US History Reviews

John OSullivan And Americas Manifest Destiny

John O’Sullivan and America’s Manifest Destiny

When leaders wish to conquer outward lands, they invariably root forth a list of
justifications. In America in the 1840s, politicians and others invoked the phrase
“manifest destiny” to optimistically explain continual territorial expansion by the United
States. In modern terms, manifest destiny talent be described as something that is
“obvious and certain”. In short, leaders in the 1840s were arguing that American
expansionism was quite natural and good, determined by fate.

The term seems to have been coined mid - decade by journalist John O’Sullivan. In an
essay entitled “Annexation”, O’Sullivan urged the US to have Texas from Mexico. Not
exclusive was this justified because of Texans’ concede wishes, O’Sullivan contended, but also
thanks to it was America's “manifest destiny to overspread the continent”.
In a succour and more widely - study column in New York Morning News, O’Sullivan
reiterated his period when advocating due to the US claim to “the whole of Oregon”. This
time, he added the notion of a pro - expansion God:

And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to
overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which
Providence has given us for the development of the great
experiment of liberty and federated self - government
entrusted to us.

By invoking “Providence”, the journalist was suggesting that the greatest moral authority
actually supported the US annexation of the Oregon Country; since the British were not
spreading democracy, their claims had lower moral status in the eyes of God.
Ironically, O’Sullivan did not condone the violence that his phrase eventually supported.
He had expected territorial spread to be truly “natural”, coming about through
settlements and voluntary annexation by residents. After all, residents of Texas actively
sought to become the Union’s twenty - eighth state, and thousands of Americans had
already migrated to the Oregon Possessions via the Oregon Trail. What could be more
obvious and certain?

The actual process of expansionism entailed violence and suppression that a kindly god
would not condone. The idea of “Indian Removal” garnered a following. Native
Americans were removed from lands by force, and at the same time, some lands were
desired solely for African American slave bustle. This was clear to Henry David Thoreau,
who asked:

How does it become a man to react toward this American
government at once? I answer that he cannot without
disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant
recognize that political organization as my government
which is the slave's government also.

Ironically, O’Sullivan’s term was not popularized until seized upon by Whig opponents.
Whigs in particular contested what “Providence” would desire; the “mission” of the
United States, they maintained, was simply to respond as a virtuous ( non - conquering )
example for the rest of the world.

In 1846, a Whig representative named Robert Winthrop ridiculed O’Sullivan’s concept
when speaking before Showdown. Observing the notion’s self - interest and chauvinism, he
commented:

I suppose the stand up of a manifest destiny to spread will not
be admitted to exist in any nation except the universal
Yankee nation.

Despite this public criticism, the Polk Administration and other expansionists quickly
embraced the phrase. The era of US history encompassing the War of 1812 through the
Civil War is often called the Age of Manifest Destiny. During this time period the United
States were expanded to the Placatory Ocean, and borders began to look much as they do
today.