Assignment Submission Form - Individual

Assignment

Student Name:

Canovai Ludovico

Student ID
Number:

HSF15001

Programme
Title:

World History

Assessment
Title:

The Origins of Manifest Destiny

Lecturer(s):

Santosh Abraham

Date
Submitted:

2/04/2015

Signed

Date:

The Origins of Manifest Destiny

In the early 1800s, the population of the United States was spilling over the
boundaries of what had been the original 13 colonies. As citizens began to look
westward for new lands upon which to settle, expansion fever gripped the nation.
Soon, people began calling for government action. Referring to this movement as
Manifest Destiny, journalist John O'Sullivan 1 coined a phrase that became a
rallying cry for those who believed that westward expansion was a duty
bestowed up on them by God2. The virtue, mission, and destiny embodied in this
cry inspired the U.S. government to go into battle with the Native Americans and
with the newly independent and struggling Mexico. Emerging victorious from
both of these conflicts, the United States expanded its borders from the Atlantic
seaboard to the Pacific Coast. Historian William E. Weeks noted that three key
themes were usually touched upon by advocates of Manifest Destiny:
- The virtue of the American people and their institutions;
- The mission to spread these institutions, thereby redeeming and remaking the
world under the influence of the image of the United States;
- The destiny under God to do this work.
The origin of the first theme, later known as American Exceptionalism, was often
traced to America's Puritan heritage, in particular John Winthrop's famous "City
upon a Hill" sermon of 1630, in which he called for the establishment of a
virtuous community that would be a shining example to the Old World. In his
influential 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, Thomas Paine echoed this notion,
arguing that the American Revolution provided an opportunity to create a new,
better society:

1Robert D. Sampson, John O Sullivan and his Times, Ohio, Kent State University
Press, 2003, page 209
2Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The idea of Americas Millennial Role,
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1968, 91
2

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the
present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a
new world is at hand..."
But the expansion of thirteen colonies into a continental empire is less than a
century was a result of a great deal of luck; ceaseless labour; brutal, racially
based warfare against Indians and Mexicans; and an extremely potent ideology
known as natural and predetermined. Unlike most other works on Manifest
Destiny and western expansion, this paper emphasizes the social and cultural
roots of the aggressive expansionism of the 1840s.
I will show during the paper how a loud expression of that desire was heard
during Polk administration (1840s). It was accompanied by unprecedented
growth in the territorial possessions of the nation. In those years the annexation
of Texas was completed, the Oregon up to the 40th parallel was acquired, and
the vast Mexican cession was obtain. When Polk entered the national domain had
not been enlarged in a quarter century; its area had remained fixed at 1,788,000
squares miles. During Pol's term it was increased by 1,204,000 square miles.
Those years were the era of the surge to the Pacific. The relationship between
the agitation for expansion and this surge is one of the subjects of this study. The
rapid economic and social transformations in the 1830s and 1840s helped propel
Manifest Destiny to the forefront of political debate, turning a vague sense
Americas mission into a politically call to arms. The beginning of industrialization
in the Northeast, the rise of evangelical religion, increased immigration from
Europe, the hardening of class divisions and decreased mobility for workingmen,
and the beginnings of the womans rights movement created an ideal
environment for the flourishing of an ideology based on the supposed racial and
gender superiority of white, America-born men.
Today, America's role as a superpower embodies many of these same elements
of Manifest Destiny, included the desire to encourage the establishment of
democratic governments around the world. John O' Sullivan and other nineteenth
century expansionism might not recognize much of their world modern-day
America. They might, however, recognize the fruits of the labour and dreams to
fulfill the Manifest Destiny of the United States. The ideas of American
exceptionalism continue to live on. The ideological origins of Manifest Destiny,
from the Puritan idea of the "city upon a hill", to the astounding victory over the
British in the revolution, to the genius of the Constitution, still inspire admires in
the United States and around the globe. As long as many Americans continue to
2

believe that United States is uniquely situated to lead the rest of the world,
Manifest Destiny will remain more than just a historical fact.
To sum in the first part, I will analyse the religion problem in Europe, in particular
the protestant reformation. In this part I will examine Calvinism to better
understand the Puritan movement and the American origin of the Manifest
Destiny. My purpose is to explore how the origin of this concept, an idea of
providential and historical choice was born, and finally why it has been invoked
over the years especially in the XIX century. I trace the roots of Manifest Destiny
from the British settlement of North America and the rise of Puritanism until the
beginning of the XIX century with the efforts to make the world safe for
democracy (Wilson idea). The result is a remarkable and necessary book about
how faith in divinely ordained expansionism has marked the course of American
history.

EUROPE
1. Historical period introduction
The Reformation, pioneered by men like Luther, and then John Calvin and
Zwingli, caused the formation of a new religious movement in Western Europe
called Protestantism. Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation in 1517
with the publication of his 95 theses. This movement wanted to reform the
theology and the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The revolutionary
ideas of the young theologians were not only a turning point at religious level but
in also at a social level. This phenomenon began in Germany and later it also
spread rapidly to some other European countries. In the end it arrived in the New
Continent.
For more than a century Protestants criticised the corruption and indifference in
the church, its secular business interests, its arrogance due to power and greed 3.
The Protestant voices filled the air against the private motivations and turpitude ,
the decline of loyalty to venerable institutions, and the slackening of its morality
3 Gerard, Strauss 1971, Manifestation of Discontent in German on the Age on the
Reformation, Indiana University Press, London, 1971

and religious zeal. They complained about a society gone awry and a time out of
joint. The reformation began with Martin Luther challenging the teachings of the
Roman Catholic Church on various aspects.
The disputes between the two sides of the continent were not peaceful at all 4. An
immediate and unfortunate effect of the Reformation was intolerance, which
expressed itself in persecution and religious wars. Instead of generating the true
spirit of Christ, that is, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, the
Reformation made thousands suffer due to their religion. This is evidenced by the
religious wars in France -which devastated the kingdom in the second half of the
sixteenth century- the Dutch Revolt (1568 - 1648) and The Thirty Years War
(1618-1648). They are also examples of how religious divisions gave way to
other factors in war. Often, these wars began for religion factors and after
became political struggles for supremacy. The Counter-Reformation of the
Catholics in the first half of the sixteenth century can be considered a reaction to
the Protestant Reformation.
Though the Reformation was religious in nature, it had far-reaching effects in all
fields. Thus it helped to shape of the modern world, along with other movements.
As the economic authority of the church decreased, it paved the way for
capitalism. New trades like money lending were no longer frowned upon by the
clergy. We mustnt forget that before Lutheranism there were already differences
between the Christianity practiced in the North and the Christianity practiced in
the Mediterranean. These groups represented two very different cultures. There
had been a double Christianity from the beginning. In the middle Ages
Christianity that came from Northern Europe was marked by feudalism. After the
thirteenth century it was represented by Italian merchants and bankers, which
soon spread all over Europe. Therefore, there was never a true fusion between
the two cultures of Christianity. With the advent of Lutheranism 5 and after the
Reformation, this division became a deep and unbridgeable rift. The
consequence of this division of the "two Europes" can still be seen today.
2. Calvinism (and Puritan)

4L., Febvre 1969, "Martin Luther", Bari.

5H., Oberman 1982, Luther:Man between God and Devil, New haven, London,
cap 7, page 209
2

Calvinism is an important branch of Protestantism that follows John Calvin 6 and

other theologians during the reformation. Calvinists broke with the Roman
Catholic Church but also with Lutherans. In particular, they broke with the latter
due to the real presence of Christ in the Supper of Lord, theories of worship, and
the use of law of God for believers. Some people think that Calvinism influences
sovereignty, the rule of sovereignty or the rule of God in all things (in salvation
but also throughout life).
The word Calvinism is sometimes used to refer to Calvinist points which are
summarized in part by these five points:
1. "Total depravity" asserts that as a consequence of the fall of man into sin,
every person is enslaved to sin. All people by their own faculties are morally
unable to choose to follow God and be saved because they are unwilling to do so
out of the necessity of their own natures.
2. "Unconditional election" asserts that God has chosen from eternity those
whom he will bring to himself not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in
those people.
3. "Particular redemption" asserts that Christ died only for the elect, not for those
God has selected for condemnation.
4. "Irresistible grace" asserts that the saving grace of God is effectively applied
to those whom he has determined to save.
5. "Perseverance of the saints" asserts that God is sovereign and his will cannot
be frustrated by humans or anything else
Although much of the work of Calvin was completed in Geneva, his publications
spread his ideas of a "correctly" reformed church to many parts of Europe.
Calvinism became the theological system of the majority in Scotland, the
Netherlands and parts of Germany. In the 16th century, the Reformation took
many supporters especially in Eastern Hungary and Transylvania. It was
influential in France, Lithuania and Poland. Calvinism gained some popularity in
Scandinavia, especially Sweden.
The Reformed movement had three foundational theological principles in
common with other Protestants: Sola Scriptura (Scripture is the primary authority
6R., Bainton 1978, Here I Stand: Martin Luther, Lion Publishing plc, Oxford, England,
page 168

for the Christian), Sola Fide/Gratia (justification is only by fate). All Protestant
denominations, as well as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches,
recognize human depravity, divine predestination, the need for prevenient grace,
and the mysterious interaction of divine authority and human freedom. Calvinism
places more emphasis on predestination. Calvinism has profoundly influenced
European and American cultural development. One school of thought thinks that
Calvinism sets the stage for the development of capitalism in northern Europe. In
this view, elements of Calvinism represented a revolt against the medieval
elements of usury and, implicitly, of profit in general (works by R. H. Tawney and
by Max Webber)
Puritans and other English groups transported Calvinism to North America. The
Puritans term designates the followers of Puritanism, a movement that arose in
the context of the English Calvinist Protestantism during the sixteenth century.
The purpose of this movement was, in fact, to purify the Church of England from
all forms not provided by the Holy Scriptures. It was intended thereby to cancel
the compromises with Catholicism promoted by the Reformation under Henry VIII
and Elizabeth I of England. The attempt by the Puritans to reform the Anglican
Church from the inside was stopped and their rights were severely limited in
England by laws that controlled the practice of religion. Their ideas were adopted
by congregations migrants in the Netherlands and in New England, and by
evangelical clergy in Ireland and also in Wales; Puritan theology spread in the
secular society through preaching and some parts of the education system, in
particular some colleges of the University of Cambridge. In the seventeenth
century, Puritans have adopted the Sabbath worship and they were influenced by
the concept of millennialism.
FROM EUROPE TO AMERICA
In this part of the work, I will analyse the origin of the idea of the Manifest
Destiny in American history. In particular, the American idea of providential and
historical choices, and why it has been invoked over the years
3. 1620 1820 (the origins of the USA)
-

Pilgrims

Pilgrims is a name commonly given to early settlers of the Plymouth Colony in

present-day Plymouth. The Pilgrims' leadership had fled the volatile political
environment in England for the relative calm and tolerance of 16th17th century
2

Holland in the Netherlands. The Pilgrims held similar Calvinist religious beliefs to
the Puritans but unlike many Puritans, maintained that their congregations
needed to be separated from the English state church. Concerned with losing
their cultural identity, the group later arranged with English investors to establish
a new colony in North America. The colony, established in 1620, became the
second successful English settlement (after the founding of Jamestown, Virginia,
in 1607).
The American myth was built by a generation of men who were strongly rooted
in Protestant ideas7: Calvinists and Puritans, Republicans and Humanists. They
considered themselves to be the people called" by God and they were
convinced that they had to collaborate to establish his kingdom in the world, a
kingdom of freedom, of justice, based on the timeless principles of God's Word.
They had the hope of being able to live their faith freely; they began to build a
new kind of society based on the Bible. It was a dream that they could never
realize in Europe because of the intolerance in their home nations, from which
they had fled. The Bible study was the basis of the life of these settlers and it
formulated the principles of social coexistence.
Two concepts were derived from this and would form the basis of social structure
and of faith:
- The first was the concept of "pact8". The immigrants on the new continent had
made a pact with God. Those who did not adhere to the this should be excluded
from participation in public life. Puritans inherited and reworked the Hebrew
tradition of divine election as consecrated through the covenant with God
- The second was the concept of Millenarianism. The history of humanity was
oriented towards a successful conclusion for the believers, that is, the second
coming of Christ promised in the Gospels (cf. John 13:1-4). God had promised a
time in which. He would come and he would definitively establish His kingdom on
earth. This concept inspired hope over the centuries and led to successive waves
of spiritual fervour. Millenarian theology dominated American Protestantism in
the first half of the 19th century. In the generations following 1630, religious
fervour and optimism waned for many reasons: the arrival of new immigrants,
the diffusion of deist ideas inspired by the French Revolution, and especially, the
7J.F. Jameson, E. Johnson: Wonder-working Providence of Sions Saviour in New
England (1654), New York, 1952, page 1
8 J. Cotton, Gods Promise to his Plantations, Boston, 1686, page 3
2

political crises of a growing nation. (the war of independence and consequently

economic hardship, for example).
Indeed, in 1630, an early Puritan leader named Jon Winthrop described the
Massachusetts Bay company as a city upon a hill 9. This city on a hill was to
serve as an example for all humankind, for all time. Winthrop also said the eyes
of all people are upon us. The Puritan leader believed that God blessed the
actions of the Pilgrims of the Plymounth Colony and the Puritan immigrants who
followed them to America.
Visions of the United States as a sacred space providentially selected for divine
purpose found a counterpart in the secular idea of the new nation of liberty as a
privileged stage for the exhibition of a new world order, a great experiment for
the benefit of humankind as a whole. The Old England, in their eyes, had not
broken in the end with the satanic ways of popery 10. Divine purpose would have
to be worked out elsewhere.
The Declaration of Independence centred on a denunciation tyrannical rule and
an assertion of the natural right of free individuals to form a civil society. The
question, in short, was whether vast territory could be compatible with a virtuous
republic, in the America case one that was both new and unprecedented in kind.
The president James Madison, in a stroke of genius, famously solved the whole
problem by inventing a wholly indigenous American model based on inversion.
For republics of popular sovereignty, vastness was not a problem but a blessing,
an insurance against corruption of virtue and decline. Coupled with the
Jeffersons (3rd president of America) imaginative system for contiguous
reproduction of individual states, this federal solution laid the foundations for
future expansion. Afterthe 1820s, Jacksonians would indeed take the logic on
step further and make it dynamic: popular republics positively needed to expand
to stay healthy.
A second imperial theme, a commonplace on both sides of the Atlantic in the
eighteenth century, is finally also relevant here: the idea of translation imperia.
It expressed, by this time, the agreeable double notion that civilization was
always carried forward by a single dominant power or people and that historical
succession was a matter of westward movement. The new nation was a
9 John Winthrop, A model of Christian Charity
10W. J. Gordon, The book of Leviticus (New International Commentary on the Old
Testament), Michigan, Eerdmans, 1979, page 29
2

condensation of all that was good in the hitherto most advanced and westward
of civilizations, namely, the British. The revolution (1775 - 1783), not
surprisingly, gave rise to a veritable outburst of nationalist sentiment, of a sort,
that in turn made discursive coherence possible around millenarian and
republican concepts. George Washingtons first inaugural address typified the
mixture of biblical and classical language with its call for the preservation of the
sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government.
Nothing illustratesthe moment better, however, than the many poetic odes to
the rising glory of America. The genre combined science and commerce,
empire and millennium, into a final vision of endless peace under universal
U.S. benevolence. They became independent from Britain, the most powerful
state in the world. Underlying cultural affinities, too, certainly obtained
throughout the ex-colonies. However, as a national enterprise the postrevolutionary entity was far from clear. At the political level, then, the huge
federation of states, with its potential for both growth and disintegration, had to
confront the question of identity, what the nation itself might mean and how it
might be projected. The extraordinary rapidity with which the Revolution was
monumentalized actually showed the urgency: the revolution avant-garde turned
into Founding Fathers, biblical patriarchs, Washington presiding as a near-deity,
all evoked with ritual solemnity every July 4th. The invaluable Puritan matrix
could be projected onto more recent bourgeois models of enlightenment,
generating a modern nation of process and mission.
The United States, Jefferson insisted, was indeed a chosen country, and the
particular people Providence had chosen to fulfil the historic mission were the
aforementioned farmers. No deed for intercourse with the old and tainted world
was thus envisioned- on the contrary, separation from it. In perusing the
European past and present, what he found especially egregious was the crude
and cynical game of power, the exterminating havoc as he called it.
Considering the Napoleonic upheavals of that moment, he may have been
justified. However between 1815 and 1914 it was not only the oceans and the
absence of serious continental enemies that made the extensive geopolitical
autonomy of the United States possible; it was also the British Navy and,
arguably, the very European balance of power itself. As the first people in
freedom, Americans were now escaping this crushing nightmare of history and
creating a completely new society. As Jefferson said with prophetic insight into
the future empire, one must not tolerate any blot or mixture on that surface.
There were four problems in extending the empire for liberty. There were the
2

British in the north; the Spanish possessions in the southeast and Mexico; the
French rule over New Orleans and the territories west of Mississippi; and finally
the Indians and the question of their fate.
1) French question: Jefferson resolved the French problem with startling ease.
Having approached the French with a view to buying New Orleans 11, he was
offered the whole of Louisiana, a territory stretching all the way to the northwest
Pacific.

The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the Louisiana territory (828,000
square miles12) by the United States from France in 1803. The U.S. paid sixtyeight million francs ($15,000,000 USD). Adjusting for inflation, the modern
financial equivalent spent for the Purchase of the Louisiana territory is
approximately ($236 million in 2014). Thus he managed in a single stroke to
double the size of the country for the presumed benefit of future generations of
his citizen farmers. Henceforth, the purchase would indeed become the preferred
and morally correct American way of expansion. Even when adding territory
through war, the United States would often insist on paying something.
2) With the French out of the way, one could turn to the troubled Spanish.
Nothing However seemed to induce them to part with Florida. Only in 1819,
when General Andrew Jackson had shown by undeclared warfare that the United
States would eventually take them anyway, did Spain give up and sell.

11 A. Ciancio, L espansionismo Americano, Milano, Europee edizioni, 1947, page

10
12T. Jefferson, Second Inagural Address, New York, Edwin Williams, March 4 1805,
1:174-75
2

The AdamsOns Treaty of 1819 was a treaty between the United States and
Spain in 1819 that gave Florida to the U.S. and set out a boundary between the
U.S. and New Spain (now Mexico). It settled a standing border dispute between
the two countries and was considered a triumph of American diplomacy. It came
in the midst of increasing tensions related to Spain's territorial boundaries in
North America, the United States and Great Britain in the aftermath of the
American Revolution; and also, during the Latin American Wars of Independence.
Florida had become a burden on Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or
garrisons. Madrid decided to cede the territory to the United States through the
AdamsOns Treaty in exchange for settling the boundary dispute along the
Sabine River in Spanish Texas. The treaty established the boundary of U.S.
territory and claims through the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean,
in exchange for the U.S. paying residents' claims against the Spanish
government up to a total of $5,000,000 and relinquishing the US claims behalf of
Spanish Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas, under the terms
of the Louisiana Purchase.
3)In the British case, finally, incipient conflict escalated into the vastly imprudent
but limited and indecisive War of 1812, after which both sides became wary of
confrontation and inclined to compromise. The Cotton boom that imbricated the
two economies in the coming decades would always serve as a break on any
overly-adventurous moves, at least on the part of Britain
In this way the three European problems were resolved, mostly with great
success. Security had been achievedand enormous territory added. We are
destined, as the retired Jefferson exclaimed in 1816, to be a barrier against

returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our
shoulders
4) It was unclear if the fourth and final geopolitical problem was not actually an
interior one. What was clear, on the other hand, was that the Indian were a
sizeable blot on the America surface. Little prudence and no compromise were
necessary in dealing with them. By 1818, they had been eliminated as a serious
military threat. Half of the country had then consisted of unceded Indian Land.
How that land was expropriated through trickery, legal manipulation,
intimidation, deportation, concentration camps, and murder is well know. It is an
instructive history of ethnic cleansing. They were justified because they thought
that there was a given obligation to cultivate the earth- it was natural to
improve nature- and these people manifestly could not do that: hence their title
to the land was not true legal possession. The great difficulty presumably being
that of how legally to dispossess them. They invented numerous excuses. The
Americans wanted land to exploit, not indigenous peoples to assimilate. There
remained expulsion or extermination. Otherwise, American rule always replaces,
culturally and legally, multi-coloured ranges with the stark, unequivocal scheme
of black and white: if not wholly white, then wholly black. Shades and variations,
blots, could not be recognized within the empire of liberty.
-

Revivalism

After, the decline in New England of the original sense of Puritan urgency
generated clerical jeremiads about sinful ways and the need to repent to fulfil
destiny. This caused the Revivalism. It is the Protestant ritual in which
charismatic evangelists convey "the word" of God to the masses. The essence of
the Christian Gospel doctrine consisted in salvation by faith in Christ. Protestants
call it conversion, salvation, regeneration and spiritual rebirth. This trend in
Protestantism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had a dual purpose: to
revive the spiritual fervour and to reach the masses that had moved away from
the cold formalism of the church. It was a period of spiritual revitalization that
began with a general crisis of belief and values. At that time this profound
reorientation in beliefs and values took place because the revitalization of the
individual gave new life to the average member of society. I will analyse the First
Great Awakening (1730) and the Second Awakening.
The First Awakening or The Great Awakening was a Christian revitalization
movement that swept through Protestant Europe and Britain and on to the
2

American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s 13 leaving a huge impact on American
religion. Jonathan Edward described the outbreak of revivalist fervour in his
essay in 1737 as "a surprising work of God" (A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising
Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton). This first
movement helped to unify the religious beliefs of the various colonies.
The traditionalist religious institutions were opposed to this movement of the
preachers. In fact, it generated a series of splits in the various churches because
there were some of them in favour and some against the "new" ideas. One of
these ideas was to support the separation of church and state in the new nation,
as was subsequently approved at the federal level in 1789 (I amendment and
art. VI, 3 of the Constitution). The Awakening was focused on people who were
already members of the church. It was concerned with spiritual conviction and
redemption. Furthermore, it encouraged introspection and a commitment to a
new standard of personal morality14.
Two of the greatest preachers of this movement were Jonathan Edwards and
George Whitefield. Whitefields sermons attracted up to 20 000 people. He
started out in Europe but he was more successful in America. He preached
everywhere and he visited different cities, creating ties with religious thinkers of
the time and attending sermons in many different churches. His message was of
joy and salvation. This new style of preaching and rhetoric attracted masses of
believers and changed the idea of the relationship with God. In short, by 1720
the old ideological framework had lost its cultural legitimacy and people needed
new guidance from God which they could live their lives by and follow to achieve
their goals. They needed to believe in something big again and establish new
sources of communal authority within the church and state.
These revivals destroyed the parish system and weakened its traditional
structure. Before these movements the British had tolerated small groups of
dissidents in Anglican and Puritan colonies in New England. After the First
Awakening, it became impossible to keep this dissent in check. By 1755 there
were 125 Separate churches in New England, and by 1776 there were 70
Separate Baptist churches. In the Middle and Southern colonies, the Awakening
influenced Presbyterians. From north to south a lot of Baptist and Methodist
13 Alan, Heimert 1966, Religion and the American mind: from the Great
Awakening to the revolution, 1st edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, p 27
14 Thomas, S. Kidd 2009, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical
Christianity in Colonial America, 1st edn. Yale University
2

preachers converted both whites and blacks, free and enslaved. Black people
were welcomed into active roles in congregations and even as preachers. This
also applied to women.
The success of the revolution and the consolidation of the thirteen states into a
republic based on a written constitution, seemed to confirm the optimistic
worldview that the nation had carried since its epochal birth. However, in the
1800s new fears and doubts began to mount 15. As a matter of fact, they had lost
their revolutionary fervour and commitment. There was another revival during
the early 19th century in the United States called the Second Awakening. It
began around 1790 and gained momentum by 1800. After 1820 its membership
rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations. This second awakening
introduced a new element different from the first.
The preachers had new "tools" and techniques for spreading the faith.
Furthermore under the experiment of religious liberty, Protestantism triumphed
and became the religious force in American life. In the history of humanity,
religion has often been considered as the enemy not the ally, of liberty. In
America the forces hadnt matched but even through coalitions strange and
fortuitous, at the end the victory came for the friend of liberty 16.
Between 1800 and 1835 the number of church members doubled due to the
second awakening. There were millions of new members in evangelical
denominations and this in turn led to the formation of newer denominations.
Many of these new converts believed that the Awakening heralded a new,
millenarian era. In addition, this movement also stimulated the creation of many
reform movements that wanted to remedy the evils of society before the
expected second coming of Jesus Christ 17. Each denomination tried to expand
along the borders; such as the Methodists who were very efficiently organized.
The missionaries, or rather the itinerant ministers, also known as circuit riders,
tried to find people along the distant frontiers. The circuit riders were common
people, and this helped them to establish a rapport with the frontier families they
15William, G. McLoughlin 1978, Revivals, Awakenings, and reform, 1st edn. the
university of Chicago Press, Chicago, preface
16Edwing, Scott Gaustad 1996, A Religious History of America, 1st edn. Haeper&
Row, cap 11
17Timothy, L. Smith 1957, Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism
on the Eve of the Civil War, 1th ednHarper Torchbooks, Universal Digital Library,
https://archive.org/details/revivalismandsoc012498mbp
2

hoped to convert. These denominations were based on an interpretation of man's

spiritual equality before God.
They tried to recruit members like some other preachers and people from a wide
range of classes and races. The Baptists and Methodists converted common
people, the majority of whom were women and sometimes even slaves. (There
were three female converts to every two male between 1798 to 1826) . The
Presbyterians churches such as The Cumberland Presbyterian Church recruited
fewer members due to their sparsely populated areas. Even Anglican and
Congregational enlisters did not have the same results as the Methodist circuit
riders and local Baptist preachers. The Churches of Christ, the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Christian Church (the Disciples of Christ),
Evangelical Christian Church in Canada and the Seventh-day Adventist Church
were the new denominations that grew during the Second Great Awakening. In
addition, many voluntary organizations were set up during the movement.
Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Quakers had put
aside their differences to concentrate their energies on a specific religious
assignment that focused less on the beliefs and more on behaviour. They wanted
to apply Christian teaching to the resolution of social problems. This movement
was as an organizing process

18

with religious and educational infrastructures.

They were convinced that it was necessary to convert the people and not only for
their own personal salvation. Working together to reach moral perfection of
society meant eradicating the real sin. Furthermore, the Second Great Awakening
at the social level helped develop the anti-slavery movement and women's
rights. This entire atmosphere stimulated the Civil War 19.
Protestants assumed that with their kind of preaching the word of God could be
diffused throughout the world. The period of revival and of the mass conversion
were seen as evidence of God's favour and man's obedience to His will. This
convinced them that they were indeed the chosen people of God. The basic idea
remains. With the Great Awakening they wanted to extend the idea of mission to
the colonial whole of Anglophone "America" and turn it into a place for ever
increasing abundance and fulfilment of the millenarian promise 20.

18Donald, G. Mathews 1969, The Second Great Awakening as an organizing

Process, 1780-1830: An Hypothesis, American Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 2343
19John, L. Thomas 1965, Romantic Reform in America, 1st edn. Harper & Row,
New York
2

4. 1820 1865 (Expansion within North American territory)

The American nationalism emerged forcefully after 1820 but in the form of a
diffuse disposition toward the world. The United States was a sacred secular
project, a mission of world historical significance in a designated continental
setting of no determinate limits21. During this period the westward migration
emphasizes the regional differences. In particular, slavery and different economic
priorities were the main regional difference that will lead to Civil War in 1861.
Slavery and the question of its limitation or extension threatened to undo the
crucial balance between slave and non-slave states. The Missouri Compromise of
1820 postponed open conflict, but the problem festered ominously, and
remained present when the admission of new states or annexation of territory
appeared on the political agenda. Opposing slavery did not mean that one was in
favour of a free multiracial citizenry living in republican harmony; though to their
credit some radical abolitionists did argue it. Instead, one tended to be against
mixtures as well as unfree labour. Anyways the Cotton production was not only
the engine of the southern economy but also provided the country as a whole
with vital exports at moment when the United States was integrated into the
world economy to a degree not reached again until our present days 22.
In the mid 1840s U.S. expansionism was justified with the ideology of "Manifest
Destiny". The Americans did not question their right to colonize in the vast
expanses of territory in North America, beyond their national borders,
particularly in Oregon, California, and Texas.

20Anderson, Stephanson 1996, Manifest Destiny, 1st edn. Hill and Hang, New
York, p 12
21 A. Stephanson, Destino Manifesto lespansionismo Americano e lImpero del
Bene, New York, Hill&Wangpublisher, 2005, pag. 28
22Greenberg, Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion a brief History with
Documents, Boston, Bedford/St. Matins editor, 2012, pp. 1-3

- Texas
"Oregon certainly played its role in the fulfilment of Manifest Destiny. It was in
Texas, however, that the best and worst of Manifest Destiny exposed itself,
revealing the dual nature of American Expansion. The nation that was founded
on the principle of freedom and self-determination found itself waging a war to
protect the borders of a slave state. The conflict began when American citizens
moved to Texas and, once there, insisted on retaining American rights. The
inevitable clash with Mexico led to an independent Texas that sought to enter a
sympathetic Union23".
Texas was the first province to be annexed. It was created as a buffer area
against the American when Mexico was still Spanish. Sparsely populated and
distant from the Mexican heartlands, it became a tempting target for American
cotton-driven penetration and land-speculation schemes in the late 1820s. The
Mexican government decided to bring some order into a process it could not stop
by allowing American settlement under its sovereignty. Predictably, settler
machinations soon began with the aim of renouncing that authority. Though
militarily inconclusive, the conflict led to Texan independence in 1836. The area
was thereby opened for cotton production and the reintroduction of slavery,
which Mexico had abolished in 1827. In the years after Texas was sent several
proposals regarding annexation as a member state of the United States, but they
replied negatively because technically it was an independent republic.

23 Shanes Mountjoy, Manifest Destiny Westerward Expansion, New York, Chelsea

House, 2009, page 60
2

James K. Polk made the Texas "reannexation" an issue in his presidential election
campaign. His victory was interpreted as a mandate of the region. In this way,
Texas became a member of the Union. Thereby, too, the disputed Texas border
with Mexico became an American problem.
- Oregon
In his campaign, Polk paired the reannexation claim to Texas with a call for
reoccupation of the whole Oregon territory, an equally peculiar slogan since
the United States had never occupied it in the first place. Until the early 1840s,
there were literally no more than forty Americans in the entire territory, which
covered everything on the Pacific between the forty second parallel north of San
Francisco to Alaska. The area down to the Columbia River was actually under the
control of the private Hudson Bay Company, Britains imperial agent for western
Canada. In 1818, Britain and the United States agreed to institute a policy of
joint occupancy, or more accurately an open-door policy: neither would have
exclusive rights to the territory. There were then more American in the North
West, and demands were being made within the Democratic Party for unilateral
annexation of Oregon. Washingtons actual position, however, had always been
to continue the border to the sea along the forty-ninth parallel. Several factors,
increasing migration apart, were conducive to making an issue out of Oregon.
The territory would be free from slavery and so serve to pacify the North as
regards the entry of Texas. Similarly, as the area featured some of the few
potential ports on the Pacific, it was thought of as an alluring magnet for
merchant and fishing interests in the northeast. American militancy on the
matter was partly a result of judging Britain, who was, too enmeshed in the
cotton trade to be willing to put up much of a fight .So Polk incautiously locked
himself into a position of 54 40 while secretly trying to settle for the forty-ninth
parallel. Such a compromise was eventually reached in June 1846. The United
States gave up only what was dimly imagined as some barren, icy stretches to
the north. By coming to terms with Britain, Polk could intensify his moves against
Mexico.
- Mexico
Polk wanted the Mexican territories, in particular the territories between Texas
and the Pacific as Alta California with the prized harbor of San Francisco Bay 24. He
24Shanes Mountjoy, Manifest Destiny Westerward Expansion, New York, Chelsea House,
2009, page 74

created a "casus belli" declaring that the United States had been invaded and so
war began.
The MexicanAmerican War was an armed conflict between the United States
and the Centralist Republic of Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed in the wake
of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its
territory, despite the 1836 Texas Revolution.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo specified the major consequence of the war: the
forced Mexican Cession

25

of the territories of Alta California and New Mexico to

the United States in exchange for $15 million. Mexico accepted the loss of Texas
and thereafter cited the Rio Grande as its national border. In 1853, more than
half Mexico, a million square miles, more than the Louisiana Purchase, had been
transferred to the United States.
OSullivan still saw the need for battle against the residual forces of corruption
and enemies of truth. Culturally, there was also a tendency towards the
European model, bending the new to foreign idolatry, false tastes, false
doctrines, and false principles. His conclusion was indeed that the United States
would not be led astray because it represented such a sharp break with the past.
The last order in history was a completely new and completely clean
civilization, free from ancient arrangement and so also free to choose its own
destiny. The nation, then, was bound by nothing except its founding principles,
the eternal and universal principles.
This utopia impulse was unthinkingly coupled in OSullivan, as in so many other
Jacksonians, with one speculative scheme after another, in this case wholly
25Allan Nevins, Polk: The Diary of a President, 1845-1849, London,
Longmans(Green and Co.), 1952, page 70
2

without success. The British, meanwhile, were single out as particularly nasty
exponents of the old anti-ethic of slaughter and conquest. In India and
Afghanistan, they had engaged in constant aggression, without any shadow of
excuse or apology.
In 1845, O'Sullivan wrote an essay entitled Annexation in the Democratic Review,
in which he first used the phrase manifest destiny. In this article he urged the
U.S. to annex the Republic of Texas, not only because Texas desired this, but
because it was "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by
Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions".
Overcoming Whig s opposition, Democrats annexed Texas in 1845. O'Sullivan's
first use of the phrase "manifest destiny" attracted little attention.
It is interesting to see this attitude come under pressure during the exciting but
stressful sequence of Texas-Oregon- Mexico, which offered some evidence of
both pretexts and robbery, engineered by none other than a Jacksonian
president. It was in this context, on December 27, 1845, that O'Sullivan's second
26

use of the phrase became extremely influential. In his newspaper the New York

Morning News, O'Sullivan addressed the ongoing boundary dispute with Britain.
He argued that the United States had the right to claim "the whole of Oregon"
and he proclaimed:
The right of our Manifest Destiny to overspread and to possess to whole
continent which providence has given us for the development of the great
experiment of liberty and federated self government
Once Texas had been secured. O Sullivan 27 was remarkably quick in speculating
on the virtues of conquering the whole of Mexico, laying out before the war the
parameters of what would turn into a heated debated in late 1847. However he
said that the entire Mexican vote would be substantially bellow our national
average both in purity and intelligence.
His solution was pacific penetration by commercial means, which would beget a
community of interest between us while suitably instilling in the Mexicans
confidence and respect for our institutions. Americans would gain an outlet for
their right to pursue their interestsand Mexicans would learn the ways of the
26 A. Stephanson, Destino Manifesto lespansionismo Americano e lImpero del
Bene, New York, Hill &Wangpublisher, 2005, pag. 71
27. D. Scott, The Great West in De Bows Review, June 1853, vol. xv, pp.51-53

future in good time. Racial inflection, after the world against Mexico, marked the
tone of the Review, and the narrative was framed around how constant had been
the historical advance of the America race of hardy pioneers. Thus barbarism
and the savages were said to have given way naturally to the intelligent and
peaceful settler a process that differed fundamentally and favourably from
European models of military invasion. While Americans had shown democratic
energy and enterprise in driving back the Indian, or annihilating them as a
race the Spanish conquerors of Mexico had show no such spirit of mission. The
opponent (the Mexicans) was simply incapable of acting reasonably. The only
feasible result of the war, therefore, was the annihilation of Mexico as a
Nation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the preeminent New England intellectual considered
America as a last effort of the Divine Providence on behalf of the human race a
radical beginning of a new and more advanced order of civilization or more
poetically the home of man which would stretch to the waves of the Pacific
sea
By the 1840s virtually all destinarian 28 thought entailed implicit or explicit
references to race, but the intellectuals of New England would never accept
slavery. With the westward expansion, the issue of slavery caused of the division
of the country leading it to the Civil War. Slavery was the central source of
escalating political tension in the 1850s. The Republican Party was determined to
prevent any spread of slavery, and many Southern leaders had threatened
secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election. After
Lincoln won without carrying a single Southern state, many Southern whites felt
that disunion had become their only option, because they felt as if they were
losing representation, which hampered their ability to promote pro-slavery acts
and policies. The course of the war soon allowed the victorious North to regain its
destinarian footing. There was a great deal of apocalyptic feeling in the final
battle. The United States would be born again, a mountain of holiness for the
dissemination of light and purity to all nations, as one Reverend in Philadelphia
decreed. With the end in sight, the Unionist cause could be interpreted as divine
vindication. Thus the Civil War revitalized confidence in the American mission,
now properly national and northern.
6. Conclusion
28O. B. Faulk & J. A. Stout, The Mexican War changing interpretations, Chicago,
Sage books publisher, 1973
2

The United States was born under the ideas of English Calvinism and its
prosperity grew with the success of capitalist enterprise. They have always felt
that they had been elected by God. After the success against the British tyranny,
they finally managed to expand their influence in the Pacific (after 1898).
Industrial development, victories in two world wars and their emergence as a
superpower in the second half of the last century fellowed.
A true expression of the national spirit was mission. This was present from the
beginning of Americaa history, and is present, clearly, today. It was idealistic,
self-denying, hopeful of divine favour for national aspirations, though not sure of
it. It made itself heard most authentically in times of emergency, of ordeal, of
disaster. Its language was that of dedication, dedication to the enduring values of
Americaa civilization. It was the language of Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War, on
a great battlefield of the war, at time when new meaning has been given to war
and to American democracy by the Emancipation Proclamation.
Mission was a force that fought to curb expansionism of the aggressive variety. It
did so with the measure of success at the time of the Mexico movement. Again in
the 1890's Mission fought imperialism. It held its own in the fight until war
brought an overwhelming force against it. It held the imperialists who kept
Hawaii at bay until then.
Mission appeared in the twentieth century as a national sense of responsibility
for saving democracy in Europe.
National ideals are not simple. They are complex, and sometimes combined in
mixtures as compatible as oil and water. Manifest Destiny was sometimes mixed
with a form of Mission of its own. It would be reckless to say that zealots of
Manifest Destiny in the 1840s and in the 1890s had no sense of Mission. They
battled for possession of the public mind armoured in their own coats of idealism.
They knew that in the United States a program armoured in unrelieved
materialism would lose the battle before a blow was struck or a shot fired. The
public was usually able to detect differences between varieties of idealism,
however, and to choose between them.
From the beginning programs of public welfare were identified with Mission.
Programs of political, social and economic change for the benefit of the
underprivileged were fought for throughout the nineteenth century as part of
Mission. So were religious programs in which refreshment of the soul was sought
in service to others. It reached dimensions in the United States unprecedented in
2

the history of the world. At the end of the Second War the same spirit appeared
in the Marshall Plan for rebuilding the devastated areas of the world. It has
appeared in recent programs, vast in scale, to help the peoples of undeveloped
areas.
Manifest Destiny, by contrast, seems, despite its exaltation of language,
somehow touched by a taint of selfishness, both national and individual. The
sacrifices it asked were to be from others. Territory was to be taken, and all that
was to be given in exchange was the prospect of American citizenship. Manifest
Destiny, moreover, seemed, on close examination, despite its breath-taking
sweep, to be parochial. Its postulates were that Anglo-Saxons are endowed as a
race with innate superiority, that Protestant Christianity holds the keys to
Heaven, that only republican forms of political organization are free, that the
future - even the predestined future - can be hurried along by human hands, and
that the means of hurrying it, if the end be good, need to be examined closely.
Manifest destiny and Mission differed in another respect - durability. Manifest
Destiny, in the twentieth century, vanished. Not only did it die; it remained dead
through two world wars. Mission, on the contrary, remained alive, and is as much
alive at present as it ever was. It is still the beacon lighting the way towards
political and individual freedoms - towards equality of right before the law,
equality of economic opportunity, and equality of all races and creeds. It is still,
as it always was in the past, the torch held aloft by the nation at its gate - to the
world and to itself.