American politics - Book Report/Review Example

John L. O'Sullivan (1813-1895) was the founder and editor of the 'United States Magazine and Democratic Review' and a fierce Democrat. O'Sullivan actively supported the incorporation of Texas to the United States and optimistically saw further west to California as a site for potential expansion. The annexation of Texas and the subsequent westward expansion of slavery were the major catalysts of the racial conflicts that led to Civil War. Manifest Destiny is not a coherent ideology; it is often self contradictory.

It has no single source of origin as well. The ideals of Manifest Destiny were not pursued in the same way. Commercial expansionists tried to realize them through a kind of American domination that was supposed to be grounded on a commercial empire. According to the term Manifest Destiny, the United States was obviously destined to expand its territory from the Atlantic seaboard to Pacific Ocean. While ‘manifest’ denotes something apparent, ‘Destiny’ points out the inevitable and given nature of the American endeavor.

It also denotes the expansion or the possibility of expansion of United States to the whole of the North American continent. There was a systemic necessity that stimulated the urge of United States to pursue expansionist policies. Such a systemic necessity was a product of a distinct coming together of various factors in coherence and equilibrium. Most importantly, Manifest Destiny as a concrete ideology in practice explained and justified the westward movement and spreading of the settlers into the lands of indigenous people.

Largely, the belief in the natural superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race strengthened the belief in the inevitability of Manifest Destiny. The idea of Manifest Destiny was also substantiated by other prevalent ideas such as American Exceptionalism, Romantic nationalism, Monroe Doctrine and Continentalism(Greenberg, 2005, p.72). Apparently, there was a systemic necessity that stimulated the urge of United States to pursue expansionist