Which event was most influenced by the american belief in manifest destiny?

Expansion westward seemed perfectly natural to many Americans in the mid-nineteenth century. Like the Massachusetts Puritans who hoped to build a "city upon a hill, "courageous pioneers believed that America had a divine obligation to stretch the boundaries of their noble republic to the Pacific Ocean. Independence had been won in the Revolution and reaffirmed in the War of 1812. The spirit of nationalism that swept the nation in the next two decades demanded more territory. The "every man is equal" mentality of the Jacksonian Era fueled this optimism. Now, with territory up to the Mississippi River claimed and settled and the Louisiana Purchase explored, Americans headed west in droves. Newspaper editor John O'Sullivan coined the term "manifest destiny" in 1845 to describe the essence of this mindset.

A symbol of Manifest Destiny, the figure "Columbia" moves across the land in advance of settlers, replacing darkness with light and ignorance with civilization.

The religious fervor spawned by the Second Great Awakening created another incentive for the drive west. Indeed, many settlers believed that God himself blessed the growth of the American nation. The Native Americans were considered heathens. By Christianizing the tribes, American missionaries believed they could save souls and they became among the first to cross the Mississippi River.

Economic motives were paramount for others. The fur trade had been dominated by European trading companies since colonial times. German immigrant John Jacob Astor was one of the first American entrepreneurs to challenge the Europeans. He became a millionaire in the process. The desire for more land brought aspiring homesteaders to the frontier. When gold was discovered in California in 1848, the number of migrants increased even more.

At the heart of manifest destiny was the pervasive belief in American cultural and racial superiority. Native Americans had long been perceived as inferior, and efforts to "civilize" them had been widespread since the days of John Smith and Miles Standish. The Hispanics who ruled Texas and the lucrative ports of California were also seen as "backward."

In 1840, the entire southwestern corner of the United States was controlled by foreign powers (shown in orange), and the territorial dispute over the Oregon Territory (light green) had not been settled. By 1850 the U.S. had control of lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific, covering almost all of today's continental United States.

Expanding the boundaries of the United States was in many ways a cultural war as well. The desire of southerners to find more lands suitable for cotton cultivation would eventually spread slavery to these regions. North of the Mason-Dixon line, many citizens were deeply concerned about adding any more slave states. Manifest destiny touched on issues of religion, money, race, patriotism, and morality. These clashed in the 1840s as a truly great drama of regional conflict began to unfold.

The reason why Americans where in Florida in the first place, is yet another example of Manifest Destiny. The people of the deep South, wanting more fertile land, exercise what they considered to be their right. The planter class, without any political approval or permission, just took over and started settling and planting the Florida territories. This move was an example of the arrogance that the Americans had towards expansion. Americans believed that they had a right to any land they wanted.

First used in 1845, the term Manifest Destiny conveyed the idea that the rightful destiny of the US included imperialistic expansion. This idea certainly contributed to several wars. For example, in 1846 the United States declared war on Mexico and proceeded to win much of what is now the Southwestern United States. The war with Mexico was just one out of a series of aggressive acts that can be tied to America's Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny emerged naturally and inevitability out of fundamental want and need to explore and conquer new lands and establish new borders. With this growth came moral, cultural, social ideological and economical differences between people, states and countries. Were these differences not the reasons why America fought for their independence in the Revolutionary War? Were these differences not the primary cause for the American Civil War?

The idea of Manifest Destiny is as old as America itself. The philosophy sailed with Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic. It resided in the spirits of the Jamestown colonist and it landed at Plymouth Rock with the Pilgrims. It also traveled with the fire and brimstone preachers during the Great Awakening and built the first national road. Throughout history there are numerous examples of Manifest Destiny. However, in early American history, synonyms were used to explain the not yet named Phenomenon. American history books are filled with words such as, Explorers, Frontier, Territories, Expansionism, Settlers, Idealism, Sectionalism and Immigration. Without Manifest Destiny, phrases and terms such as "Beyond the Great American Desert," "The North West Passage," and "The Oregon Trail", would be just empty examples of white man's travels.

Much of the talk about Manifest Destiny had many people suggesting that America should assume the role as a world power. James Monroe in 1822 echoed this idea in his famous Monroe Doctrine when he warned Europe and the rest of the world to "Stay out of the Western Hemisphere" (Demkin Chapter 8).

In the months following the Spanish-American War, the idea of expansionism grew stronger across the United States. In Congress, legislators called for the annexation of all Spanish territories. Some newspapers even suggested the annexation of Spain itself. Expansionists such as Roosevelt, former President Harrison, and Captain Mahan argued for creating an American empire. However, others, including Grover Cleveland, Andrew Carnegie, and Mark Twain, opposed these ideas.

Manifest Destiny became a disputed philosophy. The following are two examples of the different views of the American people. This is evidence of the opposing attitudes towards the Manifest Destiny ideology. In a 1837 letter to Henry Clay, William E. Channing wrote:

"Did this county know itself, or were it disposed to profit by self-knowledge, it would feel the necessity of laying an immediate curb on its passion for extended territory.... We are a restless people, prone to encroachment, impatient of the ordinary laws of progress... We boast of our rapid growth, forgetting that, throughout nature, noble growths are slow..... It is full time that we should lay on ourselves serious, resolute restraint. Possessed of a domain, vast enough for the growth of ages, it is time for us to stop in the career of acquisition and conquest. Already endangered by our greatness, we cannot advance without imminent peril to our institutions, union, prosperity, virtue, and peace..... It is sometimes said, that nations are swayed by laws, as unfailing as those which govern matter; that they have their destinies; that their character and position carry them forward irresistibly to their goal;....

that ... the Indians have melted before the white man, and the mixed, degraded race of Mexico must melt before the Anglo-Saxon. Away with this vile sophistry! There is no necessity for crime. There is no fate to justify rapacious nations, any more than to justify gamblers and robbers, in plunder. We boast of the progress of society, and this progress consists in the substitution of reason and moral principle for the sway of brute force....We talk of accomplishing our destiny. So did the late conqueror of Europe (Napoleon) ; and destiny consigned him to a lonely rock in the ocean, the prey of ambition which destroyed no peace but his own." ( 276)

As an example of the opposing attitude and the attitude that was voiced by the majority of Americans at the time, the following article appeared in the Democratic Review in 1845.

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