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Manifest Destiny And Territorial Expansion Across The United States

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Manifest Destiny was a phrase used by politicians and leaders in the United States in the 1840s to justify and promote territorial expansion across the North American continent by providing a sense of mission to citizens. It promoted this sense of mission by fomenting a desire to establish a large empire-like nation in which the ideals of democracy, freedom, and progress are ostensibly protected and promoted. It strongly characterized U.S. internal and external policies and has continued to do so to this day.
In theory, one aspect of this desire was its principle to bring the ideals of democratic self-government to any peoples capable of it; in practice, however, this often meant excluding Native Americans and those with non-European ancestry. …show more content…

This freedom, however, often did not apply to slaveowners, who wished to take their slaves with them as part of the Westward expansion. This was an important issue in the case of Southerners who had settled in Mexico, where slavery was forbidden. Thus the cause of Manifest Destiny was used to support the seizure of land from Mexico, particularly in the case of Texas, and the resulting expansion of slavery into the acquired …show more content…

spread westward, intense conflict with both the Native Americans and Mexico were inevitable. Already heavily depopulated due to the diseases, the Native American peoples were unable to compete against the encroaching settlers and the advanced military that accompanied them; the rapidity and force of disappearance from the West is one of the major blemishes on American history; particularly brutal episodes such as the Trail of Tears are merely examples of the widespread and systematic extermination of these people. Conflict with Mexico was more formal but also resulted in the (perhaps opportunistic) large scale acquisition of land for U.S. settlers. These two effects of Manifest Destiny have strongly colored its representation in historical hindsight; in spite of (or perhaps because of) strong belief in God and democracy, the imposition of majority rule on minorities can be

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