Assignment Submission Form - Individual Assignment

Student Name:

Canovai Ludovico

Student ID Number:

HSF15001

Programme Title:

World History

Assessment Title:

The Origins of Manifest Destiny

Lecturer(s):

Santosh Abraham

Date Submitted:

2/04/2015

SignedDate:

The Origins of Manifest DestinyIn the early 1800s, the population of the United States was spilling over the boundaries of what had been the original 13 colonies. As citizens began to look westward for new lands upon which to settle, expansion fever gripped the nation. Soon, people began calling for government action. Referring to this movement as Manifest Destiny, journalist John O'Sullivan[footnoteRef:1] coined a phrase that became a rallying cry for those who believed that westward expansion was a duty bestowed up on them by God[footnoteRef:2]. The virtue, mission, and destiny embodied in this cry inspired the U.S. government to go into battle with the Native Americans and with the newly independent and struggling Mexico. Emerging victorious from both of these conflicts, the United States expanded its borders from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Coast. Historian William E. Weeks noted that three key themes were usually touched upon by advocates of Manifest Destiny: [1: Robert D. Sampson, John O Sullivan and his Times, Ohio, Kent State University Press, 2003, page 209] [2: Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The idea of Americas Millennial Role, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1968, 91]

- Thevirtueof the American people and their institutions;- Themissionto spread these institutions, thereby redeeming and remaking the world under the influence of the image of the United States;- Thedestinyunder God to do this work.The origin of the first theme, later known as American Exceptionalism, was often traced to America's Puritan heritage, in particular John Winthrop's famous "City upon a Hill" sermon of 1630, in which he called for the establishment of a virtuous community that would be a shining example to the Old World. In his influential 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, Thomas Paine echoed this notion, arguing that the American Revolution provided an opportunity to create a new, better society: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand..."But the expansion of thirteen colonies into a continental empire is less than a century was a result of a great deal of luck; ceaseless labour; brutal, racially based warfare against Indians and Mexicans; and an extremely potent ideology known as natural and predetermined. Unlike most other works on Manifest Destiny and western expansion, this paper emphasizes the social and cultural roots of the aggressive expansionism of the 1840s. I will show during the paper how a loud expression of that desire was heard during Polk administration (1840s). It was accompanied by unprecedented growth in the territorial possessions of the nation. In those years the annexation of Texas was completed, the Oregon up to the 40th parallel was acquired, and the vast Mexican cession was obtain. When Polk entered the national domain had not been enlarged in a quarter century; its area had remained fixed at 1,788,000 squares miles. During Pol's term it was increased by 1,204,000 square miles. Those years were the era of the surge to the Pacific. The relationship between the agitation for expansion and this surge is one of the subjects of this study. The rapid economic and social transformations in the 1830s and 1840s helped propel Manifest Destiny to the forefront of political debate, turning a vague sense Americas mission into a politically call to arms. The beginning of industrialization in the Northeast, the rise of evangelical religion, increased immigration from Europe, the hardening of class divisions and decreased mobility for workingmen, and the beginnings of the womans rights movement created an ideal environment for the flourishing of an ideology based on the supposed racial and gender superiority of white, America-born men. Today, America's role as a superpower embodies many of these same elements of Manifest Destiny, included the desire to encourage the establishment of democratic governments around the world. John O' Sullivan and other nineteenth century expansionism might not recognize much of their world modern-day America. They might, however, recognize the fruits of the labour and dreams to fulfill the Manifest Destiny of the United States. The ideas of American exceptionalism continue to live on. The ideological origins of Manifest Destiny, from the Puritan idea of the "city upon a hill", to the astounding victory over the British in the revolution, to the genius of the Constitution, still inspire admires in the United States and around the globe. As long as many Americans continue to believe that United States is uniquely situated to lead the rest of the world, Manifest Destiny will remain more than just a historical fact.To sum in the first part, I will analyse the religion problem in Europe, in particular the protestant reformation. In this part I will examine Calvinism to better understand the Puritan movement and the American origin of the Manifest Destiny. My purpose is to explore how the origin of this concept, an idea of providential and historical choice was born, and finally why it has been invoked over the years especially in the XIX century. I trace the roots of Manifest Destiny from the British settlement of North America and the rise of Puritanism until the beginning of the XIX century with the efforts to make the world safe for democracy (Wilson idea). The result is a remarkable and necessary book about how faith in divinely ordained expansionism has marked the course of American history.

EUROPE1. Historical period introductionThe Reformation, pioneered by men like Luther, and then John Calvin and Zwingli, caused the formation of a new religious movement in Western Europe called Protestantism. Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation in 1517 with the publication of his 95 theses. This movement wanted to reform the theology and the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The revolutionary ideas of the young theologians were not only a turning point at religious level but in also at a social level. This phenomenon began in Germany and later it also spread rapidly to some other European countries. In the end it arrived in the New Continent. For more than a century Protestants criticised the corruption and indifference in the church, its secular business interests, its arrogance due to power and greed[footnoteRef:3]. The Protestant voices filled the air against the private motivations and turpitude , the decline of loyalty to venerable institutions, and the slackening of its morality and religious zeal. They complained about a society gone awry and a time out of joint. The reformation began with Martin Luther challenging the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on various aspects. [3: Gerard, Strauss 1971, Manifestation of Discontent in German on the Age on the Reformation, Indiana University Press, London, 1971]

The disputes between the two sides of the continent were not peaceful at all[footnoteRef:4]. An immediate and unfortunate effect of the Reformation was intolerance, which expressed itself in persecution and religious wars. Instead of generating the true spirit of Christ, that is, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, the Reformation made thousands suffer due to their religion. This is evidenced by the religious wars in France -which devastated the kingdom in the second half of the sixteenth century- the Dutch Revolt (1568 - 1648) and The Thirty Years War (1618-1648). They are also examples of how religious divisions gave way to other factors in war. Often, these wars began for religion factors and after became political struggles for supremacy. The Counter-Reformation of the Catholics in the first half of the sixteenth century can be considered a reaction to the Protestant Reformation. [4: L., Febvre 1969, "Martin Luther", Bari.]

Though the Reformation was religious in nature, it had far-reaching effects in all fields. Thus it helped to shape of the modern world, along with other movements. As the economic authority of the church decreased, it paved the way for capitalism. New trades like money lending were no longer frowned upon by the clergy. We mustnt forget that before Lutheranism there were already differences between the Christianity practiced in the North and the Christianity practiced in the Mediterranean. These groups represented two very different cultures. There had been a double Christianity from the beginning. In the middle Ages Christianity that came from Northern Europe was marked by feudalism. After the thirteenth century it was represented by Italian merchants and bankers, which soon spread all over Europe. Therefore, there was never a true fusion between the two cultures of Christianity. With the advent of Lutheranism[footnoteRef:5] and after the Reformation, this division became a deep and unbridgeable rift. The consequence of this division of the "two Europes" can still be seen today. [5: H., Oberman 1982, Luther:Man between God and Devil, New haven, London, cap 7, page 209]

2. Calvinism (and Puritan)Calvinism is an important branch of Protestantism that follows John Calvin[footnoteRef:6] and other theologians during the reformation. Calvinists broke with the Roman Catholic Church but also with Lutherans. In particular, they broke with the latter due to the real presence of Christ in the Supper of Lord, theories of worship, and the use of law of God for believers. Some people think that Calvinism influences sovereignty, the rule of sovereignty or the rule of God in all things (in salvation but also throughout life). [6: R., Bainton 1978, Here I Stand: Martin Luther, Lion Publishing plc, Oxford, England, page 168]

The word Calvinism is sometimes used to refer to Calvinist points which are summarized in part by these five points: 1. "Total depravity" asserts that as a consequence of the fall of man into sin, every person is enslaved to sin. All people by their own faculties are morally unable to choose to follow God and be saved because they are unwilling to do so out of the necessity of their own natures. 2. "Unconditional election" asserts that God has chosen from eternity those whom he will bring to himself not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in those people. 3. "Particular redemption" asserts that Christ died only for the elect, not for those God has selected for condemnation.4. "Irresistible grace" asserts that the saving grace of God is effectively applied to those whom he has determined to save.5. "Perseverance of the saints" asserts that God is sovereign and his will cannot be frustrated by humans or anything elseAlthough much of the work of Calvin was completed in Geneva, his publications spread his ideas of a "correctly" reformed church to many parts of Europe. Calvinism became the theological system of the majority in Scotland, the Netherlands and parts of Germany. In the 16th century, the Reformation took many supporters especially in Eastern Hungary and Transylvania. It was influential in France, Lithuania and Poland. Calvinism gained some popularity in Scandinavia, especially Sweden.The Reformed movement had three foundational theological principles in common with other Protestants: Sola Scriptura (Scripture is the primary authority for the Christian), Sola Fide/Gratia (justification is only by fate). All Protestant denominations, as well as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, recognize human depravity, divine predestination, the need for prevenient grace, and the mysterious interaction of divine authority and human freedom. Calvinism places more emphasis on predestination. Calvinism has profoundly influenced European and American cultural development. One school of thought thinks that Calvinism sets the stage for the development of capitalism in northern Europe. In this view, elements of Calvinism represented a revolt against the medieval elements of usury and, implicitly, of profit in general (works by R. H. Tawney and by Max Webber)Puritans and other English groups transported Calvinism to North America. The Puritans term designates the followers of Puritanism, a movement that arose in the context of the English Calvinist Protestantism during the sixteenth century. The purpose of this movement was, in fact, to purify the Church of England from all forms not provided by the Holy Scriptures. It was intended thereby to cancel the compromises with Catholicism promoted by the Reformation under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I of England. The attempt by the Puritans to reform the Anglican Church from the inside was stopped and their rights were severely limited in England by laws that controlled the practice of religion. Their ideas were adopted by congregations migrants in the Netherlands and in New England, and by evangelical clergy in Ireland and also in Wales; Puritan theology spread in the secular society through preaching and some parts of the education system, in particular some colleges of the University of Cambridge. In the seventeenth century, Puritans have adopted the Sabbath worship and they were influenced by the concept of millennialism.FROM EUROPE TO AMERICAIn this part of the work, I will analyse the origin of the idea of the Manifest Destiny in American history. In particular, the American idea of providential and historical choices, and why it has been invoked over the years3. 1620 1820 (the origins of the USA) PilgrimsPilgrims is a name commonly given to early settlers of the Plymouth Colony in present-day Plymouth. The Pilgrims' leadership had fled the volatile political environment in England for the relative calm and tolerance of 16th17th century Holland in the Netherlands. The Pilgrims held similar Calvinist religious beliefs to the Puritans but unlike many Puritans, maintained that their congregations needed to be separated from the English state church. Concerned with losing their cultural identity, the group later arranged with English investors to establish a new colony in North America. The colony, established in 1620, became the second successful English settlement (after the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607).The American myth was built by a generation of men who were strongly rooted in Protestant ideas[footnoteRef:7]: Calvinists and Puritans, Republicans and Humanists. They considered themselves to be the people called" by God and they were convinced that they had to collaborate to establish his kingdom in the world, a kingdom of freedom, of justice, based on the timeless principles of God's Word. They had the hope of being able to live their faith freely; they began to build a new kind of society based on the Bible. It was a dream that they could never realize in Europe because of the intolerance in their home nations, from which they had fled. The Bible study was the basis of the life of these settlers and it formulated the principles of social coexistence. [7: J.F. Jameson, E. Johnson: Wonder-working Providence of Sions Saviour in New England (1654), New York, 1952, page 1]

Two concepts were derived from this and would form the basis of social structure and of faith: - The first was the concept of "pact[footnoteRef:8]". The immigrants on the new continent had made a pact with God. Those who did not adhere to the this should be excluded from participation in public life. Puritans inherited and reworked the Hebrew tradition of divine election as consecrated through the covenant with God [8: J. Cotton, Gods Promise to his Plantations, Boston, 1686, page 3]

- The second was the concept of Millenarianism. The history of humanity was oriented towards a successful conclusion for the believers, that is, the second coming of Christ promised in the Gospels (cf. John 13:1-4). God had promised a time in which. He would come and he would definitively establish His kingdom on earth. This concept inspired hope over the centuries and led to successive waves of spiritual fervour. Millenarian theology dominated American Protestantism in the first half of the 19th century. In the generations following 1630, religious fervour and optimism waned for many reasons: the arrival of new immigrants, the diffusion of deist ideas inspired by the French Revolution, and especially, the political crises of a growing nation. (the war of independence and consequently economic hardship, for example).Indeed, in 1630, an early Puritan leader named Jon Winthrop described the Massachusetts Bay company as a city upon a hill[footnoteRef:9]. This city on a hill was to serve as an example for all humankind, for all time. Winthrop also said the eyes of all people are upon us. The Puritan leader believed that God blessed the actions of the Pilgrims of the Plymounth Colony and the Puritan immigrants who followed them to America. [9: John Winthrop, A model of Christian Charity]

Visions of the United States as a sacred space providentially selected for divine purpose found a counterpart in the secular idea of the new nation of liberty as a privileged stage for the exhibition of a new world order, a great experiment for the benefit of humankind as a whole. The Old England, in their eyes, had not broken in the end with the satanic ways of popery[footnoteRef:10]. Divine purpose would have to be worked out elsewhere. [10: W. J. Gordon, The book of Leviticus (New International Commentary on the Old Testament), Michigan, Eerdmans, 1979, page 29]

The Declaration of Independence centred on a denunciation tyrannical rule and an assertion of the natural right of free individuals to form a civil society. The question, in short, was whether vast territory could be compatible with a virtuous republic, in the America case one that was both new and unprecedented in kind. The president James Madison, in a stroke of genius, famously solved the whole problem by inventing a wholly indigenous American model based on inversion. For republics of popular sovereignty, vastness was not a problem but a blessing, an insurance against corruption of virtue and decline. Coupled with the Jeffersons (3rd president of America) imaginative system for contiguous reproduction of individual states, this federal solution laid the foundations for future expansion. Afterthe 1820s, Jacksonians would indeed take the logic on step further and make it dynamic: popular republics positively needed to expand to stay healthy.A second imperial theme, a commonplace on both sides of the Atlantic in the eighteenth century, is finally also relevant here: the idea of translation imperia. It expressed, by this time, the agreeable double notion that civilization was always carried forward by a single dominant power or people and that historical succession was a matter of westward movement. The new nation was a condensation of all that was good in the hitherto most advanced and westward of civilizations, namely, the British. The revolution (1775 - 1783), not surprisingly, gave rise to a veritable outburst of nationalist sentiment, of a sort, that in turn made discursive coherence possible around millenarian and republican concepts. George Washingtons first inaugural address typified the mixture of biblical and classical language with its call for the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government. Nothing illustratesthe moment better, however, than the many poetic odes to the rising glory of America. The genre combined science and commerce, empire and millennium, into a final vision of endless peace under universal U.S. benevolence. They became independent from Britain, the most powerful state in the world. Underlying cultural affinities, too, certainly obtained throughout the ex-colonies. However, as a national enterprise the post-revolutionary entity was far from clear. At the political level, then, the huge federation of states, with its potential for both growth and disintegration, had to confront the question of identity, what the nation itself might mean and how it might be projected. The extraordinary rapidity with which the Revolution was monumentalized actually showed the urgency: the revolution avant-garde turned into Founding Fathers, biblical patriarchs, Washington presiding as a near-deity, all evoked with ritual solemnity every July 4th. The invaluable Puritan matrix could be projected onto more recent bourgeois models of enlightenment, generating a modern nation of process and mission. The United States, Jefferson insisted, was indeed a chosen country, and the particular people Providence had chosen to fulfil the historic mission were the aforementioned farmers. No deed for intercourse with the old and tainted world was thus envisioned- on the contrary, separation from it. In perusing the European past and present, what he found especially egregious was the crude and cynical game of power, the exterminating havoc as he called it. Considering the Napoleonic upheavals of that moment, he may have been justified. However between 1815 and 1914 it was not only the oceans and the absence of serious continental enemies that made the extensive geopolitical autonomy of the United States possible; it was also the British Navy and, arguably, the very European balance of power itself. As the first people in freedom, Americans were now escaping this crushing nightmare of history and creating a completely new society. As Jefferson said with prophetic insight into the future empire, one must not tolerate any blot or mixture on that surface. There were four problems in extending the empire for liberty. There were the British in the north; the Spanish possessions in the southeast and Mexico; the French rule over New Orleans and the territories west of Mississippi; and finally the Indians and the question of their fate. 1) French question: Jefferson resolved the French problem with startling ease. Having approached the French with a view to buying New Orleans[footnoteRef:11], he was offered the whole of Louisiana, a territory stretching all the way to the northwest Pacific. [11: A. Ciancio, L espansionismo Americano, Milano, Europee edizioni, 1947, page 10]

The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the Louisiana territory (828,000 square miles[footnoteRef:12]) by the United States from France in 1803. The U.S. paid sixty-eight million francs ($15,000,000 USD). Adjusting for inflation, the modern financial equivalent spent for the Purchase of the Louisiana territory is approximately ($236 million in 2014). Thus he managed in a single stroke to double the size of the country for the presumed benefit of future generations of his citizen farmers. Henceforth, the purchase would indeed become the preferred and morally correct American way of expansion. Even when adding territory through war, the United States would often insist on paying something. [12: T. Jefferson, Second Inagural Address, New York, Edwin Williams, March 4 1805, 1:174-75]

2) With the French out of the way, one could turn to the troubled Spanish. Nothing However seemed to induce them to part with Florida. Only in 1819, when General Andrew Jackson had shown by undeclared warfare that the United States would eventually take them anyway, did Spain give up and sell.

The AdamsOns Treaty of 1819 was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that gave Florida to the U.S. and set out a boundary between the U.S. and New Spain (now Mexico). It settled a standing border dispute between the two countries and was considered a triumph of American diplomacy. It came in the midst of increasing tensions related to Spain's territorial boundaries in North America, the United States and Great Britain in the aftermath of the American Revolution; and also, during the Latin American Wars of Independence. Florida had become a burden on Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons. Madrid decided to cede the territory to the United States through the AdamsOns Treaty in exchange for settling the boundary dispute along the Sabine River in Spanish Texas. The treaty established the boundary of U.S. territory and claims through the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean, in exchange for the U.S. paying residents' claims against the Spanish government up to a total of $5,000,000 and relinquishing the US claims behalf of Spanish Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas, under the terms of the Louisiana Purchase.3)In the British case, finally, incipient conflict escalated into the vastly imprudent but limited and indecisive War of 1812, after which both sides became wary of confrontation and inclined to compromise. The Cotton boom that imbricated the two economies in the coming decades would always serve as a break on any overly-adventurous moves, at least on the part of BritainIn this way the three European problems were resolved, mostly with great success. Security had been achievedand enormous territory added. We are destined, as the retired Jefferson exclaimed in 1816, to be a barrier against returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders4) It was unclear if the fourth and final geopolitical problem was not actually an interior one. What was clear, on the other hand, was that the Indian were a sizeable blot on the America surface. Little prudence and no compromise were necessary in dealing with them. By 1818, they had been eliminated as a serious military threat. Half of the country had then consisted of unceded Indian Land. How that land was expropriated through trickery, legal manipulation, intimidation, deportation, concentration camps, and murder is well know. It is an instructive history of ethnic cleansing. They were justified because they thought that there was a given obligation to cultivate the earth- it was natural to improve nature- and these people manifestly could not do that: hence their title to the land was not true legal possession. The great difficulty presumably being that of how legally to dispossess them. They invented numerous excuses. The Americans wanted land to exploit, not indigenous peoples to assimilate. There remained expulsion or extermination. Otherwise, American rule always replaces, culturally and legally, multi-coloured ranges with the stark, unequivocal scheme of black and white: if not wholly white, then wholly black. Shades and variations, blots, could not be recognized within the empire of liberty. RevivalismAfter, the decline in New England of the original sense of Puritan urgency generated clerical jeremiads about sinful ways and the need to repent to fulfil destiny. This caused the Revivalism. It is the Protestant ritual in which charismatic evangelists convey "the word" of God to the masses. The essence of the Christian Gospel doctrine consisted in salvation by faith in Christ. Protestants call it conversion, salvation, regeneration and spiritual rebirth. This trend in Protestantism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had a dual purpose: to revive the spiritual fervour and to reach the masses that had moved away from the cold formalism of the church. It was a period of spiritual revitalization that began with a general crisis of belief and values. At that time this profound reorientation in beliefs and values took place because the revitalization of the individual gave new life to the average member of society. I will analyse the First Great Awakening (1730) and the Second Awakening.The First Awakening or The Great Awakening was a Christian revitalization movement that swept through Protestant Europe and Britain and on to the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s[footnoteRef:13] leaving a huge impact on American religion. Jonathan Edward described the outbreak of revivalist fervour in his essay in 1737 as "a surprising work of God" (A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton). This first movement helped to unify the religious beliefs of the various colonies. [13: Alan, Heimert 1966, Religion and the American mind: from the Great Awakening to the revolution, 1st edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, p 27]

The traditionalist religious institutions were opposed to this movement of the preachers. In fact, it generated a series of splits in the various churches because there were some of them in favour and some against the "new" ideas. One of these ideas was to support the separation of church and state in the new nation, as was subsequently approved at the federal level in 1789 (I amendment and art. VI, 3 of the Constitution). The Awakening was focused on people who were already members of the church. It was concerned with spiritual conviction and redemption. Furthermore, it encouraged introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality[footnoteRef:14]. [14: Thomas, S. Kidd 2009, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America, 1st edn. Yale University]

Two of the greatest preachers of this movement were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Whitefields sermons attracted up to 20 000 people. He started out in Europe but he was more successful in America. He preached everywhere and he visited different cities, creating ties with religious thinkers of the time and attending sermons in many different churches. His message was of joy and salvation. This new style of preaching and rhetoric attracted masses of believers and changed the idea of the relationship with God. In short, by 1720 the old ideological framework had lost its cultural legitimacy and people needed new guidance from God which they could live their lives by and follow to achieve their goals. They needed to believe in something big again and establish new sources of communal authority within the church and state.These revivals destroyed the parish system and weakened its traditional structure. Before these movements the British had tolerated small groups of dissidents in Anglican and Puritan colonies in New England. After the First Awakening, it became impossible to keep this dissent in check. By 1755 there were 125 Separate churches in New England, and by 1776 there were 70 Separate Baptist churches. In the Middle and Southern colonies, the Awakening influenced Presbyterians. From north to south a lot of Baptist and Methodist preachers converted both whites and blacks, free and enslaved. Black people were welcomed into active roles in congregations and even as preachers. This also applied to women.The success of the revolution and the consolidation of the thirteen states into a republic based on a written constitution, seemed to confirm the optimistic worldview that the nation had carried since its epochal birth. However, in the 1800s new fears and doubts began to mount[footnoteRef:15]. As a matter of fact, they had lost their revolutionary fervour and commitment. There was another revival during the early 19th century in the United States called the Second Awakening. It began around 1790 and gained momentum by 1800. After 1820 its membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations. This second awakening introduced a new element different from the first. [15: William, G. McLoughlin 1978, Revivals, Awakenings, and reform, 1st edn. the university of Chicago Press, Chicago, preface]

The preachers had new "tools" and techniques for spreading the faith. Furthermore under the experiment of religious liberty, Protestantism triumphed and became the religious force in American life. In the history of humanity, religion has often been considered as the enemy not the ally, of liberty. In America the forces hadnt matched but even through coalitions strange and fortuitous, at the end the victory came for the friend of liberty[footnoteRef:16]. [16: Edwing, Scott Gaustad 1996, A Religious History of America, 1st edn. Haeper& Row, cap 11]

Between 1800 and 1835 the number of church members doubled due to the second awakening. There were millions of new members in evangelical denominations and this in turn led to the formation of newer denominations. Many of these new converts believed that the Awakening heralded a new, millenarian era. In addition, this movement also stimulated the creation of many reform movements that wanted to remedy the evils of society before the expected second coming of Jesus Christ[footnoteRef:17]. Each denomination tried to expand along the borders; such as the Methodists who were very efficiently organized. The missionaries, or rather the itinerant ministers, also known as circuit riders, tried to find people along the distant frontiers. The circuit riders were common people, and this helped them to establish a rapport with the frontier families they hoped to convert. These denominations were based on an interpretation of man's spiritual equality before God. [17: Timothy, L. Smith 1957, Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War, 1th ednHarper Torchbooks, Universal Digital Library, https://archive.org/details/revivalismandsoc012498mbp]

They tried to recruit members like some other preachers and people from a wide range of classes and races. The Baptists and Methodists converted common people, the majority of whom were women and sometimes even slaves. (There were three female converts to every two male between 1798 to 1826) . The Presbyterians churches such as The Cumberland Presbyterian Church recruited fewer members due to their sparsely populated areas. Even Anglican and Congregational enlisters did not have the same results as the Methodist circuit riders and local Baptist preachers. The Churches of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Christian Church (the Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Christian Church in Canada and the Seventh-day Adventist Church were the new denominations that grew during the Second Great Awakening. In addition, many voluntary organizations were set up during the movement. Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Quakers had put aside their differences to concentrate their energies on a specific religious assignment that focused less on the beliefs and more on behaviour. They wanted to apply Christian teaching to the resolution of social problems. This movement was as an organizing process [footnoteRef:18]with religious and educational infrastructures. They were convinced that it was necessary to convert the people and not only for their own personal salvation. Working together to reach moral perfection of society meant eradicating the real sin. Furthermore, the Second Great Awakening at the social level helped develop the anti-slavery movement and women's rights. This entire atmosphere stimulated the Civil War[footnoteRef:19]. [18: Donald, G. Mathews 1969, The Second Great Awakening as an organizing Process, 1780-1830: An Hypothesis, American Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 23-43] [19: John, L. Thomas 1965, Romantic Reform in America, 1st edn. Harper & Row, New York]

Protestants assumed that with their kind of preaching the word of God could be diffused throughout the world. The period of revival and of the mass conversion were seen as evidence of God's favour and man's obedience to His will. This convinced them that they were indeed the chosen people of God. The basic idea remains. With the Great Awakening they wanted to extend the idea of mission to the colonial whole of Anglophone "America" and turn it into a place for ever increasing abundance and fulfilment of the millenarian promise[footnoteRef:20]. [20: Anderson, Stephanson 1996, Manifest Destiny, 1st edn. Hill and Hang, New York, p 12]

4. 1820 1865 (Expansion within North American territory)The American nationalism emerged forcefully after 1820 but in the form of a diffuse disposition toward the world. The United States was a sacred secular project, a mission of world historical significance in a designated continental setting of no determinate limits[footnoteRef:21]. During this period the westward migration emphasizes the regional differences. In particular, slavery and different economic priorities were the main regional difference that will lead to Civil War in 1861. Slavery and the question of its limitation or extension threatened to undo the crucial balance between slave and non-slave states. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 postponed open conflict, but the problem festered ominously, and remained present when the admission of new states or annexation of territory appeared on the political agenda. Opposing slavery did not mean that one was in favour of a free multiracial citizenry living in republican harmony; though to their credit some radical abolitionists did argue it. Instead, one tended to be against mixtures as well as unfree labour. Anyways the Cotton production was not only the engine of the southern economy but also provided the country as a whole with vital exports at moment when the United States was integrated into the world economy to a degree not reached again until our present days[footnoteRef:22]. [21: A. Stephanson, Destino Manifesto lespansionismo Americano e lImpero del Bene, New York, Hill&Wangpublisher, 2005, pag. 28] [22: Greenberg, Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion a brief History with Documents, Boston, Bedford/St. Matins editor, 2012, pp. 1-3]

In the mid 1840s U.S. expansionism was justified with the ideology of "Manifest Destiny". The Americans did not question their right to colonize in the vast expanses of territory in North America, beyond their national borders, particularly in Oregon, California, and Texas.

- Texas"Oregon certainly played its role in the fulfilment of Manifest Destiny. It was in Texas, however, that the best and worst of Manifest Destiny exposed itself, revealing the dual nature of American Expansion. The nation that was founded on the principle of freedom and self-determination found itself waging a war to protect the borders of a slave state. The conflict began when American citizens moved to Texas and, once there, insisted on retaining American rights. The inevitable clash with Mexico led to an independent Texas that sought to enter a sympathetic Union[footnoteRef:23]". [23: Shanes Mountjoy, Manifest Destiny Westerward Expansion, New York, Chelsea House, 2009, page 60]

Texas was the first province to be annexed. It was created as a buffer area against the American when Mexico was still Spanish. Sparsely populated and distant from the Mexican heartlands, it became a tempting target for American cotton-driven penetration and land-speculation schemes in the late 1820s. The Mexican government decided to bring some order into a process it could not stop by allowing American settlement under its sovereignty. Predictably, settler machinations soon began with the aim of renouncing that authority. Though militarily inconclusive, the conflict led to Texan independence in 1836. The area was thereby opened for cotton production and the reintroduction of slavery, which Mexico had abolished in 1827. In the years after Texas was sent several proposals regarding annexation as a member state of the United States, but they replied negatively because technically it was an independent republic. James K. Polk made the Texas "reannexation" an issue in his presidential election campaign. His victory was interpreted as a mandate of the region. In this way, Texas became a member of the Union. Thereby, too, the disputed Texas border with Mexico became an American problem.- Oregon In his campaign, Polk paired the reannexation claim to Texas with a call for reoccupation of the whole Oregon territory, an equally peculiar slogan since the United States had never occupied it in the first place. Until the early 1840s, there were literally no more than forty Americans in the entire territory, which covered everything on the Pacific between the forty second parallel north of San Francisco to Alaska. The area down to the Columbia River was actually under the control of the private Hudson Bay Company, Britains imperial agent for western Canada. In 1818, Britain and the United States agreed to institute a policy of joint occupancy, or more accurately an open-door policy: neither would have exclusive rights to the territory. There were then more American in the North West, and demands were being made within the Democratic Party for unilateral annexation of Oregon. Washingtons actual position, however, had always been to continue the border to the sea along the forty-ninth parallel. Several factors, increasing migration apart, were conducive to making an issue out of Oregon. The territory would be free from slavery and so serve to pacify the North as regards the entry of Texas. Similarly, as the area featured some of the few potential ports on the Pacific, it was thought of as an alluring magnet for merchant and fishing interests in the northeast. American militancy on the matter was partly a result of judging Britain, who was, too enmeshed in the cotton trade to be willing to put up much of a fight .So Polk incautiously locked himself into a position of 54 40 while secretly trying to settle for the forty-ninth parallel. Such a compromise was eventually reached in June 1846. The United States gave up only what was dimly imagined as some barren, icy stretches to the north. By coming to terms with Britain, Polk could intensify his moves against Mexico.- MexicoPolk wanted the Mexican territories, in particular the territories between Texas and the Pacific as Alta California with the prized harbor of San Francisco Bay[footnoteRef:24]. He created a "casus belli" declaring that the United States had been invaded and so war began. [24: Shanes Mountjoy, Manifest Destiny Westerward Expansion, New York, Chelsea House, 2009, page 74]

The MexicanAmerican War was an armed conflict between the United States and the Centralist Republic of Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory, despite the 1836 Texas Revolution.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo specified the major consequence of the war: the forced Mexican Cession [footnoteRef:25]of the territories of Alta California and New Mexico to the United States in exchange for $15 million. Mexico accepted the loss of Texas and thereafter cited the Rio Grande as its national border. In 1853, more than half Mexico, a million square miles, more than the Louisiana Purchase, had been transferred to the United States. [25: Allan Nevins, Polk: The Diary of a President, 1845-1849, London, Longmans(Green and Co.), 1952, page 70 ]

OSullivan still saw the need for battle against the residual forces of corruption and enemies of truth. Culturally, there was also a tendency towards the European model, bending the new to foreign idolatry, false tastes, false doctrines, and false principles. His conclusion was indeed that the United States would not be led astray because it represented such a sharp break with the past. The last order in history was a completely new and completely clean civilization, free from ancient arrangement and so also free to choose its own destiny. The nation, then, was bound by nothing except its founding principles, the eternal and universal principles. This utopia impulse was unthinkingly coupled in OSullivan, as in so many other Jacksonians, with one speculative scheme after another, in this case wholly without success. The British, meanwhile, were single out as particularly nasty exponents of the old anti-ethic of slaughter and conquest. In India and Afghanistan, they had engaged in constant aggression, without any shadow of excuse or apology.In 1845, O'Sullivan wrote an essay entitled Annexation in the Democratic Review, in which he first used the phrase manifest destiny. In this article he urged the U.S. to annex the Republic of Texas, not only because Texas desired this, but because it was "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions". Overcoming Whig s opposition, Democrats annexed Texas in 1845. O'Sullivan's first use of the phrase "manifest destiny" attracted little attention.It is interesting to see this attitude come under pressure during the exciting but stressful sequence of Texas-Oregon- Mexico, which offered some evidence of both pretexts and robbery, engineered by none other than a Jacksonian president. It was in this context, on December 27, 1845, that O'Sullivan's second [footnoteRef:26]use of the phrase became extremely influential. In his newspaper the New York Morning News, O'Sullivan addressed the ongoing boundary dispute with Britain. He argued that the United States had the right to claim "the whole of Oregon" and he proclaimed: [26: A. Stephanson, Destino Manifesto lespansionismo Americano e lImpero del Bene, New York, Hill &Wangpublisher, 2005, pag. 71]

The right of our Manifest Destiny to overspread and to possess to whole continent which providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self governmentOnce Texas had been secured. O Sullivan[footnoteRef:27] was remarkably quick in speculating on the virtues of conquering the whole of Mexico, laying out before the war the parameters of what would turn into a heated debated in late 1847. However he said that the entire Mexican vote would be substantially bellow our national average both in purity and intelligence. [27: . D. Scott, The Great West in De Bows Review, June 1853, vol. xv, pp.51-53]

His solution was pacific penetration by commercial means, which would beget a community of interest between us while suitably instilling in the Mexicans confidence and respect for our institutions. Americans would gain an outlet for their right to pursue their interestsand Mexicans would learn the ways of the future in good time. Racial inflection, after the world against Mexico, marked the tone of the Review, and the narrative was framed around how constant had been the historical advance of the America race of hardy pioneers. Thus barbarism and the savages were said to have given way naturally to the intelligent and peaceful settler a process that differed fundamentally and favourably from European models of military invasion. While Americans had shown democratic energy and enterprise in driving back the Indian, or annihilating them as a race the Spanish conquerors of Mexico had show no such spirit of mission. The opponent (the Mexicans) was simply incapable of acting reasonably. The only feasible result of the war, therefore, was the annihilation of Mexico as a Nation. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the preeminent New England intellectual considered America as a last effort of the Divine Providence on behalf of the human race a radical beginning of a new and more advanced order of civilization or more poetically the home of man which would stretch to the waves of the Pacific seaBy the 1840s virtually all destinarian[footnoteRef:28] thought entailed implicit or explicit references to race, but the intellectuals of New England would never accept slavery. With the westward expansion, the issue of slavery caused of the division of the country leading it to the Civil War. Slavery was the central source of escalating political tension in the 1850s. The Republican Party was determined to prevent any spread of slavery, and many Southern leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election. After Lincoln won without carrying a single Southern state, many Southern whites felt that disunion had become their only option, because they felt as if they were losing representation, which hampered their ability to promote pro-slavery acts and policies. The course of the war soon allowed the victorious North to regain its destinarian footing. There was a great deal of apocalyptic feeling in the final battle. The United States would be born again, a mountain of holiness for the dissemination of light and purity to all nations, as one Reverend in Philadelphia decreed. With the end in sight, the Unionist cause could be interpreted as divine vindication. Thus the Civil War revitalized confidence in the American mission, now properly national and northern. [28: O. B. Faulk & J. A. Stout, The Mexican War changing interpretations, Chicago, Sage books publisher, 1973]

6. ConclusionThe United States was born under the ideas of English Calvinism and its prosperity grew with the success of capitalist enterprise. They have always felt that they had been elected by God. After the success against the British tyranny, they finally managed to expand their influence in the Pacific (after 1898). Industrial development, victories in two world wars and their emergence as a superpower in the second half of the last century fellowed.A true expression of the national spirit was mission. This was present from the beginning of Americaa history, and is present, clearly, today. It was idealistic, self-denying, hopeful of divine favour for national aspirations, though not sure of it. It made itself heard most authentically in times of emergency, of ordeal, of disaster. Its language was that of dedication, dedication to the enduring values of Americaa civilization. It was the language of Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War, on a great battlefield of the war, at time when new meaning has been given to war and to American democracy by the Emancipation Proclamation.Mission was a force that fought to curb expansionism of the aggressive variety. It did so with the measure of success at the time of the Mexico movement. Again in the 1890's Mission fought imperialism. It held its own in the fight until war brought an overwhelming force against it. It held the imperialists who kept Hawaii at bay until then.Mission appeared in the twentieth century as a national sense of responsibility for saving democracy in Europe.National ideals are not simple. They are complex, and sometimes combined in mixtures as compatible as oil and water. Manifest Destiny was sometimes mixed with a form of Mission of its own. It would be reckless to say that zealots of Manifest Destiny in the 1840s and in the 1890s had no sense of Mission. They battled for possession of the public mind armoured in their own coats of idealism. They knew that in the United States a program armoured in unrelieved materialism would lose the battle before a blow was struck or a shot fired. The public was usually able to detect differences between varieties of idealism, however, and to choose between them.From the beginning programs of public welfare were identified with Mission. Programs of political, social and economic change for the benefit of the underprivileged were fought for throughout the nineteenth century as part of Mission. So were religious programs in which refreshment of the soul was sought in service to others. It reached dimensions in the United States unprecedented in the history of the world. At the end of the Second War the same spirit appeared in the Marshall Plan for rebuilding the devastated areas of the world. It has appeared in recent programs, vast in scale, to help the peoples of undeveloped areas.Manifest Destiny, by contrast, seems, despite its exaltation of language, somehow touched by a taint of selfishness, both national and individual. The sacrifices it asked were to be from others. Territory was to be taken, and all that was to be given in exchange was the prospect of American citizenship. Manifest Destiny, moreover, seemed, on close examination, despite its breath-taking sweep, to be parochial. Its postulates were that Anglo-Saxons are endowed as a race with innate superiority, that Protestant Christianity holds the keys to Heaven, that only republican forms of political organization are free, that the future - even the predestined future - can be hurried along by human hands, and that the means of hurrying it, if the end be good, need to be examined closely.Manifest destiny and Mission differed in another respect - durability. Manifest Destiny, in the twentieth century, vanished. Not only did it die; it remained dead through two world wars. Mission, on the contrary, remained alive, and is as much alive at present as it ever was. It is still the beacon lighting the way towards political and individual freedoms - towards equality of right before the law, equality of economic opportunity, and equality of all races and creeds. It is still, as it always was in the past, the torch held aloft by the nation at its gate - to the world and to itself.

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