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The phrase Manifest Destiny was first introduced into the American vocabulary in 1894 by John O’Sullivan in an article entitled “Our Manifest Destiny,” which was written to justify the annexation of Texas. He stated that opponents to Texas’s annexation were seeking to limit the power of the United States, the
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In fact, O’Sullivan cites this in his article, stating that the annexation of California was an inevitable consequence of America’s population expansion, which was not done at the prompting of the government, therefore it had to be because of America‘s inherent destiny. ” O’Sullivan then went on to further explicate his theory in an article published in the New York Morning News, Dec.
However, religion was not the only means used to justify Manifest Destiny, population expansion, considered inevitable, being another fact used to justify the ideas of Manifest Destiny.
Divine preordination was the main argument of those who supported Manifest Destiny, meaning that it was the will of God for the United States to spread westwards and over the entire continent, an argument that appealed to the basic values and ideals of a majority of the American people, since many were religious. Beginning with the exploration of fur trappers with the search for new reserves of beavers, the population slowly migrated to the West. Their tall tales and exaggerated accounts of the West glamorized the idea of moving, so that when people heard the stories, they were enticed to explore the region.
This was related to the idea of the “white man’s burden,” which was extremely pervasive at the time.
Furthermore, Mexico was considered to be a weak country, so it would have to submit to American superiority and give up the lands it possessed. Christians thought that it was their religious duty to propagate the ideals of democracy throughout the continent and convert to the so-called heathens to Christianity, so that they could be saved.
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