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What was Manifest Destiny?

Manifest Destiny, in U.S. history, the supposed inevitability of the continued territorial expansion of the boundaries of the United States westward to the Pacific and beyond. Before the American Civil War (1861-65), the idea of Manifest Destiny was used to validate continental acquisitions in the Oregon Country, Texas, New Mexico, and California. The purchase of Alaska after the Civil War briefly revived the concept of Manifest Destiny, but it most evidently became a renewed force in U.S. foreign policy in the 1890s, when the country went to war with Spain, annexed Hawaii, and laid plans for an isthmian canal across Central America.

Origin of the term

John L. O'Sullivan, the editor of a magazine that served as an organ for the Democratic Party and of a partisan newspaper, first wrote of "manifest destiny" in 1845, but at the time he did not think the words profound. Rather than being "coined," the phrase was buried halfway through the third paragraph of a long essay in the July-August issue of The United States Magazine, and Democratic Review on the necessity of annexing Texas and the inevitability of American expansion. O'Sullivan was protesting European meddling in American affairs, especially by France and England, which he said were acting

for the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.

O'Sullivan's observation was a complaint rather than a call for aggression, and he referred to demography rather than pugnacity as the solution to the perceived problem of European interference. Yet when he expanded his idea on December 27, 1845, in a newspaper column in the New York Morning News, the wider audience seized upon his reference to divine superintendence. Discussing the dispute with Great Britain over the Oregon Country, O'Sullivan again cited the claim to

the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

Some found the opinion intriguing, but others were simply irritated. The Whig Party sought to discredit Manifest Destiny as belligerent as well as pompous, beginning with Massachusetts Rep. Robert Winthrop's using the term to mock Pres. James K. Polk 's policy toward Oregon.

Yet unabashed Democrats took up Manifest Destiny as a slogan. The phrase frequently appeared in debates relating to Oregon, sometimes as soaring rhetoric and other times as sarcastic derision. As an example of the latter, on February 6, 1846, the New-Hampshire Statesman and State Journal, a Whig newspaper, described "some windy orator in the House [of Representatives]" as "pouring for his 'manifest destiny' harangue."

Over the years, O'Sullivan's role in creating the phrase was forgotten, and he died in obscurity some 50 years after having first used the term "manifest destiny." In an essay in The American Historical Review in 1927, historian Julius W. Pratt identified O'Sullivan as the phrase's originator, a conclusion that became universally accepted.

A history of expansion

Despite disagreements about Manifest Destiny's validity at the time, O'Sullivan had stumbled on a broadly held national sentiment. Although it became a rallying cry as well as a rationale for the foreign policy that reached its culmination in 1845-46, the attitude behind Manifest Destiny had long been a part of the American experience. The impatient English who colonized North America in the 1600s and 1700s immediately gazed westward and instantly considered ways to venture into the wilderness and tame it. The cause of that ceaseless wanderlust varied from region to region, but the behaviour became a tradition within one generation. The western horizon would always beckon, and Americans would always follow. After the American Revolution (1775-83), the steady advance of the cotton kingdom in the South matched the lure of the Ohio Country in the North. In 1803, Pres. Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the country with the stroke of a pen. Expansionists eager to acquire Spanish Florida were part of the drive for the War of 1812, and many historians argue that American desires to annex Canada were also an important part of the equation. Andrew Jackson's invasion of Florida in 1818 and the subsequent Transcontinental Treaty (Adams-Onís Treaty) settled a southern border question that had been vexing the region for a generation and established an American claim to the Pacific Northwest as Spain renounced its claim to the Oregon Country. The most consequential territorial expansion in the country's history occurred during the 1820s. Spreading American settlements often caused additional unrest on the country's western borders. As the United States pacified and stabilized volatile regions, the resulting appropriation of territory usually worsened relations with neighbours, setting off a cycle of instability that encouraged additional annexations.

Caught in the upheaval coincidental to that expansion, Southeast Indians succumbed to the pressure of spreading settlement by ceding their lands to the United States and then relocating west of the Mississippi River under Pres. Andrew Jackson's removal policy of the 1830s. The considerable hardships suffered by the Indians in that episode were exemplified by the devastation of the Cherokees on the infamous Trail of Tears, which excited humanitarian protests from both the political class and the citizenry.

Finally, in the 1840s, diplomacy resolved the dispute over the Oregon Country with Britain, and victory in the Mexican-American War (1846-48) closed out a period of dramatically swift growth for the United States. Less than a century after breaking from the British Empire, the United States had gone far in creating its own empire by extending sovereignty across the continent to the Pacific, to the 49th parallel on the Canadian border, and to the Rio Grande in the south. Having transformed a group of sparsely settled colonies into a continental power of enormous potential, many Americans thought the achievement so stunning as to be obvious. It was for them proof that God had chosen the United States to grow and flourish.

Yet in a story as old as ancient Rome's transformation from republic to empire, not all Americans, like the doubters of Rome, found it encouraging. Those dissenters saw rapid expansion as contrary to the principles of a true republic and predicted that the cost of empire would be high and its consequences perilous.

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Manifest Destiny | Summary, Examples, Westward Expansion, & Significance

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Manifest Destiny, the supposed inevitability of the continued territorial expansion of the boundaries of the United States westward to the Pacific and beyond. Before the American Civil War, Manifest Destiny was used to validate continental acquisitions in the Oregon Country, Texas, New Mexico, and California.

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On a gloomy December afternoon in 1803, a boat crept along the banks of the Mississippi River and landed at the mouth of the Wood River in what is now the state of Illinois. A group of men climbed out and began to set up camp under a dark canopy of oak trees. Suddenly a violent storm moved in, pelting the area with snow and hail.

The men didn't turn back though. Instead, they hunkered down and spent the next five months here preparing for the trip they were about to embark on,in which poor weather would be one of the many dangers they'd face.

Among these men were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, co-leaders of an expedition tasked with exploring land that the United States had recently acquired. Their trip would turn into an epic 8,000-mile-long trek-and the first big step in the United States' westward expansion.

LET'S MAKE A DEAL

When Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States in 1801, the country basically stopped at the Mississippi River. France controlled much of the land to the west of this waterway.

President Jefferson wanted to acquire the Port of New Orleans, in what is now the state of Louisiana, from the French. Its prime location made it a key spot for trade. In 1803, Jefferson made what's known as one of the greatest real estate deals in history: the Louisiana Purchase.

After negotiations, France agreed to sell the entire city of New Orleans, which included the port, to the United States for $10 million; they threw in the rest of the territory they owned for an additional $5 million. The agreement-which gave the United States approximately 828,000 square miles of land-almost doubled the size of the nearly 30-year-old nation.

The United States only paid about three cents an acre for the land, which stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Canadian border in the north. Spain still owned much of the southwestern part of what's now the United States, stretching from the area that would become Texas to present-day California.

Purchasing this enormous amount of land was one thing, but exploring it was another. Jefferson wanted to plan an expedition to investigate the territory. He called the proposed mission the Voyage of Discovery and began assembling a team of explorers called the Corps (KOR) of Discovery. The president chose Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark to lead the expedition. Lewis, President Jefferson's personal secretary, was an officer in the United States Army and spoke several Native American languages. Lewis recommended Clark-a retired officer who had served alongside him in the Army-as the expedition's co-leader.

WAY OUT WEST

In the spring of 1804, Lewis, Clark, and dozens of other men left St. Louis, Missouri, by boat. They traveled westward through what is now Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

In November they reached Knife River Village in present-day North Dakota. There they met a young Shoshone Native American woman called Sacagawea (Sa-kuh-juh-WEE-uh) and her fur-trader husband, Toussaint Charbonneau (Too-SAHNT SHAR-bon-oh). The couple joined the expedition as interpreters, translating the language of the local tribes for Lewis and Clark's men.

Sacagawea didn't just serve as an interpreter during the trip, however. She helped Lewis and Clark's men obtain essential supplies and horses, identified edible plants and herbs, and prevented hostile relations with other tribes simply by being with the group-all while carrying her newborn baby on her back.

After meeting Sacagawea and her husband, the Corps traveled west from North Dakota, 15 to 20 miles a day on foot and by boat, toward the mountains. Day after day, the exhausted, freezing team braved rough rivers and perilous peaks, getting by on very little food. They wouldn't see the Pacific Ocean until November 1805-over a year after they first left Missouri.

COMING HOME

After a long winter waiting out the bad weather, the Corps was able to start making their way back east in March 1806. After returning Sacagawea and her husband to North Dakota, the remainder of the Corps arrived back in Missouri in late September, more than two years after they started their expedition.

Lewis and Clark's team mapped uncharted land, rivers, and mountains. They brought back journals filled with details about Native American tribes and scientific notes about plants and animals they'd never seen before. They also brought back stories-tales that made other Americans dream about heading west.

Many Americans did more than dream. The great westward expansion was about to begin.

Text adapted from The Journals of Lewis and Clark; The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today; and Sacagawea

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How Lewis and Clark-along with a Native American guide, Sacagawea-explored the newly expanded United States

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The California Gold Rush cartoon 1849 (The Wild West)

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Follow Lewis and Clark as they explore the U.S. interior and meet more than 50 Native nations!

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Kids learn about the Homestead Act and Land Rush of the Old West. Facts about Homesteaders and the grabbing land in the midwest.

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First Transcontinental Railroad
History >>Westward Expansion

The First Transcontinental Railroad stretched from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. No longer would people travel in long wagon trains that took months to reachCalifornia. They could now travel faster, safer, and cheaper by train. In addition to people, things like mail, supplies, and trade goods could now be shipped across the country in just a few days. The railroad was built between 1863 and 1869.

Background

The first talk of a transcontinental railroad started around 1830. One of the first promoters of the railroad was a merchant named Asa Whitney. Asa tried hard for many years to get Congress to pass an act to build the railroad, but failed. However, in the 1860s Theodore Judah began to lobby for a railroad. He surveyed the Sierra Nevada Mountains and found a pass where the railroad could be built.

The Route

There were two main routes along which people wanted the first railroad to be built.

One route was called the "central route". It followed much the same route as the Oregon Trail. It would begin in Omaha, Nebraska and end up in Sacramento, California.

The other route was the "southern route". This route would stretch across Texas, New Mexico, and end up in Los Angeles, California.

The central route was eventually chosen by Congress.

Route of the First Transcontinental Railroad by Unknown

Pacific Railroad Act

In 1862President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law. The act said that there were two main railroad lines. The Central Pacific Railroad would come from California and the Union Pacific Railroad would come from the Midwest. The two railroads would meet somewhere in the middle.

The act gave the railroad companies land where they could build the railroad. It also paid them for each mile that they built. They were paid more money for miles of track built in themountains versus miles of track built on the flat plains.

Building the Railroad

Across the Continent
by Joseph Becker

Building the railroad was tough, hard work. Weather conditions were especially tough in the mountains during the winter. A lot of times the only way to travel over the mountains was to go through the mountains by blasting a tunnel. The Central Pacific Railroad had to blast a number of tunnels through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The longest tunnel built was 1659 feet long. It took a long time to build the tunnels. They were able to blast around one foot per day on average.

While the Central Pacific Railroad had to deal with mountains and snow, the Union Pacific Railroad was challenged byNative Americans raids. As the Native Americans came to realize the threat to their way of life that the "Iron Horse" was going to bring, they began to raid the railroad work sites. Also, a lot of the land that was "granted" to the railroad by the government was actually Native American land.

The Workers

The majority of the workers on the Union Pacific Railroad were Irish laborers, many who had served in both the Union and the Confederate armies. In Utah, a lot of the track was built by Mormon workers. Most of the Central Pacific Railroad was built by Chinese immigrants.

The Golden Spike

The two railroads finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869. Leland Stanford, governor of California and president of the Central Pacific Railroad, drove in the last spike. This final spike was called the "Golden Spike" or "The Final Spike". You can see it today at Stanford University in California.

Driving the Golden Spike on 10th May, 1869
by American School

Interesting Facts about the First Transcontinental Railroad

The Pony Express traveled a similar route to the central route and helped to prove that the route was passable in winter.

The transcontinental railroad was also called the Pacific Railroad and the Overland Route.

The total length of the First Transcontinental Railroad was 1,776 miles.

The Central Pacific Railroad was controlled by four men called the "Big Four". They were Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker.

It was later, in November of 1869, when the Central Pacific connected San Francisco to Sacramento.

Activities

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Works Cited

History >>Westward Expansion

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Kids learn about the First Transcontinental Railroad. Fun facts about the route, the Union Pacific, and the Pacific Railroad Act.