Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War

 

NATIONALISM AIDS EXPANSION AND MANIFEST DESTINY

Nationalism, helped along by Presidents, helped the cause of expansion and Manifest Destiny become a public goal.

 “Many Americans have accepted the rhetoric of Manifest Destiny at face value, seeing their nation’s continental expansion as inevitable and altruistic, a result of the irresistible force generated by a virtuous people”
-Contemporary historian George C. Herring (180)


-Americans nationalist in 1820s to 1840s; shared a new type of country.

-Governor Aaron Brown said "...America might become the last asylum of liberty to the human family" (Weinberg 123).

-quote underlines American's nationalist feelings towards liberty.


-Expansion was influenced by nationalism; people concerned with pioneers in Texas and other territories.

-President Polk wanted to expand, believer in Jacksonianism.

-Polk: first President to publicly advocate for Manifest Destiny.

-Inaugural address: Polk stressed states, not individuals, should look to expand. which takes nationalist feelings from individuals, and puts them into everyone.

-The press made Manifest Destiny more widespread.
 
-Shows that all people, not just government, shared nationalistic feelings.

-Democrats: more land is more liberty in an agrarian sense
-used Manifest Destiny to fulfill their agenda via nationalistic sentiments. 

-Therefore, Manifest Destiny "...resulted from design, not destiny" (Herring 184).


 

 

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James K. Polk was the President responsible for making Manifest Destiny a prominent idea in American society
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A political cartoon of Polk shows him as a President hell-bent on War. In this cartoon Polk is not perceived as a bad President because it says 'Progressive Democracy'.

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