Essay On Manifest Destiny

The famous phrase “Manifest Destiny” was made up by a journalist in 1844. The idea of Manifest Destiny was that the people of the east had a divine and God-given right to settle in the west. God put the land there for the taking, and so the immigrants answered His call with westward expansion. My belief is that Manifest destiny was a necessary evil. The idea of manifest destiny expanded the west and provided homes and jobs. but on the other side of the coin manifest destiny ran the Native Americans out of their land and kept pushing them further and further west.

The belief in Manifest Destiny, that settlers were destined to expand across North America, was held by most Americans. At the same time the belief came about, debates in Washington were going on about the future of America. While many debates were held in Washington, there was also a lot of conflicts in states like Kansas and Nebraska. Both the debates in Washington regarding the westward expansion of the new nation and the laws by which it should govern itself, as well as the conflicts on the ground regarding those very same issues, set America on the path that could lead to only one destination; the Civil War.

Manifest destiny and westward expansion was a tremendous key component to the growth of the nation economically because of the impact it had on native americans, women empowerment, and expanding the population of the country.

While some were driven on what they believe was God’s will others saw Manifest Destiny as the historical inevitability domination of North America from sea to sea. Before, manifest destiny, many Americans had small families not by choice, but for the mere fact that many of the people would die before they would reach forty. By the mid 1800’s technology began to rise, and the life span for many Americans increased. The U.S. population grew from more than 5 million in 1800 to more than 23 million by the mid century. By the increasing of families in town many of the towns became overcrowded. At this point many Americans looked to the west for possible permanent homes.

Thomas Jefferson purchased land from the French during the Louisiana Purchase which gave the United States land west. He sent Lewis and Clark west to explore what he had just purchased. During the same time of the Louisiana Purchase, there was a concept of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was a main idea during the 1800s. It is the belief that the land west was the Americans land to settle and that the resources were theirs to use. This belief was self-centered and did not focus on the Native Americans. The Americans did not reach out to the Natives to build a strong nation and instead they took the tools, ideas, and materials to build their nation and left the Natives out of it. Americans saw their dream as a free country and it was their right to conquer others’ property without their consent. During westward expansion, American identity evolved into one image for all Americans that emphasized greed and power and the belief that American settlers should create their own sovereign land.

Manifest Destiny is our god given right to expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. During Manifest Destiny there were many different cases that helped out country like expanding to Texas through the Mexican American War, and finding gold in California which will be later called the gold rush.

There are people today who think that the United States of America’s boundary was created by fate; however, much complexity was involved in the gaining of our country’s boundaries. Manifest Destiny comes from the desire that Americans had to expand their borders. Americans wanted a distinct expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The term “Manifest Destiny” originated when John L. Sullivan published an article on the annexation of Texas. O’Sullivan believed that the expansion of the United States would be beneficial and better our nation. The American settlers became very determined to expand their civilization across North America. The Second Great Awakening, the belief that God would bless the growth of the country, created another reason for Americans to want to expand. “The Democratic Review asserted that God had preordained expansion across the continent” (Greenberg, 15). Manifest Destiny has played a very important role in our country’s past, its present, and it will have a significant role on its future. “Without Manifest Destiny, the territorial expansion of the United States from a strip of Atlantic coast colonies to a continental empire in less than a -century would have been, literally, unthinkable” (Greenberg 2). If our country continues to expand its perimeter, the concept of Manifest Destiny will always play a role in history.

Industrialization of the United States was in full swing by the 1840s. Which evidenced that the continued expansion of the states was an issue and the idea of a Manifest Destiny was of major importance. John L. O’Sullivan once stated, “Our Manifest Destiny is to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions” (America: A Narrative History). The idea of a Manifest Destiny originated in the 1840s by the Anglo-Saxon Colonists to expand their ideal civilization and institutions across North America to become a super nation. There were conflicts during this expansion, but they only led to major successes that molded the states into the superior country it is today. The Manifest

The Manifest Destiny was the attitude prevalent during the 19th century period of American expansion that the United States not only could, but was destined to, stretch from coast to coast. Manifest Destiny was mainly accomplished by the Monroe Doctrine, the annexation of Texas, and the Mexican-American War, but we were not a true continental power yet. After 1850, the Civil War, westward expansion, and the rise of big business made the United States a true continental power.

Manifest Destiny in America in the 1800s outcomes have many political, economic, and social factors.

The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of U.S in 1803. But it is not enough for ambitious Americans, we are not satisfied, we wanted more territory. So western expansion did not end, it actually keep moved. Westward Expansion is a very significant part in U.S history. It operated perfectly based on the ideology called manifest destiny. However, the creation of this theory is on purpose. It was used to push U.S territory to further west.

In a short history, American manifest destiny was a big mistake for Indian people in the past. The Indian people lived on the land before the Americans came. However, manifest destiny is the affliction Americans have that makes them believe God and took control all their land. For example, American settlers took their land and forced them into another uncomfortable place, less nature resource, and difficult to survive. Moreover, America settlers brought diseases into Indian tribes that made a lot of Indian people sick and dead. In addition, American settlers had a negative impact to the environment and natures resource such as more hunting and fishing that cost extinction, more cutting trees to build houses due to deforestation. In conclusion,

Rapid population growth and overuse of the land east of the Mississippi River, coupled with the knowledge that there was an abundance of land for new settlement west of the river, led to the ideology of expansionism; the ideology became simply known as Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion, written by Amy S. Greenburg, deeply explains the motivation of the individuals looking to expand their settlements westward. Since the time of publication, we have realized that we could have handled the situation, in which we removed the inhabitants of the west from their homeland, in a better way. Americans believed that it was their God-given right to expand westward by destroying anything in their path. “…courageous pioneers believed that America had a divine obligation to stretch the boundaries of their noble republic to the Pacific Ocean.” (“29. Manifest Destiny.”)

Manifest Destiny, one of the most influential ideologies in American history, was used as the basis to justify almost-continuous conflict from the early- to the late-19th century (Greenberg 3). This conflict included the relentless displacement of Native Americans from their ancestral lands, a war of aggression against Mexico in 1846, and attacks on countries such as Canada, Cuba, and even Central America, by filibusters and military action to gain overseas colonies (Greenberg 10, 25, and 26). While Manifest Destiny first arose as a dominant ideology during the early nineteenth-century, the concept of American exceptionalism, the heart of this ideology, was older than the nation itself. This concept was taken by white Americans as proof that they, and their nation, were unique and marked by God for a special destiny (Greenberg, 5). It would be several decades before the advantages of American settlement would be presented to the world. One advantage being the Louisiana Purchase, which was the expansion westward.

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the United States saw many problems come and go. Some problems were more important than others, however all led to further division of American politics. The most divisive issue in American politics during this time frame was the idea of Manifest Destiny, or territorial expansion.