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Manifest Destiny: An Introduction

No nation ever existed without some sense of national destiny or purpose.
Manifest Destiny — a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the United States — revitalized a sense of “mission” or national destiny for Americans.

The people of the United States felt it was their mission to extend the “boundaries of freedom” to others by imparting their idealism and belief in democratic institutions to those who were capable of self-government. It excluded those people who were perceived as being incapable of self-government, such as Native American people and those of non-European origin.

But there were other forces and political agendas at work as well. As the population of the original 13 Colonies grew and the U.S. economy developed, the desire and attempts to expand into new land increased. For many colonists, land represented potential income, wealth, self-sufficiency and freedom. Expansion into the western frontiers offered opportunities for self-advancement.

To understand Manifest Destiny, it’s important to understand the United States’ need and desire to expand. The following points illustrate some of the economic, social and political pressures promoting U.S. expansion:

(1) The United States was experiencing a periodic high birth rate and increases in population due to immigration. And because agriculture provided the primary economic structure, large families to work the farms were considered an asset. The U.S. population grew from more than five millon in 1800 to more than 23 million by mid-century. Thus, there was a need to expand into new territories to accommodate this rapid growth. It’s estimated that nearly 4,000,000 Americans moved to western territories between 1820 and 1850.

(2) The United States suffered two economic depressions — one in 1818 and a second in 1839. These crises drove some people to seek their living in frontier areas.

(3) Frontier land was inexpensive or, in some cases, free.

(4) Expansion into frontier areas opened opportunities for new commerce and individual self-advancement.

(4) Land ownership was associated with wealth and tied to self-sufficiency, political power and independent “self-rule.”

(5) Maritime merchants saw an opportunity to expand and promote new commerce by building West Coast ports leading to increased trade with countries in the Pacific.

Mexico’s Dream of New Spain
While the United States put into motion a quest for its Manifest Destiny, Mexico faced quite different circumstances as a newly independent country. Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, but the country suffered terribly from the struggle. The war caused severe economic burdens and recovery was difficult. The fledgling nation’s first attempts at creating a new government included placing the country under the rule of an emperor. In 1824, the monarchy was overthrown and a constitutional republic was formed. But internal struggles between the various political factions, such as the Centralist, Federalist, Monarchist and Republican parties, drained even more of the country’s energy and resources. These political factions were not united and new struggles broke out by the different sides as each tried to secure dominant rule.

Mexico won vast northern territories with its independence from Spain. These borderlands were underpopulated, so amid its internal political struggles and economic deficits, Mexico was also challenged to colonize these territories and guard its borders. Protecting and colonizing Mexico’s northern territories proved to be nearly impossible for the staggering country:

Due to Mexico’s economic system, there were fewer opportunities for individual self-advancement in the frontier regions and people were less motivated to relocate. Colonization was pushed primarily as part of the government’s political agenda. Constant warfare with Native Americans discouraged people from settling into the areas. The national military system was unable to provide support to guard the countries vast borders.

Both the Catholic Church and Mexico’s military, the main guardians of the nation’s traditions, were unable to exercise authority in the border areas. Frontier communities were poor, for the most part, and these poverty-stricken areas could not support the complex institutions that the central government tried to put in place. The communications necessary to unify the regions were slow and unreliable.

Frontier society was more informal, democratic, self-reliant and egalitarian than the core of Mexico’s society. Thus, frontier communities were often at odds with the central government, which imposed restrictions that affected the economy of these societies.

A Go-Ahead Nation
Robert W. Johanssen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

I don’t think that the war with Mexico can be properly understood without placing it in the context of the times, especially in terms of the attitude that Americans had toward themselves and toward the world. This was a period of American Romanticism and the war was extremely important as an expression of that romantic thought.

Romanticism is often times a very elusive concept. It was, of course, a very important period in European intellectual literary history and a lot of the European ideas and expressions came to the United States. For example, Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens, two very important figures in the romantic period in England, were extremely popular in the United States. Many of the volunteers who went to fight Mexico had been nurtured on the medieval romances of Sir Walter Scott and were reminded of those tales and settings in so many ways.

Q: How would you describe American Romanticism?

American Romanticism was an off-shoot of this broader intellectual or literary outlook. It was a very optimistic attitude that emphasized feeling and emotion and sentiment as opposed to reason. It was a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment that had gone before. The universe was not a static mechanism as people during the Age of Enlightenment thought, but rather an organic entity that was constantly changing. Change was a fact of life. It was based on the idea of progress and betterment. Perfection was one of the words that represented a common romantic notion.

Q: How did 19th-century Americans express this romantic attitude?

People in the United States had a reputation that they were in awe of nothing and nothing could stand in their way. The word was boundlessness — there were no bounds, no limits to what an individual, society, and the nation itself could achieve. There was a reform spirit involved in the spirit of the age. It was a period of tremendous, exciting change.
The 1830s and ’40s were really the kind of coming of age of the United States, for the American people and their institutions. There were drastic changes in political ways, economic development, and the growth in industrial establishment in this country with technological advances that made individual lives easier than they had ever been before.
One example is the application of steam power to transportation. The United States was often times referred to as a “go-ahead nation” — a “go-ahead people” with the locomotive almost as a symbol. The railroad became a metaphor for American ingenuity and development.
In printing, the rotary press in 1846 made possible the mass production of newspapers more cheaply than ever before, enabling newspapers to produce for and circulate in the national market rather than just regional or local markets.

Some of the things that were happening bordered on the miraculous, such as the magnetic telegraph in 1844. The very thought of sending words over wires — it just couldn’t be. It was a wonder of the world, even surpassing the application of steam power to transportation on land & sea.

Q: What were the drawbacks, if any, to these remarkable changes?

In many ways, this was also an age of paradox because there were anxieties and apprehensions. An erosion of values seemed to be threatened by the changes that took place. The changes were so vast, so important, so penetrating and so much a part of people’s lives, that individuals had a hard time adjusting to them. The kind of changes that were taking place during this period of time, in turn, bred a kind of anxiety, restlessness, concern, and apprehension on the part of individuals whose lives were changing. Immigration, of course, was a very important factor that also threatened, in the minds of many Americans, that disrupted the older patterns of the social order.

Q: What did this all mean to the majority of Americans?

Americans were trying to come to terms with these changes and sought some kind of role within the changes that were taking place.

Territorial expansion was but one element in their idea of progress. Journalist John L. O’Sullivan called it “Manifest Destiny.” The phrase first appears in print in July of 1845 in the “Democratic Review” in reference to the Texas issue. O’Sullivan was trying to defend the American claim to Texas and he mentioned that the United States had a Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent with its multiplying millions.

That’s one part of an effort to try to maintain and strengthen American republicanism – to extend the boundaries of the United States was to extend the area of freedom. This was a common feeling. The model republic had certain obligations. People over and over were talking about democracy as the best form of government — that it was adapted to the happiness of mankind and was God’s plan for mankind. The kind of republican government that United States had was providentially provided since we were the favored nation of God. So, with a spirit of reform, you don’t just stand still — you bring the blessing of self-government to as broad an area as possible, extending the area of freedom.

Those notions, Manifest Destiny, for example, were all part of an idea of progress and of the responsibilities and obligations of the model republic and its citizens.

Manifest Destiny today is interpreted largely in terms of territorial expansion, that was but one of the elements, in my belief. There was a popular feeling, that Ralph Waldo Emerson gives voice to when he talks about a destiny that guides individuals, states, and nations. It was a destiny that was providential, especially with respect to the model republic of the United States.

The idea of progress, of course, was involved in this and there was a strong faith in the idea of progress on a popular level in the United States.

So, Manifest Destiny was clear and unavoidable as far as Americans were concerned. It was a destiny that led the United States not only to expand the area of freedom, but was a concept that involved progress in a whole host of different ways. The United States had a destiny to become a world leader, in industrial development, in commercial activity, even in the arts and sciences and intellectual achievements.

This is all part of this idea of boundlessness of no limits. This was a romantic notion that through an act of will, Americans could achieve this greatness for themselves and for their nation. So, Manifest Destiny was an important element that involved so much more than simply extending boundaries.

Q: But why was the United States determined to expand its boundaries as part of its quest for a Manifest Destiny?

The boundaries followed the migrations. When James K. Polk took office as president of the United States, there were about 3,500-4,000 Americans living in the Oregon country, clamoring for a reunion with the United States. There were 800 or so Americans who moved into the interior valleys of California also clamoring for reunion with the United States.
Those who moved West and peopled the Oregon country were filtering to the interior valleys of California by the mid-1840s, undoubtedly seeking economic opportunities that they felt existed in those areas. There was a lot of talk about passage to India and about Asia’s teeming millions just waiting for a commercial enterprise and so forth. Oregon and California looked westward, across the Pacific to those two markets.

But at the same time, those individuals never forgot that they were American citizens and they wanted American laws to extend over them. They wanted to be reunited with the United States. They were obsessed with this notion of being kind of a vanguard for the nation while at the same time they were improving themselves.

So, we go back to the same idea of boundlessness with no limits on what people and nations can achieve.

You can’t take the Mexican War out of this period and expect to understand it without looking at it in terms of what’s going on in the United States. You have to look at the attitudes, of romanticism as well as the threat to a republic and purity and ideology and the idea of a destiny that’s guiding individuals and nations. The Mexican War was a part of that. You can’t wrench it out of its context and expect to make any sense out of it. The Mexican War was an example of this boundlessness and reform spirit — a quest for a better place for the nation, a test of the model republic and the ability of a democracy to respond to a crisis in the way that it responded to the Mexican War.

Manifest Destiny
By Sam W. Haynes, University of Texas at Arlington

The 1840s were years of extraordinary territorial growth for the United States. During a four year period, the national domain increased by 1.2 million square miles, a gain of more than sixty percent. So rapid and dramatic was the process of territorial expansion, that it came to be seen as an inexorable process, prompting many Americans to insist that their nation had a “manifest destiny” to dominate the continent.

Yet, the expansionist agenda was never a clearly defined movement, or one that enjoyed broad, bipartisan support. Whig party leaders vigorously opposed territorial growth, and even expansionist Democrats argued about how much new land should be acquired, and by what means. Some supporters of Manifest Destiny favored rapid expansion and bold pursuit of American territorial claims, even at the risk of war with other nations. Others, no less committed to the long-term goal of an American empire, opposed to the use of force to achieve these ends, believing that contiguous land would voluntarily join the Union in order to obtain the benefits of republican rule. In an often-used metaphor of the day, these regions would ripen like fruit and fall into the lap of the United States. Thus the champions of Manifest Destiny were at best a motley collection of interest groups, motivated by a number of divergent objectives, and articulating a broad range of uniquely American concerns.
Several factors help to explain why the United States embarked upon an aggressive program of expansion during this period. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, many Americans had dismissed as fanciful the idea of a transcontinental republic, convinced that the bonds of Union would weaken as the nation grew larger. But such vast distances were quickly being conquered by technological innovations. By the 1840s, steamboats had turned America’s waterways in busy commercial thoroughfares, while a network of railroads integrated eastern markets with towns and cities on the western slope of the Appalachians. The telegraph, first used in 1844, ushered in a modern age of long distance communication. An American dominion stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific now seemed within reach.
Although the United States had no shortage of unoccupied lands, expansionists argued that the republic must continue to grow in order to survive. Echoing the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, they viewed an abundance of land as the mainstay of a prosperous republic, and warned against the concentration of political and economic power. Troubled by creeping urbanization and a rising tide of immigrants from Germany and Ireland, expansionists viewed Manifest Destiny as a means to obtain a new, long-term lease on the Jeffersonian ideal. Far from weakening the republic, they argued, territorial growth would actually serve to strengthen it, providing unlimited economic opportunities for future generations.

Expansionists were also motivated by more immediate, practical considerations. Southerners anxious to enlarge the slave empire were among the most ardent champions of the crusade for more territory. New slave states would enhance the South’s political power in Washington and, equally important, serve as an outlet for its growing slave population. For American commercial interests, expansion offered greater access to lucrative foreign markets. Washington policy-makers, anxious to compete with Great Britain for the Asia trade, had long been convinced of the strategic and commercial advantages of San Francisco and other ports on the Pacific coastline of Mexican-owned California. The disastrous Panic of 1837, which had resulted in huge surpluses and depressed prices for American farm products, also focused attention on the need to develop new foreign markets.

Most important of all, perhaps, was the growing sense of anxiety which Americans felt toward Great Britain. Americans had always been suspicious of British activities in the western hemisphere, but inevitably this fear had grown as the United States began to define its strategic and economic interests in terms that extended beyond its own borders. Great Britain’s claim to the Pacific Northwest and its close relationship with Mexico were matters of great concern to American interests, which viewed Great Britain as the United States’ only rival for control of the Pacific coastline. Fearful of being “hemmed in” by Great Britain, Democratic leaders saw Her Majesty’s government poised to block American territorial ambitions at every turn. In addition, southern slaveowners were particularly apprehensive of Great Britain, which had abolished slavery in its West Indies colonial possessions in 1833. In 1843, southern statesmen alleged, on the basis of little evidence, that Great Britain was actively engaged in a plot to abolish slavery throughout North America. These rumors provoked a frenzied outcry in the South, which called for the immediate annexation of the Texas Republic in order to secure the interests of the planter class in the cotton-growing regions of North America.

This fear of British designs, real and imagined, changed the face of Manifest Destiny, converting many advocates of gradual expansion into apostles of a new, more militant brand of imperialism. By the mid-1840s, with Great Britain rumored to be plotting with Mexico to block Washington’s efforts to annex the Texas Republic and scheming to acquire California, U.S. expansionism took on a greater sense of urgency. Elected on a pro-expansion platform in 1844, Democrat James K. Polk moved quickly to annex Texas as the twenty-eighth state. Polk also threatened to disregard long-standing British claims to Oregon, convinced that he only way to deal with “John Bull is to look him straight in the eye.” Polk’s defiant brinkmanship would ultimately lead to a compromise with Her Majesty’s government over the Oregon territory, while precipitating a war with Mexico, whose government, Polk incorrectly believed, was acting in concert with Great Britain to thwart U.S. territorial ambitions. Although Polk insisted that the United States was not waging a war of conquest, critics accused the president of manufacturing a war to seize California and New Mexico. In the months following the war, Polk also considered extending U.S. sovereignty over the Yucatan peninsula and Cuba, two regions which he believed were vulnerable to encroachments from the British. These initiatives received little support in Congress, however, and were abandoned shortly before Polk stepped down from office.

In the 1850s, having established itself as a transcontinental empire, the United States ceased to regard British activities in the western hemisphere with alarm. Preoccupied with the increasingly bitter sectional conflict over slavery, many Americans rejected Manifest Destiny. Although southern extremists would sponsor filibuster expeditions into Latin America with the objective of gaining new lands to extend the slave empire, the expansionist movement faded from the national agenda in the years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War.