How long did manifest destiny take

All this without agency of our government, without responsibility of our people—in the natural flow of events, the spontaneous working of principles, and the adaptation of the tendencies and wants of the human race to the elemental circumstances in the midst of which they find themselves placed.

And they will have a right to independence—to self-government—to the possession of the homes conquered from the wilderness by their own labors and dangers, sufferings and sacrifices-a better and a truer right than the artificial tide of sovereignty in Mexico, a thousand miles distant, inheriting from Spain a title good only against those who have none better. Their right to independence will be the natural right of self-government belonging to any community strong enough to maintain it—distinct in position, origin and character, and free from any mutual obligations of membership of a common political body, binding it to others by the duty of loyalty and compact of public faith.

This will be their title to independence; and by this title, there can be no doubt that the population now fast streaming down upon California win both assert and maintain that independence. Whether they will then attach themselves to our Union or not, is not to be predicted with any certainty.

Unless the projected railroad across the continent to the Pacific be carried into effect, perhaps they may not; though even in that case, the day is not distant when the Empires of the Atlantic and Pacific would again flow together into one, as soon as their inland border should approach each other. But that great work, colossal as appears the plan on its first suggestion, cannot remain long unbuilt.

Calhoun was a notable Democrat who generally opposed his party on the issue, which fell out of favor by Manifest destiny was a general notion rather than a specific policy. The term combined a belief in expansionism with other popular ideas of the era, including US exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism. For example, the belief in an U. The angel Columbia was an image commonly used at the time to personify the United States.

Originating from the name of Christopher Columbus, it was originally used for the 13 colonies and remained the dominant image for the female personification of the United States until the Statue of Liberty displaced it in the s. During the era of manifest destiny, many images were produced of Columbia spreading democracy and other United States values across the western lands. The Oregon and Overland Trails were two principal routes that moved people and commerce from the east to the west in the 19th century.

Examine how establishment of the Oregon and Overland Trails enabled diverse groups to travel west. The Oregon Trail was a 2,mile, historic east-west wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between. The eastern part of the trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming.

The western half of the trail spanned most of then future states of Idaho and Oregon. The beginnings of the Oregon Trail were laid by fur trappers and traders from about to ; these early trails were only passable on foot or by horseback.

By , when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho.

Wagon trails were cleared increasingly further west, eventually reaching the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Each year, as more settlers brought wagon trains along the trail, new cutoff routes were discovered that made the route shorter and safer. Improved roads, ferries, and bridges also improved the trip. From the early to mids, and particularly through the epochal years of —, about , settlers, ranchers, farmers, miners, and businessmen and their families used the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots.

The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail from , Bozeman Trail from , and Mormon Trail from , who used many of the same trails before turning off to their separate destinations.

Use of the trail declined as the first transcontinental railroad was completed in , making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer. Today, modern highways such as Interstate 80 follow the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to service the Oregon Trail. The Overland Trail also known as the Overland Stage Line was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American west during the 19th century. While explorers and trappers had used portions of the route since the s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails through central Wyoming.

Starting from Atchison, Kansas, the trail descended into Colorado before looping back up to southern Wyoming and rejoining the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger. The stage line operated until , when completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad eliminated the need for mail service via stagecoach. Ruts on the Oregon Trail : So many wagons traveled the Oregon Trail that ruts are still visible along some sections. This photograph was taken in in Wyoming.

In the 19th century, as today, relocating and starting a new life took money. Because of the initial cost of relocation, land, and supplies, as well as months of preparing the soil, planting, and subsequent harvesting before any produce was ready for market, the original wave of western settler-invaders along the Oregon Trail in the s and s consisted of moderately prosperous, white, native-born farming families from the east. More recent immigrants also migrated west, with the largest numbers coming from Northern Europe and Canada.

Germans, Scandinavians, and Irish were among the most common. Compared with European immigrants, those from China were much less numerous, yet still significant. In addition to a significant European migration westward, several thousand African Americans migrated west following the Civil War, as much to escape the racism and violence of the Old South as to find new economic opportunities.

The latter were were known as exodusters, referencing the biblical flight from Egypt, because they fled the racism of the South, with most headed to Kansas from Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. By , over , African Americans lived west of the Mississippi River. While the motivation for private profit dominated much of the movement westward, the federal government played a supporting role in securing land and maintaining law and order.

Despite the Jeffersonian aversion to, and mistrust of, federal power, the government bore more heavily into the West than any other region, fueled by the ideas of manifest destiny. Because local governments in western frontier towns were often nonexistent or weak, westerners depended on the federal government to protect them and their rights.

The federal government established a sequence of actions related to control over western lands. First, it sent surveyors and explorers to map and document the land and ultimately acquire western territory from other nations or American Indian tribes by treaty or force. Next, it ordered federal troops to clear out and subdue any resistance from American Indians.

It subsidized the construction of railroad lines to facilitate westward migration, and finally, it established bureaucracies to manage the land such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Land Office, US Geological Survey, and Forest Service. By the end of the 19th century, the federal government had amassed great size, power, and influence in national affairs.

Transportation was a key issue in westward expansion. The Army especially the Army Corps of Engineers was given full responsibility for facilitating navigation on the rivers. The steamboat, first used on the Ohio River in , made inexpensive travel using the river systems possible. The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and their tributaries were especially used for this purpose.

Army expeditions up the Missouri River from to allowed engineers to improve the technology. During this period, Colonel Henry Atkinson developed keelboats with hand-powered paddle wheels. In addition to river travel, the Oregon and Overland Trails allowed for increased travel and migration to the West. The completion of the first transcontinental railroad in dramatically changed the pace of travel in the country, as people were able to complete in a week a route that had previously taken months.

The rigors of life in the West presented many challenges and difficulties to homesteaders. The land was dry and barren, and homesteaders lost crops to hail, droughts, insect swarms, and other challenges. There were few materials with which to build, and early homes were made of mud, which did not stand up to the elements. Money was a constant concern, as the cost of railroad freight was exorbitant, and banks were unforgiving of bad harvests.

For women, life was especially difficult; farm wives worked at least 11 hours a day on chores and had limited access to doctors or midwives. Still, many women were more independent than their eastern counterparts and worked in partnership with their husbands.

As the railroad expanded and better farm equipment became available, by the s, large farms began to succeed through economies of scale. Yet small farms still struggled to stay afloat, leading to rising discontent among the farmers, who worked so hard for so little success. Although homestead farming was the primary goal of most western settlers in the latter half of the 19th century, a small minority sought to make their fortunes quickly through other means.

Specifically, gold and subsequently silver and copper prospecting attracted thousands of miners looking to get rich quickly before returning East. In addition, ranchers capitalized on newly available railroad lines to move longhorn steers that populated southern and western Texas. This meat was highly sought after in eastern markets, and the demand created not only wealthy ranchers but an era of cowboys and cattle drives that in many ways defines how we think of the West today.

Although neither miners nor ranchers intended to remain permanently in the West, many individuals from both groups ultimately stayed and settled there. The American West became notorious for its hard mining towns. Deadwood, South Dakota, in the Black Hills, was an archetypal late gold town founded in Although the town was far from any railroad, 20, people lived there as of Tombstone, Arizona was a notorious mining town that flourished longer than most, from to Silver was discovered there in , and by the town had a population of over 10, Read the two arguments in response to the question, paying close attention to the supporting evidence and reasoning used for each.

Then, complete the comparison questions that follow. Note that the arguments in this essay are not the personal views of the scholars but are illustrative of larger historical debates. In , New York editor John L. In so doing, the Irish American editor pointed to God, to history, to geography, to race, to demographics, and to economics as being the sources for the impulse for the United States to expand into new territories. And he was right. Although American expansionism had many negative consequences, the positive good that resulted far outweighed the costs of the United States not taking the western half of the continent.

Manifest Destiny was the idea that the United States had a clear national purpose to spread across the continent of North America, carrying the ideas of liberty, equality, and democracy into new territory that would provide homes and livelihoods for its rapidly growing population. One important factor was religion; Americans were Christians and believed that God had a plan for their nation, a belief underscored by the Second Great Awakening that swept so much of the country.

They saw taking new lands as their God-given right and often quoted scripture to support such notions, comparing themselves with the Hebrews who had taken the Promised Land in the Old Testament. Another factor in the push for expansion was history. Americans pointed back to their ancestors and to the Founders for inspiration. They constructed a narrative of the past that traced expansion back to the colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth—some went even further back, pointing to European events.

In so doing, they saw themselves as part of the inevitable march of history. This included the triumph of the American Revolution, which secured liberty and equality and established a democratic republic. Their forefathers had fought for powerful truths and principles and the new generation had to spread those ideas. Americans saw themselves as young and growing and that growth meant territorial expansion.

Belief is something difficult to prove to those who do not have faith, but many Americans had—and continue to have—a firm view that God has chosen the United States for a divine purpose in history. Without the United States and its stand for liberty, equality, and democracy—however flawed those ideas have been in their application at different times—those sacred principles might very well have disappeared on a global scale. Geography was another piece of the national destiny. Americans dreamed of a continental republic that stretched from sea to shining sea.

Of course, the nation transcended geography: it was more than just the rivers, plains, lakes, valleys, and mountains. But the land was the space in which the nation lived. European powers like Spain and France had to be kept out of North America to protect that space and allow the nation to develop. The national destiny was the fate and purpose of the white race, which most white Americans saw as being superior.

Darker-skinned people were obstacles to the national purpose and had to be conquered and controlled as well as cared for by white Americans. Later critics have rightly noted the terrible cost to nonwhites of American expansion, especially American Indians, but also Hispanics.

But those critiques ignore other possibilities. Conestoga wagons, with their distinctive curved floors and canvas covers arched Live TV.

This Day In History. History Vault. Louisiana Purchase Thanks to a high birth rate and brisk immigration, the U. The Coining of 'Manifest Destiny' By the time Texas was admitted to the Union as a state in December , 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.

Recommended for you. Manifest Destiny. Louisiana Purchase. Migrants Travel West on the Oregon Trail. Cowboys The cowboy played an important role during the era of U. Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase of brought into the United States about , square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a roughly 2,mile route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, which was used by hundreds of thousands of American pioneers in the mids to emigrate west.