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Manifest Destiny

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: North American History

   This painting (circa 1872) by John Gast called American Progress is an
   allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny. Here Columbia, a
   personification of the United States, leads civilization westward with
   American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she travels and carrying
   a school book. The different economic activities of the pioneers are
   highlighted and, especially, the changing forms of transportation. The
   American Indians and wild animals flee.
   Enlarge
   This painting (circa 1872) by John Gast called American Progress is an
   allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny. Here Columbia, a
   personification of the United States, leads civilization westward with
   American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she travels and carrying
   a school book. The different economic activities of the pioneers are
   highlighted and, especially, the changing forms of transportation. The
   American Indians and wild animals flee.

   Manifest Destiny was a phrase that expressed the belief that the United
   States had a mission to expand, spreading its form of democracy and
   freedom. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not
   only good, but that it was obvious (" manifest") and certain ("
   destiny"). Originally a political catch phrase of the 19th century,
   "Manifest Destiny" eventually became a standard historical term, often
   used as a synonym for the territorial expansion of the United States
   across North America towards the Pacific Ocean.

   The phrase "Manifest Destiny" was first used primarily by Jacksonian
   Democrats in the 1840s to promote the annexation of much of what is now
   the Western United States (the Oregon Territory, the Texas Annexation,
   and the Mexican Cession). The term was revived in the 1890s with
   Republican supporters as a theoretical justification for U.S. expansion
   outside of North America. The term fell out of usage by U.S. policy
   makers early in the 20th century, but some commentators believe that
   aspects of Manifest Destiny, particularly the belief in an American
   "mission" to promote and defend democracy throughout the world,
   continued to have an influence on American political ideology.

Context and interpretations

   Manifest Destiny was always a general notion rather than a specific
   policy. The term combined a belief in expansionism with other popular
   ideas of the era, including American exceptionalism, Romantic
   nationalism, and a belief in the natural superiority of what was then
   called the " Anglo-Saxon race."

   While many writers focus primarily upon American expansionism when
   discussing Manifest Destiny, others see in the term a broader
   expression of a belief in America's "mission" in the world, which has
   meant different things to different people over the years. This variety
   of possible meanings was summed up by Ernest Lee Tuveson, who wrote:

     A vast complex of ideas, policies, and actions is comprehended under
     the phrase 'Manifest Destiny'. They are not, as we should expect,
     all compatible, nor do they come from any one source.

Origin of the phrase

   The phrase was coined in 1845 by journalist John L. O'Sullivan, who was
   an influential advocate for the Democratic Party. In an essay entitled
   "Annexation" published in the Democratic Review, O'Sullivan urged the
   United States to annex the Republic of Texas, because Texas desired
   this, and because it was America's "manifest destiny to overspread the
   continent". Amid much controversy, Texas was annexed shortly
   thereafter, but O'Sullivan's first usage of the phrase "Manifest
   Destiny" attracted little attention.

   O'Sullivan's second use of the phrase became extremely influential. On
   December 27, 1845, in his newspaper the New York Morning News,
   O'Sullivan addressed the ongoing boundary dispute with Great Britain in
   the Oregon Country. O'Sullivan argued that the United States had the
   right to claim "the whole of Oregon":

     And that claim is by 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.

   John L. O'Sullivan, sketched in 1874.
   Enlarge
   John L. O'Sullivan, sketched in 1874.

   That is, O'Sullivan believed that God (" Providence") had given the
   United States a mission to spread republican democracy ("the great
   experiment of liberty") throughout North America. Because Britain would
   not use Oregon for the purposes of spreading democracy, thought
   O'Sullivan, British claims to the territory should be overruled.
   O'Sullivan believed that Manifest Destiny was a moral ideal (a "higher
   law") that superseded other considerations.

   O'Sullivan's original conception of Manifest Destiny was not a call for
   territorial expansion by force. He believed that the expansion of the
   United States would happen without the direction of the U.S. government
   or the involvement of the military. After "Anglo-Saxons" emigrated to
   new regions, they would set up new democratic governments and then seek
   admission to the United States, as Texas had done. In 1845, O'Sullivan
   predicted that California would follow this pattern next and that
   Canada would eventually request annexation as well. He disapproved of
   the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846, although he came to
   believe that the outcome would be beneficial to both countries.

   O'Sullivan did not originate the idea of Manifest Destiny: while his
   phrase provided a useful label for sentiments which had become
   particularly popular during the 1840s, the ideas themselves were not
   new.

   O'Sullivan's term became popular only after it was criticized by Whig
   opponents of the Polk administration. On January 3, 1846,
   Representative Robert Winthrop ridiculed the concept in Congress,
   saying "I suppose the right of a manifest destiny to spread will not be
   admitted to exist in any nation except the universal Yankee nation".
   Winthrop was the first of many critics who suggested that advocates of
   Manifest Destiny were citing "Divine Providence" for justification of
   actions that were motivated by chauvinism and self-interest. Despite
   this criticism, expansionists embraced the phrase, which caught on so
   quickly that its origin was soon forgotten. O'Sullivan died in
   obscurity in 1895, just as his phrase was being revived; in 1927, a
   historian determined that the phrase had originated with him.

Themes and influences

   Historian William E. Weeks has noted that three key themes were usually
   touched upon by advocates of Manifest Destiny:
    1. the virtue of the American people and their institutions;
    2. the mission to spread these institutions, thereby redeeming and
       remaking the world in the image of the U.S.; and
    3. the destiny under God to accomplish this work.

   The origin of the first theme, later known as American Exceptionalism,
   was often traced to America's Puritan heritage, particularly John
   Winthrop's famous " City upon a Hill" sermon of 1630, in which he
   called for the establishment of a virtuous community that would be a
   shining example to the Old World. In his influential 1776 pamphlet
   Common Sense, Thomas Paine echoed this notion, arguing that the
   American Revolution provided an opportunity to create a new, better
   society:

     We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation,
     similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah
     until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand....

   Many Americans agreed with Paine and came to believe that the United
   States had embarked upon a special experiment in freedom and
   democracy—and a rejection of Old World monarchy in favour of
   republicanism, an innovation of world-historical importance. President
   Abraham Lincoln's description of the United States as "the last, best
   hope of Earth" is a well-known expression of this idea. Lincoln's
   Gettysburg Address, in which he interpreted the Civil War as a struggle
   to determine if any nation with America's ideals could survive, has
   been called by historian Robert Johannsen "the most enduring statement
   of America's Manifest Destiny and mission".

   Not all Americans who believed that the United States was a divinely
   favored nation thought that it ought to expand. Whigs especially argued
   that the "mission" of the United States was only to serve as virtuous
   example to the rest of the world. If the United States was successful
   as a shining "city on a hill", people in other countries would seek to
   establish their own democratic republics. Thomas Jefferson initially
   did not believe it necessary that the United States should grow in
   size, since he predicted that other, similar republics would be founded
   in North America, forming what he called an "empire for liberty".
   However, with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which doubled the size of
   the United States, Jefferson set the stage for the continental
   expansion of the United States. Many began to see this as the beginning
   of a new "mission"—what Andrew Jackson in 1843 described as "extending
   the area of freedom". As more territory was added to the United States
   in the following decades, whether "extending the area of freedom" also
   meant extending the institution of slavery became a central issue in a
   growing divide over the interpretation of America's "mission".

Effect on continental expansion

   John Quincy Adams portrait by Charles Robert Leslie in 1816.
   Enlarge
   John Quincy Adams portrait by Charles Robert Leslie in 1816.

   The phrase "Manifest Destiny" is mostly associated with the territorial
   expansion of the United States from 1815 to 1860. This era, from the
   end of the War of 1812 to the beginning of the Civil War, has been
   called the "Age of Manifest Destiny". During this time, the United
   States expanded to the Pacific Ocean—" from sea to shining sea"—largely
   defining the borders of the continental United States as they are
   today.

Continentalism

   The nineteenth century belief that the United States would eventually
   encompass all of North America is known as "continentalism". An early
   proponent of this idea was John Quincy Adams, a leading figure in U.S.
   expansion between the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the Polk
   Administration in the 1840s. In 1811, Adams wrote to his father, John
   Adams:

     The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by
     Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation, speaking one
     language, professing one general system of religious and political
     principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and
     customs. For the common happiness of them all, for their peace and
     prosperity, I believe it is indispensable that they should be
     associated in one federal Union.

   Adams did much to further this idea. He orchestrated the Treaty of
   1818, which established the United States-Canada border as far west as
   the Rocky Mountains and provided for the joint occupation of the Oregon
   Country. He negotiated the Transcontinental Treaty in 1819, purchasing
   Florida from Spain and extending the U.S. border with Spanish Mexico
   all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And he formulated the Monroe Doctrine
   of 1823, which warned Europe that the Western Hemisphere was no longer
   open for European colonization. Late in life Adams came to regret his
   role in helping U.S. slavery to expand, and he became a leading
   opponent of the annexation of Texas.

   The Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny were closely related ideas;
   historian Walter McDougall calls Manifest Destiny a " corollary" of the
   Monroe Doctrine, because while the Monroe Doctrine did not specify
   expansion, expansion was necessary in order to enforce the Doctrine.
   Concerns in the United States that European powers (especially Great
   Britain) were seeking to acquire colonies or greater influence in North
   America led to calls for expansion in order to prevent this. In his
   1935 study of Manifest Destiny, Albert Weinberg wrote that "the
   expansionism of the [1840s] arose as a defensive effort to forestall
   the encroachment of Europe in North America".

British North America

   Although Manifest Destiny was primarily directed at territory inhabited
   by Mexicans and American Indians, the concept played a role in U.S.
   relations with British North America (later Canada) to the north. From
   the time of the American Revolution, the United States had expressed an
   interest in expelling the British Empire from North America. Failing to
   do that in both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812,
   Americans came to accept the British presence on their northern border,
   but fears of possible British expansion elsewhere in North America was
   a recurrent theme of Manifest Destiny.

Before 1815

   During the American Revolution and the early years of independence,
   there were both peaceful and violent attempts to include Canada in the
   United States. The Revolutionaries hoped French Canadians would join
   the Thirteen Colonies in the effort to throw off the rule of the
   British Empire. Canada was invited to send representatives to the
   Continental Congress and was pre-approved for joining the United States
   in the Articles of Confederation. In the Paris peace negotiations,
   Benjamin Franklin attempted to persuade Britain to cede Canada to the
   United States. Canada was invaded during the War of Independence and
   again during the War of 1812. None of these measures proved successful
   in bringing Canada to the side of the Thirteen Colonies.

   These attempts to expel the British Empire from North America are
   sometimes cited as early examples of Manifest Destiny in action. Some
   scholars, including Canadian historian Reginald Stuart, argue that
   these events were different in character from those during the "Era of
   Manifest Destiny". Before 1815, writes Stuart, "what seemed like
   territorial expansionism actually arose from a defensive mentality, not
   from ambitions for conquest and annexation." From this point of view,
   Manifest Destiny was not a factor in the outbreak of the War of 1812,
   but rather Manifest Destiny emerged as a popular belief in the years
   after the war.

Filibustering in Canada

   Americans became increasingly accepting of the presence of British
   colonies to the north after the War of 1812, although Anglophobia
   continued to be widespread in the United States. Many Americans,
   especially those along the border, were hopeful that the Rebellions of
   1837 would bring an end to the British Empire in North America and the
   establishment of a republican government in Canada. Of those events
   John O'Sullivan wrote: "If freedom is the best of national blessings,
   if self-government is the first of national rights, ... then we are
   bound to sympathise with the cause of the Canadian rebellion."
   Americans like O'Sullivan viewed the Rebellions as a reprise of the
   American Revolution, and—unlike most Canadians at the time—considered
   Canadians to be living under oppressive foreign rule.

   Despite this sympathy with the cause of the rebels, belief in Manifest
   Destiny did not result in widespread American reaction to the
   Rebellions, in part because the Rebellions were over so quickly.
   O'Sullivan, for his part, advised against U.S. intervention. Some
   American " filibusters"—unauthorized volunteer soldiers often motivated
   by a belief in Manifest Destiny—went to Canada to lend aid to the
   rebels, but President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott to
   arrest the filibusters and keep peace on the border. Some filibusters
   persisted in secretive groups known as the Hunters' Lodges, and tried
   to stir up war in order to "liberate" Canada—the so-called " Patriot
   War" was one such event—but American sentiment and official government
   policy were against these actions. The Fenian raids after the American
   Civil War shared some resemblances to the actions of the Hunters but
   were otherwise unrelated to the idea of Manifest Destiny or any policy
   of American expansionism.

"All Oregon"

   On the northern border of the United States, Manifest Destiny played
   its most important role in the Oregon boundary dispute with Great
   Britain. The Anglo-American Convention of 1818 had provided for the
   joint occupation of the Oregon Country, and thousands of Americans
   migrated there in the 1840s via the Oregon Trail. The British rejected
   a proposal by President John Tyler to divide the region along 49th
   parallel; instead they proposed a boundary line further south along the
   Columbia River, which would have made what is now the state of
   Washington part of British North America. Advocates of Manifest Destiny
   protested and called for the annexation of the entire Oregon Country up
   to the Alaska line (54°40ʹ N). Presidential candidate James K. Polk
   used this popular outcry to his advantage, and the Democrats called for
   the annexation of "All Oregon" in the 1844 U.S. Presidential election.

   As President, however, Polk renewed the earlier offer to divide the
   territory along the 49th parallel, to the dismay of the most ardent
   advocates of Manifest Destiny. When the British refused the offer,
   American expansionists responded with slogans such as "The Whole of
   Oregon or None!" and "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!", referring to the
   northern border of the region. (The latter slogan is often mistakenly
   described as having been a part of the 1844 presidential campaign.)
   When Polk moved to terminate the joint occupation agreement, the
   British finally agreed to divide the region along the 49th parallel,
   and the dispute was settled diplomatically with the Oregon Treaty of
   1846.
   American westward expansion is idealized in Emanuel Leutze's famous
   painting Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way (1861). The title
   of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase
   often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held
   belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout
   history. (more) Enlarge
   American westward expansion is idealized in Emanuel Leutze's famous
   painting Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way (1861). The title
   of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase
   often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held
   belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout
   history. (more)

   Despite the earlier clamor for "All Oregon", the treaty was popular in
   the U.S. and was easily ratified by the United States Senate,
   particularly because the United States was at war with Mexico. Many
   Americans believed that the Canadian provinces would eventually merge
   with the United States anyway and that war was unnecessary—and
   counterproductive—in fulfilling that destiny. The most fervent
   advocates of Manifest Destiny had not prevailed along the northern
   border because, according to Reginald Stuart, "the compass of Manifest
   Destiny pointed west and southwest, not north, despite the use of the
   term 'continentalism'".

Mexico and Texas

   Manifest Destiny proved to be more consequential in U.S. relations with
   Mexico. In 1836, the Republic of Texas declared independence from
   Mexico and, after the Texas Revolution, sought to join the United
   States as a new state. This was an idealized process of expansion which
   had been advocated from Jefferson to O'Sullivan: potential states would
   request entry into the United States, rather than the United States
   extending its government over people who did not want it. The
   annexation of Texas was controversial, however, since it would add
   another slave state to the Union. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin
   Van Buren declined Texas' offer to join the United States in part
   because the slavery issue threatened to divide the Democratic Party.

   Before the election of 1844, Whig candidate Henry Clay and the presumed
   Democratic candidate, former President Van Buren, both declared
   themselves opposed to the annexation of Texas, each hoping to keep the
   troublesome topic from becoming a campaign issue. This led to Van Buren
   being dropped by the Democrats in favour of Polk, who favored
   annexation. Polk tied the Texas annexation question with the Oregon
   dispute, thus providing a sort of regional compromise on expansion.
   (Expansionists in the North were more inclined to promote the
   occupation of Oregon, while Southern expansionists focused primarily on
   the annexation of Texas.) Although elected by a very slim margin, Polk
   proceeded as if his victory had been a mandate for expansion.

"All Mexico"

   After the election of Polk, but before he took office, Congress
   approved the annexation of Texas. Polk moved to occupy a portion of
   Texas which was also claimed by Mexico, paving the way for the outbreak
   of the Mexican-American War on April 24, 1846. With American successes
   on the battlefield, by the summer of 1847 there were calls for the
   annexation of "All Mexico", particularly among Eastern Democrats, who
   argued that bringing Mexico into the Union was the best way to ensure
   future peace in the region.

   This was a controversial proposition for two reasons. First of all,
   idealistic advocates of Manifest Destiny like John L. O'Sullivan had
   always maintained that the laws of the United States should not be
   imposed on people against their will. The annexation of "All Mexico"
   would be a violation of this principle. Secondly, annexation would mean
   extending U.S. citizenship to millions of Mexicans. Senator John C.
   Calhoun of South Carolina, who had approved of the annexation of Texas,
   was opposed to the annexation of Mexico, as well as the "mission"
   aspect of Manifest Destiny, for racial reasons. He made these views
   clear in a speech to Congress on 4 January 1848:

     [W]e have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the
     Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be
     the very first instance of the kind, of incorporating an Indian
     race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other
     is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union
     as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race.... We are
     anxious to force free government on all; and I see that it has been
     urged … that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and
     religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this
     continent. It is a great mistake.

   This debate brought to the forefront one of the contradictions of
   Manifest Destiny: while racist ideas inherent in Manifest Destiny
   suggested that Mexicans, as non-Anglo-Saxons, were a lesser race and
   thus not qualified to become Americans, the "mission" component of
   Manifest Destiny suggested that Mexicans would be improved (or
   "regenerated", as it was then described) by bringing them into American
   democracy. Racism was used to promote Manifest Destiny, but, as in the
   case of Calhoun and the resistance to the "All Mexico" movement, racism
   was also used to oppose Manifest Destiny.

   The controversy was eventually ended by the Mexican Cession, which
   added the territories of California and New Mexico to the United
   States, both more sparsely populated than the rest of Mexico. Like the
   "All Oregon" movement, the "All Mexico" movement quickly abated.
   Historian Frederick Merk, in Manifest Destiny and Mission in American
   History: A Reinterpretation (1963), argued that the failure of the "All
   Oregon" and "All Mexico" movements indicates that Manifest Destiny had
   not been as popular as historians have traditionally portrayed it to
   have been. Merk wrote that, while belief in the beneficent "mission" of
   democracy was central to American history, aggressive "continentalism"
   (and later, imperialism) were aberrations supported by only a very
   small (but influential) minority of Americans. Merk's interpretation is
   probably still a minority opinion; scholars generally see Manifest
   Destiny, at least in the 1840s, as a popular belief.

Filibustering in the South

   After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, disagreements over the
   expansion of slavery made further territorial annexation too divisive
   to be official government policy. Many Northerners were increasingly
   opposed to what they believed to be efforts by Southern slave
   owners—and their friends in the North—to expand slavery at any cost.
   The proposal of the Wilmot Proviso during the war, and the emergence of
   various " Slave Power" conspiracy theories thereafter, indicated the
   degree to which Manifest Destiny had become controversial.

   Without official government support, the most radical advocates of
   Manifest Destiny increasingly turned to filibustering. While there had
   been some filibustering expeditions into Canada in the late 1830s, the
   primary target of Manifest Destiny’s filibusters was Latin America,
   particularly Mexico and Cuba. Though illegal, the filibustering
   operations in the late 1840s and early 1850s were romanticized in the
   U.S. press. Wealthy American expansionists financed dozens of
   expeditions, usually based out of New Orleans.
   Filibuster William Walker
   Enlarge
   Filibuster William Walker

   The United States had long been interested in acquiring Cuba from the
   declining Spanish Empire. As with Texas, Oregon, and California,
   American policy makers were concerned that Cuba would fall into British
   hands, which, according to the thinking of the Monroe Doctrine, would
   constitute a threat to the interests of the United States. Prompted by
   John L. O'Sullivan, in 1848 President Polk offered to buy Cuba from
   Spain for $100 million. Polk feared that filibustering would hurt his
   effort to buy the island, so he informed the Spanish of an attempt by
   the Cuban filibuster Narcisco Lopez to seize Cuba by force and annex it
   to the U.S., and the plot was foiled. Nevertheless, Spain declined to
   sell the island, which ended Polk's efforts to acquire Cuba. However,
   O'Sullivan continued to raise money for filibustering expeditions,
   eventually landing him in legal trouble.

   Filibustering continued to be a major concern for Presidents after
   Polk. Whig Presidents Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore tried to
   suppress the expeditions. When the Democrats recaptured the White House
   in 1852 with the election of Franklin Pierce, a filibustering effort by
   John A. Quitman to acquire Cuba received the tentative support of the
   President. Pierce backed off, however, and instead renewed the offer to
   buy the island, this time for $130 million. When the public learned of
   the Ostend Manifesto in 1854, which argued that the United States could
   seize Cuba by force if Spain refused to sell, it effectively killed the
   effort to acquire the island. The public linked expansion with slavery;
   if Manifest Destiny had once had widespread popular approval, it was no
   longer true.

   Filibusters like William Walker continued to garner headlines in the
   late 1850s. He launched several expeditions into Latin America. For a
   time he ruled Nicaragua, although he was eventually seized by the U.S.
   Navy and returned to United States. In 1860, he was captured and
   executed in Honduras.

   With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860, the "Age of Manifest
   Destiny" came to an end. Expansionism was among the various issues that
   played a role in the coming of the war. With the divisive question of
   the expansion of slavery, Northerners and Southerners, in effect, were
   coming to define Manifest Destiny in different ways, undermining
   nationalism as a unifying force. According to Frederick Merk, "The
   doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which in the 1840's had seemed
   Heaven-sent, proved to have been a bomb wrapped up in idealism."

Native Americans

   Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for American Indians, since
   continental expansion usually meant the occupation of Native American
   land. The United States continued the European practice of recognizing
   only limited land rights of indigenous peoples. In a policy formulated
   largely by Henry Knox, Secretary of War in the Washington
   Administration, the U.S. government sought to expand into the west only
   through the legal purchase of Native American land in treaties. Indians
   were encouraged to sell their vast tribal lands and become "civilized",
   which meant (among other things) for Native American men to abandon
   hunting and become farmers, and for their society to reorganize around
   the family unit rather than the clan or tribe. Advocates of
   "civilization" programs believed that the process would greatly reduce
   the amount of land needed by the Indians, thereby making more land
   available for purchase by white Americans. Thomas Jefferson believed
   that while American Indians were the intellectual equals of whites,
   they had to live like the whites or inevitably be pushed aside by them.
   Jefferson's belief, rooted in Enlightenment thinking, that whites and
   Native Americans would merge to create a single nation did not last his
   lifetime, and he began to believe that the natives should emigrate
   across the Mississippi River and maintain a separate society, an idea
   made possible by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

   In the age of Manifest Destiny, this idea, which came to be known as "
   Indian Removal", gained ground. This policy generated conflict between
   the new settlers and the Indian tribes. During this period innovations
   in firearms technology, brought about by individuals such as Colt,
   Winchester, Sharps, and Spencer helped provide effective weapons for
   settlers for both defense and aggression against the Indians. Although
   some humanitarian advocates of removal believed that American Indians
   would be better off moving away from whites, an increasing number of
   Americans regarded the natives as nothing more than "savages" who stood
   in the way of American expansion. As historian Reginald Horsman argued
   in his influential study Race and Manifest Destiny, racial rhetoric
   increased during the era of Manifest Destiny. Americans increasingly
   believed that Native Americans would fade away as the United States
   expanded. As an example, this idea was reflected in the work of one of
   America's first great historians, Francis Parkman, whose landmark book
   The Conspiracy of Pontiac was published in 1851. Parkman wrote that
   Indians were "destined to melt and vanish before the advancing waves of
   Anglo-American power, which now rolled westward unchecked and
   unopposed".

Beyond North America

   As the Civil War ended, the term Manifest Destiny experienced a brief
   revival. In the 1892 U.S. presidential election, the Republican Party
   platform proclaimed: "We reaffirm our approval of the Monroe doctrine
   and believe in the achievement of the manifest destiny of the Republic
   in its broadest sense." What was meant by "manifest destiny" in this
   context was not clearly defined, particularly since the Republicans
   lost the election. In the 1896 election, however, the Republicans
   recaptured the White House and held on to it for the next 16 years.
   During that time, Manifest Destiny was cited to promote overseas
   expansion. Whether this version of Manifest Destiny was consistent with
   the continental expansionism of the 1840s was debated at the time, and
   long afterwards.

   For example, when President William McKinley advocated annexation of
   the Territory of Hawaii in 1898, he said that "We need Hawaii as much
   and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny."
   On the other hand, former President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who
   had blocked the annexation of Hawaii during his presidency, wrote that
   McKinley's annexation of the territory was a "perversion of our
   national destiny." Historians continued that debate; some have
   interpreted the overseas expansion of the 1890s as an extension of
   Manifest Destiny across the Pacific Ocean; others have regarded it as
   the antithesis of Manifest Destiny.

Spanish-American War and the Philippines

   In 1898, after the sinking of the USS Maine in the harbour at Habana,
   Cuba, the United States intervened on the side of Cuban rebels who were
   fighting the Spanish Empire, beginning the Spanish-American War.
   Although advocates of Manifest Destiny in the 1840s had called for the
   annexation of Cuba, the Teller Amendment, passed unanimously by the
   U.S. Senate before the war, proclaimed Cuba "free and independent" and
   disclaimed any U.S. intention to annex the island. After the war, the
   Platt Amendment established Cuba as a virtual protectorate of the
   United States. If Manifest Destiny meant the outright annexation of
   territory, it no longer applied to Cuba, since Cuba was never annexed.

   Unlike Cuba, the United States did annex Guam, Puerto Rico, and the
   Philippines, after the war with Spain. The acquisition of these islands
   marked a new chapter in U.S. history. Traditionally, territories were
   acquired by the United States for the purpose of becoming new states on
   equal footing with already existing states. These islands, however,
   were acquired as colonies rather than prospective states, a process
   validated by the Insular Cases, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
   that full constitutional rights did not automatically extend to all
   areas under American control. In this sense, annexation was a violation
   of traditional Manifest Destiny. According to Frederick Merk, "Manifest
   Destiny had contained a principle so fundamental that a Calhoun and an
   O'Sullivan could agree on it—that a people not capable of rising to
   statehood should never be annexed. That was the principle thrown
   overboard by the imperialism of 1899." (The Philippines was eventually
   given its independence in 1946; Guam and Puerto Rico presently have
   special status, but all their people are full citizens of the United
   States.)

   On the other hand, Manifest Destiny had also contained within it the
   idea that "uncivilized" peoples could be improved by exposure to the
   Christian, democratic values of the United States. In his decision to
   annex the Philippines, President McKinley echoed this theme: "There was
   nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the
   Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them...." Rudyard
   Kipling's poem " The White Man's Burden", which was subtitled "The
   United States and the Philippine Islands", was an expression of these
   sentiments, which were common at the time. Many Filipinos, however,
   resisted this effort to "uplift and civilize" them, resulting in the
   outbreak of the Philippine-American War in 1899. After the war began,
   William Jennings Bryan, an opponent of overseas expansion, wrote that
   "‘Destiny’ is not as manifest as it was a few weeks ago."

Subsequent usage

   At the beginning of the 20th century, the phrase Manifest Destiny
   declined in usage since territorial expansion ceased to be promoted as
   being a part of America's "destiny." Under President Theodore
   Roosevelt, the role of the United States in the New World was defined,
   in the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, as being an
   "international police power" to secure American interests in the
   Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt's corollary contained an explicit
   rejection of territorial expansion. In the past, Manifest Destiny had
   been seen as necessary to enforce the Monroe Doctrine in the Western
   Hemisphere, but now expansionism had been replaced by interventionism
   as a means of upholding the doctrine.

   President Woodrow Wilson continued the policy of interventionism in the
   Americas and attempted to redefine both Manifest Destiny and America's
   "mission" on a broader, worldwide scale. Wilson led the United States
   into World War I with the argument that "The world must be made safe
   for democracy." In his 1920 message to Congress after the war, Wilson
   stated:

     ...I think we all realize that the day has come when Democracy is
     being put upon its final test. The Old World is just now suffering
     from a wanton rejection of the principle of democracy and a
     substitution of the principle of autocracy as asserted in the name,
     but without the authority and sanction, of the multitude. This is
     the time of all others when Democracy should prove its purity and
     its spiritual power to prevail. It is surely the manifest destiny of
     the United States to lead in the attempt to make this spirit
     prevail.

   The was the first and only time a President had used the phrase
   "Manifest Destiny" in his annual address. Wilson's version of Manifest
   Destiny was a rejection of expansionism and an endorsement (in
   principle) of self-determination, emphasizing that the United States
   had a mission to be a world leader for the cause of democracy. This
   U.S. vision of itself as the leader of the " free world" would grow
   stronger in the 20th century after World War II, although rarely would
   it be described as "Manifest Destiny", as Wilson had done.

   Today, in standard scholarly usage, Manifest Destiny describes a past
   era in American history, particularly the 1840s. However, the term is
   sometimes used by the political left and by critics of U.S. foreign
   policy to characterize interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere.
   In this usage, Manifest Destiny is interpreted as the underlying cause
   (or the beginning) of what is perceived as "American imperialism".

Modern day groups

   The Unionest Party was a provincial political party in Saskatchewan in
   1980 that promoted the union of the western Canadian provinces with the
   United States.

   Parti 51 was a short-lived political party in Quebec in the 1980s that
   advocated Quebec's admission to the United States as the 51st state.

   The Annexation Party of British Columbia recently came into existence
   and seeks the annexation of the Province of British Columbia as the
   51st state.

   Many groups exist on the Internet, including Guyana USA, Taiwan
   Statehood, Third Option Proponents (Philippine Statehood), USA-Taiwan
   Commonwealth Foundation, Ontario USA, Nova Scotia Statehood and
   Republic of Alberta, which all advocate annexation for their individual
   nations, territories or provinces. The most notable group that
   advocates a Canada-wide absorption into the U.S. is United North
   America, founded in 2000.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
