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Monroe declared the importance of “Manifest Destiny” in an 1823 speech before Congress, after a major victory had been negotiated by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams with Spain ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 2 February 2025. Cultural belief of 19th-century American expansionists For other uses, see Manifest Destiny (disambiguation). American Progress (1872) by John Gast is an allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west. Columbia, a personification of the United States, is shown leading ...
Manifest destiny was the belief that American settlers were destined to expand across the continent. [100] Manifest destiny was rejected by modernizers, especially the Whigs like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln who wanted to build cities and factories – not more farms. [b] Democrats strongly favored expansion, and won the key election of 1844.
The policy of Manifest Destiny would continue to be realized with the Mexican–American War of 1846, which resulted in the cession of 525,000 square miles (1,360,000 km 2) of Mexican territory to the United States, stretching up to the Pacific coast. [17] [18] The Whig Party strongly opposed this war and expansionism generally. [19]
The Whigs generally opposed Manifest Destiny and expansion, saying the nation should build up its cities. [22] Patronage – Also known as the spoils system, patronage was the policy of placing political supporters into appointed offices. Many Jacksonians held the view that rotating political appointees in and out of office was not only the ...
In Mistress of Manifest Destiny (2001), Linda S. Hudson argued that it was Storm who actually wrote the "Annexation" editorial, and thus coined the phrase "Manifest Destiny". Since many editorials in John L. O'Sullivan 's publications were unsigned, Hudson used computer-aided "textual analysis" to support her argument.
On December 2, 1845, U.S. President James Polk announced that the principle of the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced, reinterpreting it to argue that no European nation should interfere with the American western expansion ("manifest destiny"). [25] French intervention in Mexico, 1861–1867
Polk's election confirmed that Manifest Destiny had majority support in the electorate despite Whig opposition. [130] The annexation of Texas was formalized on March 1, 1845, days before Polk took office. Mexico refused to accept the annexation and the Mexican–American War broke out in 1846. Instead of demanding all of Oregon, Polk compromised.