Manifest Destiny Research Paper

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Recommended: Territorial expansion in the early 1800s

The expansion of America resulted in many different factors. The colonization and development of colonies along with the idea of manifest destiny. Manifest Destiny was a concept that heavily influenced American policy in the 1800’s. It put a lot of emphasis on rapidly expanding americas territories into the west from the east, and was very appealing to the citizens. President James Knox Polk was a strong believer that this idea was essential to maintain a successful society. From the day he was sworn in he knew, and the country knew, that he would be expanding America as large as he could whether it be by peace or by war. Many agreed with him on his take of expanding while some did not. President Lincoln agreed with expanding, …show more content…

Whether he took the correct actions or not in the Mexican war the result showed that it created a much bigger America. Manifest Destiny was a term coined by John L. O’Sullivan in 1845. He said, “justification for white settlers to take land they coveted”. (Roark 370) It was the idea that the United States was predefined by god to expand and control land throughout North America and exercise dominance over its neighbors. Americas population was increasing dramatically because of immigrants pilling in, “Our populaition has increased from three to twenty million”. (Polk 1) This was a reason James Polk argued that the expansion was necessary. President Jackson had created the Indian Removal act which sent them along the trail of tears to the west. Showing how we were in need of more land. He argued that since our population was going to be growing and keep growing there needed to be new land to house all of the people. Polk goes into detail about how we have many little societies in different parts of the country that need to be protected by the union. He talks about how we have people filling in along the rivers that flow to the pacific and how,”Jurisdiction of our laws and benefits of our …show more content…

The justification for the war was that he claimed that the Mexican Army had attacked a military unit belonging to the US within the United States borders. To give some background on the war many americans had made voyages into the upper territories of mexican providednces. Santa fe which as an disputed area claimed by Texas became a hot spot for American enterprise and eventually the war. Thousands of Americans poured into this area, mostly southerns who brought their slaves and cotton with them. In 1830 the Mexican government saw that thousands of americans were creating homes here and claiming it as their own. The begging of the problem was when Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna took over political power and main goal was to restore order in the Santa Anna area and surrounding areas. The Texans rebelled lead by William B Travis and took refuge in the Alamo. The Mexican Government sent wave after wave of men and killed all 187 rebels. Later in the town Goliad, the Mexicans found more rebells and executed them all. An American general named Sam Houston took his army and crushed the Santa Anna’s troops by surprise and the Texans had created

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