“You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was.” Anthon St. Maarten, Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny ‘Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.’ says O’Sullivan In the 1900s there was a new american ideology and belief that surfaced. It became extremely influential and spread throughout the U.S. It was none other than the Manifest Destiny. What exactly was the Manifest Destiny belief? It was the idea that the expansion of the U.S was both …show more content…
The results of the Manifest Destiny were not moral. However, it is reasonable to believe that The Manifest destiny mentality and the actions it inspired, were not justifiable for these three reasons: The expansion of the U.S. was driven by greed, It promoted slavery ( while at the same time, giving various kinds of freedoms to Americans .southern slave owners saw this as an opportunity to expand the booming slave population, resulting in more slavery It caused an unnecessary war. Mexican-American War in 1848: was the result of attempting to seize their land. Let’s take a look at why the Manifest Destiny was driven by greed. While the U.S. had this growing flame for expansion, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s wrote the speech “Young American” to support it by extoll the virtues of expansion. Although one could agree with the part of the statement where he says, “Men are narrow and selfish,” he immediately changes the direction in favor of it, saying, “... but the Genius or Destiny is not narrow, but beneficent. It is not discovered in their calculated and voluntary activity, but in what befalls, with or without their design. Only what is inevitable interests us, and it turns out that love and good are inevitable, and in the course of things.” Emerson continues to promote …show more content…
O’Sullivan’s response was enthusiastic and positive, to say the least. “Yes, more, more, more!” He exclaimed, sounding a bit like a greedy child. They obligedProperty is taken from one group of people so that it can be given to another group of people. Today, we even see this mindset in many other nations, for example, each of the ____ attempting to take even more land from the Jews. This specific situation, is even more significant, spiritually, them being God’s chosen people, but that’s another topic for another time. Another downside of the Manifest Destiny is that it promoted the already booming, slavery of blacks and Indians. As if that wasn’t enough, because of the drive to accumulate more land in each possible direction, the U.S. started a war with Mexico, in order to gain authority over their precious land. One may say that the Manifest Destiny led to The Gold Rush of 1849. which was a huge breakthrough for many, financially. However, even though many were successful in leaving their homes to get their hands on the treasure, a large amount of those hasty men were depressed to find no more left, Thus, leaving them broke. The Manifest Destiny was a flame that caused many different occurrences. Some beneficial, some not so pleasant. The U.S. believed that they were justified to forcibly take land from others for their own gain and views of freedom, but after close consideration, it is found that whether or not it was “Destined”, it was not
Toward the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the United States was becoming an increasingly powerful nation and world power. The country was competing with other nations also expanding. Their motives for expanding were to gain land and resources. While there was a slight departure from past expansionism, the United States mostly continued as it had been in the previous years. In order to accomplish expansionism, the United States needed to acquire foreign territories to increase their global presence.
Within the years 1800 and 1855 an issue that was making waves in the United States was whether the country should expand in size or not. Multiple events such as the Mexican-American war and the idea of “Manifest Destiny” lead to a growing discrepancy between the supporters and opponents of expansion. Although the opponents had some valid and understandable concerns with expansion, the supporters overall had a better argument. To start off, trade was a reason that many people supported the expansion of the United States. The supporters claimed that the expansion could lead to a route to Asia and that the United States trade would flourish and the economy would boom and everyone would have their fair share of the success (Doc. F).
It was the time when Manifest Destiny concept, an idea in special role and destiny of the United States, was highly popular. The concept that consequently justified the expansionism and nationalism. Therefore, Polk’s expansionist impulse, though strong and quite successful, was a product of dominant thoughts that were circulating among Americans.
Whatever its true purpose, Manifest Destiny has indeed stretched the U.S territory and seized half of Mexico’s land. On the contrary, Manifest Destiny resulted in a conflict with
“According to the theory of Manifest Destiny, the United States was the embodiment of the City of God on Earth and European race were chosen predestined for salvation” (Acuna, 47).The U.S believe it was their faith to spread their principles to the “New World” and the land that was inhabited by Natives did not belong to them since they were a below them. These beliefs are what spark the United States to invade the lands of the Natives and to forcefully teach them “the way of living.” These beliefs are also why white colonists believe Texas belong to them and began the war between Mexico over
Manifest Destiny (first developed in 1845) was the idea that during the nineteenth century, America not only could but would expand from coast to coast. The accomplishment of this idea came with the removal of indians in areas like the great plains, as well as many smaller conflicts in between the indians and the Americans. The Americans attempted to make a compromise with the indians so that they would leave peacefully, examples of this would be the offer to pay the indians in the form of supplies and annuities. The idea was a good one until Americans denied a payment in 1862 because John pope regarded the Indians as “maniacs or wild beasts ” and states that they do not deserve treaties or anything of the sort. Another big factor in the expansion of America from coast to coast was the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, not only with the people that it had brought to the west for the work, but the ease that it had provided for those who wanted to travel from the east to the west and did not have the money nor the time.
The benefits of the Manifest Destiny outweighed the consequences. This is because the U.S was able to get more resources, increase population in the west, advance trade, and improve technology. These benefits have contributed to the economic development in the U.S. Furthermore, as the U.S were fulfilling the Manifest Destiny, they also imposed the Homestead Act, which helped evolve frontiers. The discovery of gold in the west, specifically, in California lured more people to the west.
Manifest Destiny changed the United States socially, economically and politically. It was affected socially because it became more culturally diffused; it also affected relationship with the Native Americans due to the Americans belief that they were the better race and others were inferior to them. It was affected economically because there was more land to profit off of and politically it damaged the United States and Mexico’s foreign relations. Those who believed in the manifest destiny forcefully removed Native Americans from their lands in order for the United States to gain more land. America was shifted politically, due to new tense relations with Mexico, as an effect of the Mexican
“Once we became an independent people it was as much a law of nature that this [control of all of North America] should become our pretension as that the Mississippi should flow to the sea” –John Quincy Adams (Henretta, p. 384). In the 1840s, Americans had a belief that God destined for them to expand their territory all the way westward to the Pacific Ocean. This idea was called Manifest Destiny. In the nineteenth century, Americans were recognized for coming together and building up one another for one cause: westward expansion.
Manifest Destiny involved many groups of people, but six of the main categories are the mountain men, travellers on the Oregon Trail, pioneer women, cowboys, Native Americans, and the Miners, also known as the 49ers. The mountain men were men who lived in the Rocky Mountains, and made livings as trappers who sold goods such as beavers pelts to people back East and Europe. There were over 350,000 people on the trail, and most of which were families with children. This took place mainly in the 1840s and 1860s. A subgroup of the Oregon travellers were the Pioneer women.
The US did not not have solid reasons to do so besides their own greed, so the US hid behind the idea of Manifest Destiny and tried to justify their actions. John O’Sullivan was the New York City journalist who coined the term Manifest Destiny. He said, “Imbecile and distracted, Mexico never can exert any real government authority over such a country…’’ (O’Sullivan, 8). O’Sullivan and the US suggested that Mexico “needed” the US to come and take over, because otherwise Mexico was going to fall apart. Although this was somewhat true, the US did not try to help Mexico through this difficult time; instead, the US took advantage of Mexico’s weakness and tried to take over completely.
Manifest Destiny and Its Effects on Slavery in America Manifest Destiny was a term first applied by New York Journalist John L. Sullivan in 1845, when he described the idea of the United States continuing to acquire new territory in North America; however, the concept of Manifest Destiny had been applied in principle long before then. From the conception of the United States, Americans believed that their country was one predestined by God to exemplify purity and freedom, and to “manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles” (O’Sullivan, John L.); therefore, it was their duty to spread this spirit by continuing to gain territory (Foner 339). As the country spread, so did slavery, and the American economy became dependent upon this
In the 19th Century, there were strong supporters of the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was basically the belief of expansion by settlers expanding all over America because god supposedly destined the Americans for expansions by their resources. This resulted for the Americans to find a modern mode of transportation that would make traveling from the east to the west coast easier. This resulted in a mega construction known as the Transcontinental Railroad. The railroad not only helps with transportation but with trading.
The citizens of the United States felt they had the best form of government and culture and felt the obligation to expand it across the nation. Manifest Destiny had both positive and negative effects on social and political values during this time. Americans felt because they were experiencing such growth that God was blessing them and that by incorporating others into their culture they would be blessed too. However, greed eventually took over and the belief that the white man could destroy anyone or anything that got in the way of its progress led to many wars and lives lost over the acquisition of much needed land.
Manifest Destiny was the term used by John O’Sullivan to describe America’s desire to expand West due to reasons including both the vast amount of unclaimed land and the opportunities Americans wanted to explore. During this time, Americans believed that it was their God-given right to expand West, and therefore they were entitled to push away any groups that were in their way. Due to the mindset that the Americans could do as they pleased with the groups of people who got in their way, Manifest Destiny affected many groups of people, including the American Indians and Slaves, and continued to build up the preexisting tension between the North and South. One of the groups of people affected greatly by Manifest Destiny were the Native Americans. Manifest Destiny affected the American Indians by spreading foreign diseases to them as they moved Westward, through the Native American territory.