In the 19th century, the U.S. experienced a major change. This change was the Manifest Destiny, an ideology first expressed in 1845 that the expansion of white settlement across the continent was inevitable and ordained by God, a means to spread protestant Christianity and Jacksonian Democracy to more people. It was this belief that fueled westward expansion, Native American removal, and war with Mexico. The U.S. reliance on Manifest Destiny permanently altered the geographical, social, and political visage of the nation.
Many Americans supported the Manifest Destiny for their own reasons. Some wanted to exploit lands in the west, others dreamed of starting over in rich, cheap, and new lands. Workers enjoyed the thought of rapid national expansion because it would guarantee them industrial profits and jobs, or give them a chance to completely start over. Some Americans, however, felt differently. Those who opposed the ideology was because they foresaw the violence associated with the expansion as simply wrong. Some wanted to focus on what they already have, like Henry Clay, who wanted to prioritize developing roads, canals, railroads, and industries to ensure its prosperity for the country instead of expanding it.
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The ideology finally became possible after the Louisiana Purchase in 1903, a massive acquisition of land from france that doubled the size of the U.S.
But expansion didn’t stop there. In 1795, James Polk began serving as the 11th president of the U.S from 1845 to 1849. During his term, America’s territory grew by more than one-third and extended across the continent for the first time. After the Mexican-American war in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave the U.S. more land that would later become the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and
Wyoming. After president Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act on the 28th of May, 1830, Indians were ‘given a choice’ to relocate west of the Mississippi and walked the Trail of Tears, where many died from starvation, exhaustion, and disease, while Americans took over their lands. Many Americans despised this act and even women began petitions to stop it. After winning the war with Mexico, many Mexicans lost their lands because they didn’t have the paperwork to prove that it was theirs. The opening of the West and California Gold Rush attracted German, Irish, and Chinese immigrants due to push factors from where they came from. They flooded the nation and they either helped construct and build Railroads, such as the Union Pacific and Transcontinental were being built, or helped farm or mine. These railroads’ economic profit helped the development and growth of new towns and such. Because of these railroads, food prices in the East were reduced. Although the Manifest Destiny expansion enriched the west and brought wealth to other countries, bitterness also came along with it because Mexicans and Indians felt exploited for the loss of their land. It’s easy to conclude that the Manifest Destiny altered the U.S. in many different ways. It expanded the U.S., it improved the economic basis for the U.S., and the influence of political figures taking action of the movement has sparked debate and petitions.
Many Americans packed few belongings and headed west during the middle to the late nineteenth century. It was during this time period that the idea of manifest destiny became rooted in American customs and ideals. Manifest Destiny is the idea that supported and justified expansionist policies, it declared that expansion was both necessary and right. America’s expansionist attitudes were prominent during the debate over the territorial rights of the Oregon territory. America wanted to claim the Oregon territory as its own, but Great Britain would not allow that. Eventually the two nations came to an agreement and a compromise was reached, as seen in document B. The first major party of settlers that traveled to the west settled in Oregon.
“Perhaps no other president during the first half of the 1800’s exerted as much of an impact on U.S domestic affairs regarding land acquisition as the eleventh chief executive, James K Polk. As president he finalized the annexation of Texas, and created a war with Mexico that transferred over 1.2 million acres of land to the U.S., now five states of the American Southwest. He also brokered a deal with Great Britain to purchase the state of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Polk is thus credited with expanding the domestic terrain of the United States, but at the expense of Native Americans who lost their land, and African Americans who were taken as slaves to these new states and territories.” I rate president Polk as a high president. He did the necessary to expand Southwestward. With political forcefulness, President Polk pursued his ambitious goals. Texas joined the country as the 28th state during his first year in office. Tense negotiations with Great Britain concluded with American annexation of the Oregon Territory. Following a controversial two year war, Mexico ceded New Mexico and California to the United States. The Polk administration also achieved its major economic objectives by lowering tariffs and establishing an independent Federal Treasury. “He felt that government plans to fund internal improvements was
...ver had the resources nor Polk's true imperialist nature. Polk's idea of "Manifest Destiny" was simply a way to rationalize the United States practice of imperialism in North America. Little of the land gained in the 19th century was given to the U.S.; most of it was taken using force and often violence. Financial compensation for the land was irrelevant considering the wars that took place to complete acquisition of the southwest. The motives of the United States government and President Polk were not only that of expansion. They had also wanted to gain new natural resources, land for agriculture, and the power that would be attained by the country's increased size. The country's belief in Polk's imperialistic form of expansion was the key to attaining a western seashore. The power gained by this expansion helped make America into a world powerhouse it is today.
Expansion of a nation was nothing new in terms of history. The fighting, buying and selling of land in North America was a common event during the 1800s. The United States had started expanding in 1803 with President Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory whose borders where not clearly defined. After the War of 1812 with the British, the northern border of this territory was defined at the 49th parallel. Then in 1819, Spain sold its claim to Florida to the United States. The United States wanted to continue to expand itself westward to the Pacific Ocean, a territory then owned by Mexico. The acquirement of this territory occurred after the Mexican War. How the territory was acquired by the United States is the topic in question.
Man has always had the desire to expand, venture forth to develop greater wealth. With the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory and the prospects of future land acquisition, Americans used the idea of Manifest Destiny to justify their actions for moving westward and their treatment of Native Americans. The idea of Manifest Destiny was created directly by the European-used Doctrine of Discovery and industrialization; this direct correlation was proven to be true from the verdict of the court case Johnson v. M’Intosh.
Manifest Destiny was the motivating force behind the rapid expansion of America into the West. This ideal was highly sponsored by posters, newspapers, and various other methods of communication. Propaganda is and is still an incredibly common way to spread an idea to the masses. Though Manifest Destiny was not an official government policy, it led to the passing of the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act gave applicants freehold titles of undeveloped land outside of the original thirteen colonies.
Reginald Horsman’s Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism explores the evidence and reasons for racial prejudices in America and discusses one of the most controversial topics in American history. The book also navigates the subjects of white superiority, and the creation of Anglo-Saxonism. Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean; it has also been used to advocate for or justify other territorial acquisitions. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious and certain. Originally a political catch phrase of the 19th century, "Manifest Destiny" eventually became a standard historical term, often used as a synonym for the expansion of the United States across the North American continent.
Manifest Destiny was the idea that it was the United States’ destiny to take over all of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Most of the public was in favor of territorial expansion, though some politicians felt it contradicted the constitution.
John L. O’Sullivan, an editor, coined the term “Manifest Destiny” and gave the expansionist movement its name in 1845. The “Manifest Destiny” was the belief that Americans had the divine right to occupy North America. The Americans believed they were culturally and racially superior over other nations and other races such as the Native American Indians and Mexicans. The notion of the ‘Manifest Destiny’ was that the Americans were morally superior and therefore morally obligated to try to spread enlighten and civilization to the less civilized societies. According to World History Group, “The closest America came to making ‘Manifest Destiny’ an official policy was The Monroe Doctrine, adopted in 1823, it put European nations on notice that the U.S. would defend other nations of the Western Hemisphere from further colonization” (World History, 2015). This divine American mission caused Anglo-Saxon Americans to believe they had the natural right to move west and bring blessings of self-government and religion, more specifically-
First, the Manifest Destiny included extremely inexpensive land for sale in the west. In some cases it was free since it was government land, and they passed things like the Homestead Act to encourage westward settlements. With so many people taking part in horizontal mobility by moving west, it gave the economy a chance to expand commerce. We would do this by building ports and increasing trade with countries in the Pacific. The economy also got a kick when there were gold or silver rushes in the west.
Beginning in the mid 19th century, many Americans began to settle west of the Mississippi River. The reasoning for this settlement could have been caused by many factors: availability of land, gold that assisted in the creation of mines, the American industry growing, or the construction of the transcontinental railroad. The rapid settlement in the west could have also began due to ideas such as the manifest destiny, or major disagreements between the American people and other groups like the Native Americans and Mexicans.
The United States, as a young nation, had the desire to expand westward and become a true continental United States that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Various factors, strategic and economic, contributed to the desire to expand westward. According to John O’Sullivan, as cited by Hestedt in Manifest Destiny 2004; "the U.S. had manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence to the free development of our yearly multiplying millions" (¶2). As Americans ventured westward to settle the frontier, their inherent superior beliefs, culture and the principles of democracy accompanied them. America’s ruthless ambition to fulfill its manifest destiny had a profound impact on the nation’s economy, social systems and foreign and domestic policies; westward expansion was a tumultuous period in American History that included periods of conflict with the Native Americans and Hispanics and increased in sectionalism that created the backdrop for the Civil War.
In the late nineteenth century the expansion to the west increased the American culture. Since population was growing they needed to satisfy demands equally for every person. The idea of Manifest Destiny was used as a justification for the expansion and westward movement. Natives Americans were against the thought Americans had about the West. As a result Americans put a number of policies that helped remove the Natives Americans of the West. Americans were trying to destroy the culture Natives had.
One of the largest and most wealthy countries in the world, the United States of America, has gone through many changes in its long history. From winning its independence from Great Britain to present day, America has changed dramatically and continues to change. A term first coined in the 1840s, "Manifest Destiny" helped push America into the next century and make the country part of what it is today. The ideas behind Manifest Destiny played an important role in the development of the United States by allowing the territorial expansion of the 1800s. Without the expansion of the era, America would not have most of the western part of the country it does now.
Manifest destiny, the name given by John L. O’Sullivan to an aggressive territorial expansion, is responsible for the face of America today. O’Sullivan coined the movement, “Manifest Destiny” in 1845. The ideology originated long before the philosophy was named. Traces of the movement can be seen in Columbus’ exploration, and even in the developmental Jamestown colonies. Throughout America’s history, examples of the “Manifest Destiny” are apparent as ("Manifest destiny - the philosophy that created a nation") Americans gradually expanded settlements westward to increase their boundaries, however, during the 1830s and 1840s, Americans pushed farther across the continent. After the natural and inevitable travels of the new White Americans, the phenomenon of land expansion was then publicised and advertised in newspapers as the “Manifest Destiny”, it was the fuel for American expansion and for America to maintain its overall power and good morality as a country. The concept of the “Manifest Destiny” is pivotal to the nation and its future.