Manifest destiny
Manifest destiny was a phrase in the 19th-century United States that represented the belief that American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). The belief was rooted in American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism, implying the inevitable spread of the Republican form of governance. It was one of the earliest expressions of American imperialism in the United States of America.
According to historian William Earl Weeks, there were three basic tenets behind the concept:
- The inherent superiority of the American people and their institutions
- The mission of the United States to redeem and remake the West in the image of the agrarian East
- A divinely ordained destiny to succeed and fulfill this mission
Manifest Destiny remained heavily divisive in politics, causing constant conflict with regards to slavery in these new states and territories. The concept became one of several major campaign issues during the 1844 presidential election, where the Democratic Party won and the phrase "Manifest Destiny" coined within a year. The concept was used by Democrats to justify the 1846 Oregon boundary dispute and the 1845 annexation of Texas as a slave state, culminating in the 1846 Mexican–American War. In contrast, the large majority of Whigs and prominent Republicans (such as Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant) rejected the concept and campaigned against these actions. By 1843, former U.S. President John Quincy Adams, originally a major supporter of the concept underlying manifest destiny, had changed his mind and repudiated expansionism because it meant the expansion of slavery in Texas. Ulysses S. Grant served in and condemned the Mexican–American War, declaring it "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation", before commanding the Union Army to victory against the South. Historian Daniel Walker Howe summarizes that "American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity".