Manifest Destiny Summary

In 1845, the term ‘Manifest Destiny’ was seen in a newspaper editorial on the invasion of Texas in a United States Magazine and Democratic Review. John L. O’Sullivan The writer used the Manifest Destiny to give details about what the greater part of Americans at the time thought their mission was from God and to expand to west and to pass the United States government to unenlightened people. More than a few Americans understood that God blessed the expansion of the American nation and even demanded Americans to vigorously work on it. Since they were sure of their cultural and racial superiority, they felt that their fate was to increase their rule around and enlighten the nations that were not so fortunate. The settlers confidently believed in the good worth of American people and the mission to enforce their moral which was mainly a Puritan way of life on everybody else.

One was that God was on the side of American expansionism. This notion came naturally out of the 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, was that the spread of American rule meant what other propagandists for expansion described as “extending the area of freedom.” Democratic institutions and local self-government would follow the flag if areas claimed by autocratic foreign governments were annexed to the United States. The third premise was that population growth required the outlet that territorial acquisitions would provide. Behind this notion lurked a fear that growing numbers would lead to diminished opportunity and a European-type polarization of social classes if the restless and the ambitious were not given new lands to settle and exploit (Brinkly,