How Did Manifest Destiny Influence The Development Of The United States?

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.

Americans looked towards the western lands as an opportunity for large amounts of free land, for growth of industry, and pursue the manifest destiny.

Manifest Destiny is a term coined by John L. Sullivan in 1845 when talking about the annexation of Texas. He believed, along with other expansionists, that it’s inevitable that the US population would spread across North America because the land is given by Providence to the United States and that it’s natural that the land should be part of the country [Doc 1]. The idea of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny had positive and negative effects on the politics, society and the economics of the United States and

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.

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.

The United States was rapidly expanding and becoming more diverse, causing these men to look past their own land. This idea was primarily favored by the Democratic Party because they believed that contiguous land would voluntarily join the Union in order to obtain the benefits of Republican rule. Democrats craved the benefits that Republicans had in the government and envied their powerful positions. However, the Manifest Destiny gained Republican support over time (“Manifest Destiny”).

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.

Throughout the American history, we have seen “Manifest Destiny” at work, and how it has helped grow our nation. The idea of Manifest Destiny helped in creating revolutions that would help them find freedom in the U.S., but it also had some negative effects. Most believe that “Manifest Destiny” began in the 1840’s, when John L.O’Sullivan coined the term “Manifest Destiny” in 1845, but if we look closer we can see that even all the way back to the first settlers we can see that“Manifest Destiny” was already at work as in, the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The term is defined and recognized as, the Americans belief that it was their destiny given to them by God, to expand into the Western territories “ The whole continent was to be theirs.”1 We

Manifest Destiny was a mindset that played a crucial role in the expansion of the United States, and if it had not been thought of, America would not be the way we know it today in regards to how big it is. In this essay, I will discuss how it helped shape America, how it began, how it would affect events that happened later on in American history as a result, and how it led to making America what it is today.

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.”)

Westward expansion seemed natural to many Americans in the mid-nineteenth century (29. Manifest Destiny). Pioneers believed America had an obligation to stretch the boundaries to the East Coast. After claiming land to the Mississippi River and the Louisiana Purchase was explored, Americans started going west. The Second Great Awakening also spawned the drive to move west and many people believed God blessed the growth of the nation. Native Americans were considered

One of the supporters of Manifest Destiny was, democrat, James Polk who served as president from 1844 to 1848.