Manifest Destiny Research Paper

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 took place in the US in the mid-1800. Manifest Destiny was used among the Americans in the 1840’s as a defense for U.S. territorial expansion. It is the presumption that God had destined the American people to at divine mission of American movement and conquest in the name of Christianity and democracy.

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.

The United States uses war as a tool of expansion and defense. Since the moment, American declared its independence in 1776, a vision of westward expansion beyond the thirteen colonies was already in the minds of the American people. America would finally obtain land that stretched from coast to coast, under the Mexican cession of 1848. The belief of American superiority generated the idea of Manifest Destiny in which, America had the god given right to expand and prompted the Mexican–American War of 1846 to be imperialistic. The War of 1846 to 1848 between Mexicans and Americans was imperialistic because of Manifest Destiny, territorial expansion, and The Treaty of Velasco.

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

Manifest Destiny was a widely held belief that the United States was destined to expand throughout the continent. John O. Sullivan offered the name “Manifest Destiny,” and he had a mindset of United States Annexing Mexico. People believed that with the help of Manifest Destiny, they can make the world a better place. Political tensions around slavery and race in the United States during the debate over war with Mexico became very important, as some thought with the annexation of Mexico, Slavery could be expanded.

“Manifest Destiny was a term coined by John O'Sullivan. Our 11th President James Polk was a supporter of Manifest Destiny. Manifest means clear, obvious, and apparent. Destiny is defined as something meant to happen or should occur-fate.” Question is, what was the cost of Manifest Destiny for all people living in North America? The answer is a lot. Certain people in North America were hurt and pushed back by the creation of Manifest Destiny, while others were successful and made more progress in their lifestyle. Then, there were other groups of people who realized the power of manifest destiny and became concerned with the idea in itself and tried to hide away from it or ignore it to avoid further conflict with themselves. They were all affected and all handled Manifest Destiny in different ways. (notes)

While the positive end of Manifest Destiny was the rapid enthusiasm and energy to push west, the negative end was the dreadful belief that the white man had the right to destroy anything and anyone, especially Native Americans, who happened to get in the way. This made a path of mass destruction of Indian tribes, the confinement of Indian reservations, and just outrageous genocide. For most of the Native Indians were promised the American dream which was the freedom and independence of almost limitless land. This dream was expressed in treaties and petitions, which in the end lost their meanings. Treaties would need to be reassigned or “changed” from time to time.

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,

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.

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.