Westward Expansion In America

Manifest Destiny and the Westward Expansion was made so that the Americans could expand as far as the Pacific Ocean. All though this was a benefit for the Americans, it caused the Native Americans and the Mexicans to deal with a lot of hardship. There were many political, economic, and social reasons for Manifest Destiny, but these reasons did not always have positive outcomes.

The Era of Good Feelings, beginning in 1816 with the election of James Monroe as president, directly followed the War of 1812, was a time of nationalism, hope and and confidence in the United States.However, in the shadow of this national pride, different areas of the country began to shift apart in different ways, opening the door to domestic tension. The Era of Good Feeling was both a time of economic growth and political change for the country. This was caused by a surge in nationalistic feelings throughout the United States, as well as growing sectional tensions. The War of 1812 made the American people feel as though they should be aggressive in foreign affairs,which led to the introduction of a protective tariff and the Monroe Doctrine. However, during this time, sectional differences, such as slavery, population, and transportation infrastructure, divided the country, shaping its regions to be quite different from each other.

From the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to the time of the Gadsden Purchase, westward expansion was a fuel to the issue of slavery extension to the West, causing sectionalism to increase between the North and South. Although westward expansion was one of the factors that accelerated sectionalism between the North and the South, other factors such as the imbalance between the states, the gag rule, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850, the tariff of Abomination, popular sovereignty, and many more played their roles in the sectionalism between the North and the South. The more the United States grew and expanded westward, more factors appeared to hinder the growth of slavery, causing the South to threaten to secede from the Union due to their pro-slavery views.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the United States federal government was trying promote westward expansion in the United States of America. They tried to do this in many ways and the methods that they used drastically changed and shaped the country. The United States federal government was trying very hard in the late 1800s and early 1900s to expand the country westward and their actions had many major impacts on the United States of America. Some of their actions include: relocating the indigenous Native Americans, passing the Homestead Act, and greatly promoting the construction of railroads. All of these efforts greatly altered the country and the lives of the Native Americans and the United States citizens.

North and South were heavily dependent on each other during the years before the Civil War. The South produced materials (especially tobacco and cotton) which were America 's chief export goods. The southern states exported around 80% of the goods that brought cash into the American economy.

The Civil War was one of the most defining events in American history and the antebellum years of the 1840’s were filled with turmoil and bloodshed due to wars. The expansion of slavery into Western territories caused a great deal of controversy and increased the sectional tensions. Since drafting of the Constitution, the North and the South had grown further apart in terms of economy, ideology, and society. Slavery became even more divisive when it threatened to expand westward because non-slave holding white settlers did not want to compete with slaveholders in the new territories. The south viewed slavery as essential to their traditional ways but the north opposed its spread. Territorial expansion allowed for the extensive spread of the

Next, when the North had more upper class people due to wealth, it caused the North and South to disagree with how money should be obtained. The South argued that slavery was the answer and the North argued that factories were what had to be done. In one of the documents, it said, “There were 22 million people in the North compared with only 9 million in the South” (Document 7). This means there was more money being made in the North due to more people working in factories versus money being made selling cotton produced by slaves on plantations. The disputes on money were a huge factor in causing the Civil War. Secondly, according to the eighth document, the North had 81% of the bank deposits and 75% of the country’s wealth (Document 8). This

The north and the south had always had disagreements but they became more serious as manifest destiny settled in. In document 9 it says “Prior to manifest destiny and the expansion west the politics and economics concerned only the Northern and Southern states. The North had industrialized and in the process changing the way things were made from hand and home-made to machine and factory made. The South was agrarian and a large grower of cotton. With the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and invention of textile machinery, it created a need for a greater labor force increasing the slave trade in the south. However, as Americans expanded west this created a third political and economic region which transformed the political and economic ideologies of the time,” (History.com). Because the North and the South were so different with what they did to their land, there was some debates that would have happened regardless of manifest destiny. However, as the north and the south sought out different styles of life because of manifest destiny, their debates became more politically

For some, it was destiny to move west. Although there were many conflicts and disagreements between ourselves and others, it was destiny to move west because of overpopulation, new inventions of transportation methods, and new opportunities.

In the mid 18th century settlers moved to the west. Their move brought them more opportunities and a better lifestyle on the frontier. Such as the transcontinental Railroad. The railroad was spread out all over the U.S. in order to build this railroad they had to clear all of the buffalo out of the way of the path, so the white people started to kill the buffalo. Without the buffalo the indians would die.

The Westward Expansion all started when America made the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. There were many benefits from the purchase for the US that the French didn’t realize before they sold it. The purchase gave the US access to the Mississippi river which allowed for expansion of river trade to the North and South from the center of the US. The port city of New Orleans was bought by the US and its prosperity benefited the US greatly. The US sent Lewis and Clark west to investigate the land they purchased. After their exploration, many people started to take interest in moving West. There were many different reasons why people moved, including a search for a fresh start at life, a chance at starting an economic success through agriculture and

The North and South emerged as two distinct regions because they had various differences. These differences included the geography, the economy, slavery, and transportation. The North was built mainly on factories and trade and opposed slavery, while the South’s foundation was agriculture and slavery. The geography of the South was more rural than the North and the North had more means of transportation than the South. These drastic characteristics created a vast divide between the two regions.

I find it very interesting that the southern colonies distinguished themselves from the New England colonies so early on. I never realized that the slave trade and the plantation class developed so early in American history and it’s fascinating that these differences eventually became large factors in the outbreak of the Civil War. The South’s cash crops required vast amounts of human labor and slavery was essential for the economic health of the southern colonies. Furthermore, this gives insight to the reason pre-Civil War era southern elites were so adamant that the South remain a slave society.

The rapid industrialization of the United States brought many changes to its people. New technologies, inventions, and the railroad brought better fuels, stronger steels, changed the way people lit their homes, and even changed the way people did their shopping. The integrated railroad was especially exciting, because it would allow people to move from the west coast to the east coast as they pleased. Economic development was also on the rise, especially in the west. Americans were excited to discover and tame the “wild west”, eager to claim a piece of land that they could call their own. Greediness often took over, and what was best for the white people was not always best for all people, like the Indians. Westward expansion was full of riches for the whites, but full of tragedies for the Indians. The western frontier was anti-democratic, and a prime example of how Anglo-American expansion could be brutal.

The Southern and Northern states differentiate on many issues, which ultimately led them towards a Civil War. There stood deep social, economic, and political disparities between the North and the South. These modifications stemmed from the understanding of the United States Constitution on both sides. In the end, most of these disputes about the rights of states directed to the Civil War. There existed reasons other than slavery on behalf of the South 's breakaway. The demonstrations of division in America coexisted many: utopian societies, clashes over public space, backlash alongside immigrants, urban rebellions, black demonstration, and Indian oppositions. America was a separated land in need of change with the South in the biggest demand. The South trusted heavily on agriculture, equally opposed to the North, which was vastly populated and an industrialized union. The South produced cotton, which remained its main cash crop and countless Southerners knew that hefty reliance on slave labor would damage the South ultimately, but their forewarnings were not regarded. The South was constructed on a totalitarian system.