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Political reasons for westward expansion
Impact of westward expansion
Impact of westward expansion
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The westward expansion was the starting point for the growing America. There are many reasons to believe why westward expansion was a good idea, and there are also many reasons to believe why it wasn’t a good idea.The texts “There is No True History of the Westward Expansion,” by Robert Morgan, “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” by N. Scott Momaday, “Thomas Jefferson’s America, 1801,” and Reporting to the President, September 23- December 31, 1806” by Stephen Ambrose and “Chief Joseph Speaks…” by Chief Joseph show different point of views and opinions on westward expansion. The central ideas made from Morgan are “The westward expansion wasn’t caused by heroes nor villains,’ and “The average American people were responsible for the rapid expansion across the country,” From the text “There is No True History of the Westward Expansion.” No heroes, Thomas Jefferson, nor villains caused westward expansion. The suspects to …show more content…
American was growing rapidly. From paragraph two page 51 of “Thomas Jefferson’s America” by Stephen Ambrose, it states “The potential of the United States was, it not limitless, certainly vast and vastly greater if the nation could add the trans-Mississippi portion of the continent to its territory.” This shows that the United States, America, did not have limits to expanding. Correspondingly, from page 418 of the text “Reporting to the President September 23- December 31,1806” the text states “ Out in St. Louis, the leading citizens were almost exclusively interested in what Lewis had found with regard to Indians and furs.” This shows that the American people, who later on would take part in westward expansion, were eager to see what Lewis and Clark came back with from their journey. This is why the average American people were responsible for westward
This transaction would come to be known as the Louisiana Purchase and nearly doubled the size of the new nation. While George Washington and John Adams made efforts at westward expansion, Thomas Jefferson secured the Louisiana Purchase and initiated the Lewis and Clark expedition. According to Wulf, “maybe Lewis would find the huge mastodon roaming across the plains; discover profitable crops, flowers in exotic shapes and sizes, and trees that would soar even higher than those already encountered. Jefferson planned this expedition in the name of science, but it would also be the beginning of a distinctly American glorification of the wilderness” (Wulf, 157). The Lewis and Clark expedition and the Louisiana Purchase had such a significant impact on America’s identity.
Permissiveness coupled with a self-righteous entitlement is not considered very flattering on anyone, much less a developing young country. The loose handle the US government had in the 1800s on its land-hungry constituents contributed to the worst (but among the most overlooked) genocide in recorded history. The few preventative actions taken by the federation to slow the quickening roll of excessive expansion were overruled or overlooked by the citizens. Deciding that the east coast was no longer enough to satiate their appetite for possession, they looked to the west. Imagining themselves to be Moses, claiming their promised land, the settlers surged westward, citing Manifest Destiny, a concept that suggested providence had intended the
When Thomas Jefferson was elected as the third President of the United States in 1801, the majority of the population lived within a fifty-mile radius of the Atlantic Ocean, very little was known about the west. Though what was known was grossly outdated information from the French traders as well as British and Spanish explores in the earlier centuries. Jefferson was a vast believer and suppor...
Many people were in favor of U.S expansion around the world. There are three men though that are in favor of the expansion but had created arguments to back themselves up. Frederick Jackson Turner’s most famous argument was on devoted to the American Revolution, it was about the frontier or “Old West” in America. Turner was not one for war but sometimes he would write about war. He argued a few points in his work, The Frontier in American History. The first point that he argued was that a violent frontier was established from Georgia to New England as a result of the wars with France. He then made a point about the self-sufficient society that had also ben established on the frontier that was much different from the rest of society. Then he
There were lots of possible causes for the civil war, the westward expansions being one of them. 1 Some of the problems with the westward expansion were that the settlers found life hard. The Government promised all those who could pay a $10 registration fee, 160 acres of land would be theirs in the West. The aim of the Homestead Act in 1862 was to encourage people to take up farming and help sustain the settler communities. The problem was that many settlers didn’t know how to farm and they found that the conditions and climate was too harsh to work in. It was also hard to farm with the lack of vegetation and the hot weather. There were also problems with where the boundaries should be drawn for the expansion. They also didn’t know how large the population of a territory should be before Statehood could be granted. These were the questions that the Government had to ask themselves about the expansion. Therefore thi...
Westward movement is the populating of lands, by the Europeans, in what is now known as the United States. The chief resolution of the westward expansion is economic betterment. The United States story begins with westward expansion and even before the Revolutionary war, early settlers were migrating westward into what is now known as the states of Kentucky,Tennessee, parts of the Ohio Valley and the South. Westward Expansion was slowed down by the French and the Native Americans, however the Louisiana Purchase significantly improved the expansion efforts. Westward expansion was enabled because of wars, the displacement of Native American Indians, buying land, and treaties. This paper will discuss the effects of westward expansion on domestic politics and on American relations with other nations.
In 1845, a fellow named John C. Calhoun coined the term "Manifest Destiny." The term Manifest Destiny was a slogan for westward expansion during the 1840's. In the west there was plenty of land, national security, the spread of democracy, urbanization, but there was also poverty out west. People moved out west in search for a new life such as a new beginning. Moving out west, settlers from the east were taking a risk of a lot of things. The climate was different and there were more cultures that lived out west because of how much land was available.
This land or territory started from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. The land also stretched from Canada to New Orleans. This is approximately double the size of the United States. Thomas was very fond of this land, he thought the land was key to a nation's health. “ To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health: He believed that a republic depended on an independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival, and that independence and virtue went hand in hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms. (“Those who labor in the earth,” he wrote, “are the chosen people of God.”)[ http://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion] To satisfy Thomas's beliefs they would have to continue moving west. Which is what caused war between the us and the Indians e.t.c. This is also where the term Manifest Destiny came to
Natural resourses was the main reason why there was a westward expansion in the first place.
To begin with, the need Americans felt to expand west caused the government to seek more geographical territory and “Expansion westward seemed perfectly natural to many Americans in the mid-nineteenth century.”. The Louisiana purchase was one of the first expansions that made a big impact on the United States and initiated this movement. Events such as the Texas annexation and the Oregon Treaty of 1846 were parts of Manifest Destiny. These events expanded the national territory and encouraged people to settle further west, north, and south. Many of the treaties signed became controversial, but the governments' priority was for the nation to grow in size and importance.
America was expanding at such a rapid pace that those who were in America before us had no time to anticipate what was happening. This change in lifestyle affected not only Americans but everyone who lived in the land. Changing traditions, the get rich quick idea and other things were the leading causes of westward expansion. But whatever happened to those who were caught in the middle, those who were here before us?
...or wider opportunities. Even the safety valve theory has an element of truth when applied to ambitious young men of the professional class who had a better chance of making it big much quicker in the West than in the East. Without the open frontier, moreover, there would have been a much larger migration of young people from the farms to the cities; thus the frontier helped indirectly to check the exploitation of the working class by preventing it from expanding too rapidly. The Westward Expansion also weakened state and regional loyalties and promoted national unity due to its inherent mobility. Most westerners thought of themselves primarily as Americans, and wanted strong national government with broad powers for developing transportation and promoting the general welfare. The most significant feature of the Westward Expansion was that the pioneers took with them the essential institutions of their civilization. Thus we must look upon the Westward Expansion as one of the factors in the shaping of the American civilization but not the only one. AKSHARA PRADHAN Roll No. 385 Tute. Grp.- Tuesday, 1st Pd.
Many believed in Manifest Destiny. That is was a God given right to spread Christianity and American ideals such as democracy all over the continent from coast to coast. This idea triggered over a million Americans to get up and sell their homes in the east and set out on Oregon, Mormon, Santa Fe, and California trails. Not everyone agreed with this expansion in the West. The slavery debate, once again, fueled many problems with Westward expansion.
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.
“We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march?” (Denial) noted writer John O’Sullivan in 1839, but in fact, there was one limit: territory. Some people believed that in order to spread democracy, it was America’s manifest destiny, or obvious fate, to inhabit the entire North American continent. It had a major impact on American society by it being the cause of social change in the US, it economically revamped America, and lastly, it altered America politically. Manifest destiny caused the change of America socially due to the economic transition from a local market economy to a national market economy. Manifest destiny has also impacted America’s society economically by the large increase in territory gained to profit off of. But, it also altered America politically by causing further division of the North and South which led to a great drama of regional conflict. These social, political, and economical changes in the United States were certainly results of the initiation and usage of manifest destiny.