How United States Justified and Achieved the Manifest Destiny - Research Paper Example

The Justification of United s to achieve Manifest Destiny How United s justified and achieved the Manifest Destiny Manifestation notion was a belief to promote the expansion and destiny of Americans in the 19th century. A settler was to move across the continent to spread their institutions and tradition and at the same moment enlighten the primitive nations. The American settlers felt superior to other nations and considered the Hispanics and Indians inferior only deserving cultivation. United States settlers valued their country and wanted the whole world to be in the image of their nation. Majority of the Americans believed that God greatly blessed them to have given them a nation with perfect growth and had to be active in its developments. Because of their cultural, political, and racial superiority, they believed their destiny was to escalate their and rules to enlighten other nations that were not exposed. The pride and superiority of possessed American settlers forced them to acquire its neighboring territories by force and compulsion leading to the Mexican War in 1840. They had the notion that God would give them land from Pacific to Atlantic Ocean. The Americans had diverse justifications of the components leading to achievement of their Manifest Destiny. The ideology of manifest destiny had many components treating an individual in various ways reflecting the pride and superiority by Americans in Mid 19th century. Justification of the idealistic vision of social excellence through God and church created separate opinions to conquer new land. The American Unified ideology was to dominate the whole world from pole to pole. The following factors and occurrences were imperative in justification of United States to achieve manifest destiny. Religious influence According to many people, Manifest Destiny depended on the notion of American having a divine Providence. They believed that America had a future controlled by God to expand its borders without any limit to country or area. All the activities involving traveling and expansion were also a factor of the Manifest Destiny. It compounded with the notion that it was Gods will for Americans to spread over the whole continent controlling and populating the country, as they required. Since many expansionists believed that God had explicit power to sustain and guide human destiny, they concentrated in conquering and Christianizing the land. The Manifest Destiny was the mass settlers move across the land in advance to replace darkness with light and ignorance with civilization. A sense of a mission The Manifest Destiny increased by the inclusion of strong Gods will in the individual’s ideology while others considered it a historical inevitability of American domination on land. It was a method of increasing and extending American liberty to the new realms by culturing North America and the Northwest from sea to sea. The expansion of the North West commenced with the American fur trappers searching for the new reserves of beaver where they discovered passages through the mountains. By performing this, they found fertile valleys of the far West as they traversed along. The exaggerated stories on the account of their visit exposed the benefits of the new area influencing the individuals with agricultural prospects to capture them. Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for America Indians because the United States bought the land rights by treaty from Indian tribes (Romero 25) The expansion was at its peak in 1840’s where Santa Fe Trail moved from independence to the Old Spanish Trail and Los Angeles (Chauncey 143). The Oxbow route started from Missouri to California. The other routes headed out on the Oregon Trail leading to the Northwest Pacific. About 5000 individuals had traveled to reach Oregon Trail to Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The longest Pioneer Trail that headed west was the Oregon Trail, which traversed more than 2,000 miles through prairie desert and the rugged land from independence. About 300,000 American settlers moved on this Trail erecting the first landmarks specified by Clark and Lewis. Despite many hardships and numerous deaths, the allure of Manifest Destiny continued to thrive among the expansionist elevating their interests to discover and conquer more. The Manifest Destiny was responsible for American growth politically and economically from the inception of the wagon in 1831 to the formation of a territorial government in 1848. The revived interest in the territorial expansion was because of the Manifest Destiny encouraging people having joint missions to settle in lands lying on their borders. There was increased desire by the settlers to establish trade with the Far East and to move westwards would quickly open up the new trade routes. The only way for the American to pursue their desire and security fear for foreign inversion was the expansion of American territories beyond its borders. White supremacy The Spirit on Manifest Destiny created positive ideology and atmosphere in the American history but also had some dark sides (Paula 60). There was the plight of the American Indians mistreated by the white settlers where a white man proved superior and had the powers and rights to destroy Indians. The positive side of the Manifest Destiny was to conquer, capture, and develop greener avenues by the Americans settlers force their domination towards the west. During the discovery and invention of the Manifest Destiny across the west, there was great destruction of tribal groups, genocide, and confinement of Indians reservations. The real dark side of the Manifest Destiny showed the white man to possess the preordained civilization and settlement for its native people. The settlement occupying the western territories had the advantages of American prospects of domination, freedom, and independence of vast lands. The previous motives coupled with the Agrarian spirit motivated them for their endeavors and signs of progress of Manifest Destiny making the Americans capture everything they wanted. With the whites, hiding under the protection and powers vested in them by the doctrines of Manifest Destiny. They easily grabbed and cultivated the lands belonging to Indians under the guise of enlightening them to fit their status (Peter 257). The extensive annihilation and movement of Native America onto Indian reservations was optimum in the late 19th century where the U.S government dismantled Indian reservations. The break up implemented under the progressive Manifest Destiny philosophy. It states that God has been preparing English-speaking and Tectonic people for thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. From the beginning of Time Manifest Destiny existed in various forms through the history of the America controlling destiny and the travel rules. Any American nationality had to embrace the doctrines of the Manifest Destiny since they were not regarded real Americans without the traits of Manifest Destiny. The philosophy to justify the territorial growth and the building of America was through the rationalization by the expansionists. The Americans used the Manifest Destiny doctrines for the various purposes such as political philosophy stressing tradition and social stability. However, some people used the Manifest Destiny as a way to explore and discover many new avenues. With the Manifestation Destiny control, the expansionist experience limited the interference of governmental institutions in private economic activities (Lappard et al 720). Americans incorporated the Manifest Destiny as a proclamation mechanism of superiority and insisted that their domination and conquest fulfilled the divine mission. The proclamation was that forces beyond human control coerced a man. The Manifest Destiny was responsible for creating American history, and its absence would have made America as the significant property surrounding its initial settlement. The movement was vital to American Independence and Expansion because of the notion and the drive by settlers to explore and conquer new lands. Even though Americans believed, that United States was divinely favored country, not all of them supported the nation of its expansion. Some people asserted that the United States instead of holding the world at ransom would have been the role model of the entire world. It the United States would have been a good example then all the neighboring countries would have gained their democratic republics. Filibustering in the south The disagreements of the extension of slavery after the Mexican-American War in 1848 increased the annexation of territories quite divisive to be official government policy. The majority of Northerners highly rejected the idea they believed be the plot by the Southern slave owners and their northern friends to expand slavery. The wealthy American expansionist promoted numerous expeditions based out of New Orleans by financing. The Manifest Destiny proved more consequential in the United States relation with Mexico in1836 with the Republic of Texas declaring independence from Mexico and joining United States. The South Carolina who approved the annexation of Texas rejected the annexation of Mexico and the mission of the Manifest Destiny (Robert 128). Continentalism The notion in the 19th century that the United States would include all the North America was termed the continentalism. The proponent of the idea was John Quincy Adams, who proposed that the entire continent of North America proved to be controlled by divine providence. They should be to be united people bearing one nation, language, profession, religious and political principles. The concerns in the United States that the European powers like the Great Britain would acquire colonies or increase their sphere of influence in North America. The interest led to the request for the expansion to avoid the capture of the expanse lands. The attempt to expel the British Empire from North America was also a perfect sign of Manifest Destiny in action. Works Cited Dáil, Paula W. Hard Living in Americas Heartland Rural Poverty in the 21st Century Midwest. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers , 2015. Print. Dodge, Robert V. Which Chosen People? Manifest Destiny Meets the Sioux: As Seen by Frank Fiske, Frontier Photographer. New York: Algora Publishing, 2013. Print. Gallagher, Charles A, and Cameron D. Lippard. Race and Racism in the United States: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2014. Print. Maguire, Peter. Law and War: International Law & American History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Print. Monte-Sano, Chauncey. Reading, Thinking, and Writing About History: Teaching Argument Writing to Diverse Learners in the Common Core Classroom, Grades 6-12. New York : Teachers College Press , 2014. Print. Romero, Robert C. Jesus for Revolutionaries: An Introduction to Race, Social Justice, and Christianity. S.l.: Christian Ethnic Studies Press, 2013. Print. Read More