Manifest Destiny

IN 1845, JOHN L. O'SULLIVAN argued persuasively for the acquisition of the Oregon Territory under the right of what he termed “our Manifest Destiny.” Invoking predominant legacies of American religious providence and secular expansionism, O'Sullivan's phrase has resonated for some 150 years in the national spirit of continental expansionism and global influence. Although explicit political invocation has ebbed and waned throughout times of crisis and conflict, Manifest Destiny cannot be understood merely as a political doctrine. Rather the ideological, cultural, and social values embedded in the belief of American providence and territorial expansion comprise an important and central narrative regarding the origins, history, and purpose of America as a nation. These values, if not the doctrine itself, remain constant today, as they have throughout much of America's history.

The religious overtones of O'Sullivan's phrase are unmistakable and stand as a central theme in the American Anglo-Saxon narrative of divine providence. Drawing from colonial beliefs of America as the “New Israel” and “New Eden,” early Americans and particularly Puritans envisioned their new world as an extension of God's promise or covenant to his chosen people. As O'Sullivan himself noted, the Manifest Destiny of America lay not merely in the right to land, but rather in the entire “revelation of right” through which the “magnificent domain of time and space” becomes the domain of God's promise. Thus, the posturing of America as the “New Israel” had at its core not merely the historical break from Europe but also the theological break from the Old World and its failures and corruptions.

While many nations throughout history have had similar divine providence myths, equally important to O'Sullivan's notion of Manifest Destiny was the growing technological and industrial power of the United States in the middle of the 19th century. America's role as an emerging world power, premised upon industrial growth and the belief of America as a “stage” for the rights and liberties of man, was the secular counterpart to the religious underpinnings of Manifest Destiny. This divine imperative of Manifest Destiny was thus coupled with industrial strength and Enlightenment ideals prevalent at the time to argue for the imperative of mass land acquisition, not only from indigenous people who left the land “fallow” but also from European nations and especially Britain, which (it was argued) sought to counter the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy and the providence of American power.

In terms of continental expansion, Manifest Destiny was perhaps most visible as a political doctrine in the mid-18th century annexations of Texas, Oregon, and California. Between 1824 and 1853, approximately [Page 750]1.7 million square miles of land were appropriated or conquered from Mexico alone. Under James Polk, the Oregon Territory was usurped from British control in 1846. In the ensuing war with Mexico, ending in 1848, the United States wrested control of Texas from Mexico, as well as California north of the Rio Grande. By the middle of the century, the American continent stretched from coast to coast.

A painting titled “American Progress” or “Westward the Course of Destiny” by George A. Crofutt, 1873, features an allegorical female figure leading pioneers and railroads westward, and captures the spirit of Manifest Destiny.

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