The Manifest Destiny and Its Impact on North America
Manifest destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States is destined- by God, its advocates believed- to expand its dominion and spreads democracy and capitalism across the entire North American Continent. People thought of it as the official policy of territorial expansion; the Idea that God blessed America to become an Ocean bound republic in the 19th Century, but the truth is Presidents and secretaries of States didn’t use the phrase “Manifest Destiny.” This was a slogan by a journalist named John L, O’Sullivan, who invented it in 1845 when writing editorials about Texas’s annexation and the boundary dispute with Britain over the Oregon territory.
He said it was blessed by providence; it was the country’s manifest destiny to become a Continental power. The phrase was used with critics more than supporters. This is because a lot of Northerners thought it was a code for spreading slavery. The manifests’ destiny advocates felt that they had failed people who believed in the territorial expansion. That said, they did not know the country was expanding significantly. They wanted Mexico and Canada to be part of the American republic.
The phrase then disappeared from American political life until the 1890s. This was when it was reborn as part of the drive to make the United States a global power. People then began talking about expanding to t Caribbean, Pacific. This was the era of the Spanish-American War, and that is when the Manifest Destiny became more powerful. The irony is that by 1895 John L, O’Sullivan, had died.
The philosophy drove the 19th Century U.S. territorial expansion and was used to justify Native American and minority groups’ forced removal from their homes. The rapid growth of the United States intensified slavery as new states were added to the Union, leading to the outbreak of the Civil War.
Louisiana Purchase
Thanks to a high birth rate and brisk immigration, the U.S. population exploded in the first half of the 19th century, from around 5 million people in 1800 to more than 23 million by 1850. Such rapid growth-as well as two economic depressions in 1819 and 1839 – would drive millions of Americans westward in search of new land and new opportunities.
President Thomas Jefferson kicked off the country’s westward expansion in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, which at some 828,000 square miles nearly doubled the United States’ size and stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. In addition to sponsoring the western expedition of Lewis and Clark of 1805-07, Jefferson also set his sights on Spanish Florida, a process that was finally concluded in 1819 under President James Monroe. But critics of that treaty faulted Monroe and his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, for yielding to Spain what they considered legitimate claims on Texas, where many Americans continue to settle.
In 1823 Monroe invoked Manifest Destiny when he spoke before Congress to warn European nations not to interfere with America’s Westward expansion, threatening that Europeans’ attempt to colonize the “American continents” would be seen as an act of war. This policy of an American Sphere of influence and non-intervention in European affairs became known as the “Monroe Doctrine.” After 1870, it would be used as a rationale for U.S. intervention in Latin America.
Texas Independence
Cries for Texas’s “re-annexation” increased after Mexico, having won its independence from Spain, passed a law suspending U.S. immigration into Texas in 1830. Nonetheless, there were still more Anglo settlers in Texas than Hispanic ones, and in 1836, after Texas won its independence, its new leaders sought to join the United States. The Administrations of both Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren resisted such calls, fearing both war with Mexico and opposition from Americans who believed calls for annexation were linked with expanding slavery in the Southwest.
But John Tyler, who won the presidency in 1840, was determined to proceed with the annexation. An agreement concluded in 1844 made Texas eligible for admission as a U.S. territory and possibly later as one or more states.
Despite opposition to this agreement in Congress, the pro-annexation candidate James K. Polk won the 1844 election, and Tyler was able to push the bill through and sign it before he left office.
The Coining of ‘Manifest Destiny,”
By the time Texas was admitted to the Union as a State in December 1845, the idea that the United States must inevitably expand Westward to the Pacific Ocean had taken firm hold among people from different regions, classes, and political persuasions. The phrase “Manifest Destiny,” which emerged as the best-known expression of this mindset, first appeared in an editorial published in the July-August 1845 issue of The Democratic Review.
In it, the writer criticized the opposition that still lingered against the annexation of Texas, urging national Unity on behalf of “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”
That December, another Morning News mentioned “manifest destiny” in reference to the Oregon Territory, another new frontier which the U.S. was eager to assert their dominion.
Oregon Territory
An 1824 treaty between Great Britain and the United States partially resolved the question of where to draw the Canadian Border but left open the question of the Oregon territory. Polk, an ardent proponent of Manifest destiny, had won the election with the slogan “54° 40’ or fight and called the U.S. claim to Oregon “clear and unquestionable” in his inaugural address. In mid-1846, his administration agreed to a compromise whereby Oregon would be split along the 49th parallel, narrowly avoiding a crisis with Britain.
Impact of Manifest Destiny: The Civil Wars, Native American Wars
By the time the Oregon question was settled, the U.S. had entered into all-out war with Mexico, driven by the spirit of Manifest Destiny and territorial expansion.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American war in 1848, added an additional 525,000 square miles of U.S. territory.
Despite the lofty idealism of Manifest Destiny, the rapid territorial expansion over the first half of the 19th Century not only resulted in war with Mexico but also in dislocation of Native American, Hispanic, and other non-European occupants.
U.S. expansion also fueled the growing debate over slavery, over raising the pressing question of whether new states being admitted to the Union Would allow slavery or not- a conflict that would eventually lead to the Civil War.
SOURCES
Julius w. Pratt, “The Origin of “Manifest Destiny,” The American Historical Review (July 1927)
Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: Norton, 2005)
Michael Golay, The Tide of Empire: America’s march to The Pacific
Era of U.S. Continental Expansion, History, Art and Archives: U.S. House of Representatives
CITATION INFORMATION
# Article Title
Manifest Destiny
#Author
History.com Editors
#Website Name
History
#URL
https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/manifest-destiny
#Publisher
A&E Television Networks
#Last Updated
November 15, 2019
#Original Published Date
April 5, 2010
BY HISTORY.COM EDITORS