing popular sovereignty to choose whether a state has slavery or not. The Compromise of 1850 spread the idea of popular sovereignty to more territories, while increasing sectionalism and the conflict within congress. By the 1850's, there was a great tension between the states. In 1860, Lincoln, a Republican, was elected. The South feared the ideals of the Republicans, and also feared what Lincoln would do to the Southern states. The South went to war with the North over slavery. Manifest Destiny added to the existing sectional crises by introducing the problems of slavery in the new territories, thereby leading the country to war.

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