The History of Manifest Destiny

Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America.

There were three basic tenets to the concept:

• The special virtues 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
• An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty

Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States is destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. The philosophy drove 19th-century U.S. territorial expansion. By the time Texas was admitted to the Union as a state in December 1845, the idea that the United States must inevitably expand westward all the way to the Pacific Ocean had taken firm hold among people from different regions, classes and political persuasions.

The phrase “Manifest Destiny,” which emerged as the best-known expression of this mindset, first appeared in an editorial published in the July-August 1845 issue of The Democratic Review.

In it, the writer criticized the opposition that still lingered against the annexation of Texas, urging national unity on behalf of “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”

As the phrase also appeared in a nearly identical context in a July 1845 article in the New York Morning News, its originator is believed to be John O’Sullivan, the editor of both the Democratic Review and the Morning News at the time. That December, another Morning News article mentioned “manifest destiny” in reference to the Oregon Territory, another new frontier over which the United States was eager to assert its dominion.

Thus Manifest Destiny in the 19th Century had a special meaning for Americans at that time.

Is Not the Territory that We of the 21st Century are Destined to Inhabit all of Space Itself? Are We not one Human Race, United in Our Humanity, as One People; Notwithstanding the Fact of Our Diverse and Different Nation States, Borders and Laws; our Diverse and Different Ideological, Religious and Philosophical Beliefs; and Our Diverse and Different Ways of Regulating Human Society, Relations and Commerce ?

Shall We Not Resolve To and Solve Our Differences and Conflicts, Preserve the Beautiful Natural World of Our Lovely Planet Earth, and All of Earths' Diverse and Different Flora and Fauna, Binome and Biodiversity and Its Myriad Life Forms, and Cease Intraplanetary Agression; and as One People Inhabiting One Planet, Venture Out Boldly into Space Together?

Shall We Not Save and Preserve What We Have as We Expand into the Infinite?