Manifest Destiny 19th Century

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The goal for many countries is always to expand their land and to gain territory. That was the mindset of the Americans in the 18th and 19th century. The first affect the abundance of land had on the United States was the mindset that it was their right or destiny to own all of the land in North America. This would eventually be called Manifest Destiny. The term Manifest Destiny was coined by John O’Sullivan and meant that the United States could, and was destined to stretch their land from coast to coast. This mindset was very important to the 18th and 19th century and the aggressive push west. Although the term wasn’t made up until 1845, people still felt like they had a right and a duty to secure the land. The Americans push west led to …show more content…

With so many people moving, fighting for land, and arguing for or against slavery, the government had to make legislation to set rules for the territory. No legislation was more controversial than the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The act allowed the people in the Kansas and Nebraska territory to decide for themselves if they wanted to keep or abolish slavery in the territory. This Act also repealed the Missouri Compromise, which didn’t allow slavery in states north of Mississippi. With so many from the north and south moving into the territory, eventually it led to a mini civil war in the territory which was laying the ground work for the country’s Civil War. If the United States was smaller and easier to move around, the history of the country would be very different. The whole concept of Manifest Destiny would not exist. Without the Manifest Destiny ideology the American people may not have ever aggressively moved Native Americans off their land, fought in wars to gain territory, or had battles about slavery. However, the events in the 18th and 19th century helped set up what we know America to be …show more content…

Women have always had a huge impact on the societies and cultures throughout history. However, many times, in many different cultures, they were treated as lesser than men. Things were the same in early America. Men had the ability to vote, own property, and more while women were defined to certain roles around the house. That all changed in the mid-19th as many women had grown tired of the treatment and knew that they could contribute much more to the society other than being stuck doing household chores, cooking, and tending to the children. This convention was very important and set the stage for women’s rights movements and advances in the future. This movement was a branch off of the abolitionist movement, which was a movement to abolish slavery. Many saw the hypocrisy in two groups of people having little to no rights in the land of freedom. Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott were the leaders of the convention. There were many important issues that were discussed with over 300 people at the convention. Stanton read to those in attendance the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances. It stated that all men and women are created equal and deserve the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The main issues in this convention was that women did not have a voice in the laws they were supposed to abide to. Their problem was that the people making the

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