Manifest Destiny

America came slowly into imperialism, during most of the 18th and 19th century 's being occupied by internal matters, such as industrialization, the construction of the railroads, and the settlement of the West. Near the end of the 19th century political and business leaders alike began to look toward the idea of imperialism as a way to advance themselves. They did so by advocating an activist approach to world affairs, emphasizing the supposed benefits to the country’s domestic health (Norton, M.B.,2015.) The idea of imperialism created a need to increase the size of America, both the annexation of the Hawaiian islands and the United States involvement in World War One were a result of this ideology.

Throughout the course of history, nations have invested time and manpower into the colonizing and modernizing of more rural governments. Imperialism has spread across the globe, from the British East India Company to France’s occupation of Northern Africa. After their founding in 1776, the United States of America largely stayed out of this trend until The Spanish-American War of 1898. Following the war, the annexation and colonization of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines ultimately set a precedent for a foreign policy of U.S. imperialism.

The years after the Civil War were the years of great economic expansion in the history of United States. With the increase in production by industries, the demand for resources increased rapidly and because the land under the control of the United States could not fulfill this demand, the only option was to expand the territorial area. In 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia and in the same year, it annexed Midway Islands. Until 1890s, the expansion was restricted to west and did not go further the nation’s boundaries. But the decade of 1890s, the period between 1893 and1903 was a turning point in the history of United States, marked with the expansion of America for the first time outside its main land. Even though policy makers justified imperial expansion under the doctrine of manifest destiny, other causes, specifically the Depression of 1893, strategic military acquisition in order to improve US security, international competition, and the urge to control greater a part of the world in order to become the world power, actually encouraged the US to expand across its borders. This changed America’s traditional foreign policy from isolationist to interventionist that drew America into various international disputes at the risk of its own security.

The United States of America, from even before the time of it's founding, had seen far past its borders. This belief, labeled Manifest Destiny, was an explanation or justification for that expansion and westward movement. But as the sprawling country reached the western coast, growing in power and strength, its ideas on expansion shifted. The policies of the late-1800's and early 1900's were not all that different from the policies and ideas of past growth. Yet they did contain new ideas about where to go, how to carry these policies out successfully, and why expansion was justified, which can be understood in the political, economic, and geographical aspects on the expansion

Merk, Frederick. " Chapter 2Manifest Destiny." Manifest destiny and mission in American history: a reinterpretation. [1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1963. 24-60. Print.

Destiney was an expression used to spread the idea than it was America 's "destiny" to

While the US may have prided themselves in the fact that we didn’t practice imperialism or colonialism, and we weren’t an Empire country, the actions conquering land in our own country may seem to rebuff that claim. In the 19th century, the West was a synonym for the frontier, or edge of current settlement. Early on this was anything west of just about Mississippi, but beyond that is where the Indian tribes had been pushed to live, and promised land in Oklahoma after policies like Indian removal, and events like the Trail of Tears. Indian’s brief feeling of security and this promise were shattered when American’s believed it was their god given right, their Manifest Destiny, to conquer the West; they began to settle the land, and relatively quickly. And with this move, cam...

United States expansionism in the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century is both a continuation and a departure of past United States expansionism. Expansionism in the United States has occurred for many reasons. Power (from land), religion, economics, and the ideas of imperialism and manifest destiny are just a few reasons why the U.S. decided to expand time and again throughout the course of its 231 year history. Expansionism has evolved throughout the years as the inhabitants of the country have progressed both socially (the Second Great Awakening, the women's suffrage movement, the populist party and the early 19th and 20th century social reformers) and economically (factories, better farms, more jobs, etc.) Expansion changed from non-interference policies to the democratic control of the government as the United States grew in both size and population. Through the use of the documents and events during two major-expansion time periods (1776-1880) and 1880-1914), I will display both the continuation and departure trends of United States expansionism.

American expansionism in the late 19th century and early 20th century was a continuation of past expansionism, as the united states probed their cultural influence on different lands. America has not only taken the label of an expansionist country, but an robust imperialist one as well. As the United States began to acquire a colonial empire however, it became apparent that the allegedly noble social motives of Manifest Destiny and the spread of liberty merely served to justify the true secular intentions beneath imperialism: a desire for commercial gain and international power. Thus, the expansionism of the united states ultimately a pursuit of these essential self-serving needs that powered American imperialism in to new realms and catapulted the nation to a position of dominance, as they took over worldwide power.

Although America had a strong tradition of expansionism, such as Manifest Destiny toward the west, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the United States had to change the focus of their expansion as to accommodate expanding international interactions, strengthening navy, trade, negotiation, and warfare.

In 1840, many Americans believed that God was commanding them to expand, that expansion lead to a population growth which necessitated territorial expansion, and that national expansion equaled the expansion of freedom. This belief became known as Manifest Destiny. “The Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States was destined or endowed by God with the mission of expanding across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific” (Dudley, 2016). Manifest Destiny focused on the virtue of America’s people and government.

One of the largest and most wealthy countries in the world, the United States of America, has gone through many changes in its long history. From winning its independence from Great Britain to present day, America has changed dramatically and continues to change. A term first coined in the 1840s, "Manifest Destiny" helped push America into the next century and make the country part of what it is today. The ideas behind Manifest Destiny played an important role in the development of the United States by allowing the territorial expansion of the 1800s. Without the expansion of the era, America would not have most of the western part of the country it does now.

The first reason under which the United States decided to emulate the model of Imperialism was based on its ideological and religious arguments. These started with the Rationales’ beliefs that America’s ideas and institutions were superior compared with any other country in the world. For example, some Americ...

Manifest destiny is the idea that Americans had, and have, the inherent right to expand the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. As we know, this eventually happened, but it took a lot of time, money, blood, and effort in order to achieve this divine goal. We take for granted the size and span of our country, when for a good part of the 19th century, we shared the land mass with Spanish Mexico. It’s important to understand what drove us to pursue this goal, and the struggles that we encountered in obtaining, exploring, and settling the land.

Manifest Destiny! This simple phrase enraptured the United States during the late 1800’s, and came to symbolize an era of westward expansion through numerous powerful entities. The expansion can be inspected though many different contextual lenses, but if examined among the larger histories of the United States, this movement can be classified as one of the most influential developments of the post-Civil War period. While very influential to the larger part of American history, the seemingly barbaric methods that were used conquer the western lands and their peoples took physical and economical forms that proved to be a plague upon the West.