Manifest Destiny

Part romantic sentiment, part bombastic pretense, Manifest Destiny has historically been used to explain and rationalize American territorial expansion. Although derived from the missionary impulses first expressed in Puritan Massachusetts, and later combined with social Darwinian beliefs forged before the Spanish-American War (1898), Manifest Destiny is most closely associated with the Jacksonian era (c. 1815–45), the expansionist agenda of the James K. Polk administration (1845–49), and the territorial goals driving the Mexican War (1846–48). For Americans of that period, Manifest Destiny encapsulated the nation's masculine vigor and purpose and promised the incorporation of new land that would provide the economic independence associated with manhood in republican and agrarian ideology. As both a symptom and a cause of larger historical forces—including gender inequalities, civil turmoil, and sectional strains—Manifest Destiny influenced how Anglo-Saxon men saw themselves, their society, and their nation.

Purportedly coined by New York editor John L. O'Sullivan, the term probably originated with one of O'Sullivan's staff writers, Jane McManus Storm, between 1839 and 1845. According to proponents, Manifest Destiny was a divinely ordained means by which a “superior” and “masculine” America could bring republican institutions to “inferior” and “effeminate” neighbors. American political leaders, military men, and entrepreneurs inspired by the concept hoped that conquering neighboring lands and incorporating them into the United States would provide economic opportunity while counteracting the international ambitions of monarchies like Great Britain (which was perceived by leaders such as Polk to be gaining inordinate influence in modern-day Oregon, the American Southwest, and Latin America).

Recent scholarship, however, has moved beyond associating the rhetoric of Manifest Destiny with a nationalism conceived in terms of masculinity. Historians now view it less as a mystical philosophy of national greatness (often substituting the terms manifest design or manifest dominion) and more as a rationale for the agency and interests of white men who claimed to act on its basis. As a result, it is seen less as a vehicle of republicanism than as an ideology used by rough-andtumble fortune hunters to further their economic ambitions and sense of masculine achievement.

During and after the Mexican War, many American men—particularly those prone to violence—grounded their activities in the idea of Manifest Destiny. Inspired by Zachary Taylor, who captured the popular imagination as an archetypal man on horseback during the war, these men hoped for similar adventures in the name of national destiny. Some were led by their ambitions into filibustering (the use of private armies to conquer foreign lands). These men usually found that their actions tarnished them rather than bolstering either their own manhood or the nation's goals. Even William Walker's successful forays into Nicaragua (motivated by his desire to expand U.S. influence and to prove his manhood despite his unprepossessing physical appearance) proved abortive: He governed but briefly (1855–57) before he was executed. Such results dissuaded other men previously inclined toward filibustering.

Other men acting in the name of Manifest Destiny attempted to preserve prevailing notions of manhood and womanhood by acting against the increasingly vocal women's rights movement of the period. As suffragists began to agitate extensively for the vote in 1848, American soldiers defended what they considered traditional American male prerogatives by favorably comparing traditional Mexican women with both the weak, “unmanly” Mexican men who lost the war and the “unsexed females” back home. After they emerged victorious in the Mexican War, U.S. soldiers confirmed their belief in Manifest Destiny, their pride in American manhood, and their sense of national superiority (and some returned home with Mexican wives).

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