From: Kristi De Simone
Date: 4/4/00
Time: 5:17:54 PM
Remote Name: 155.247.244.101
Manifest Destiny was a term coined by John L. O'Sullivan in the summer of 1845. O'Sullivan was a proponent of the Young America movement and an editor of the influential United States Magazine and Democratic Review. The term "Manifest Destiny" means an obvious action that was meant to be from a higher power. Manifest Destiny implied that the expansion to the pacific was the destiny of the settlers. The rush of the settlers beyond the nation's borders in the 1830's and 1840's inspired politicians and propagandists to call for annexation of those areas occupied by migrants. Some went further and proclaimed it was the "manifest destiny" of the United States to expand until it had absorbed all of the North America, including Canada and Mexico. " The fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by providence for the development of our yearly multiplying millions, said O'Sullivan". Not only did O'Sullivan coin the phrase Manifest Destiny; he also described three main ideas that supported it. One was that God was on the side of American expansionism. This idea came naturally out of the long tradition, going back to the New England Puritans, that identified the growth of America with the divinely ordained success of a chosen people. A second idea implied in the phrase free development, that the spread of American rule meant what other propagandists for expansion described as "extending the area of freedom". The third and final idea backing the Manifest Destiny was that population growth required the outlet that territorial acquisitions would provide. This had a fear tagged onto it, that a growing number would lead to diminished opportunity and a European- type polarization's of social classes if the restless and the ambitious were not given new lands to settle and exploit. The manifest destiny meant that the United States would someday eventually occupy the entire North American continent. The Young Americans used this term to fuel their greedy land stealing minds. They felt it was their destiny to expand westward and to pass over anyone who got in their way. Such ambitions and polices led to a major diplomatic confrontation with Great Britain and a war with Mexico.