Westward Expansion (1807-1912)

Summary

Foreign Policy in Texas and Oregon

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Summary Foreign Policy in Texas and Oregon

Polk's election, and support for his expansionist actions while in office, exemplified the growing belief that America's destiny was to expand through Texas and all the way to the Pacific Ocean. In 1845, John L. O'Sullivan, a New York journalist, gave a name to this belief. He wrote of "our manifest Destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of our continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty." Proponents of Manifest Destiny often used such lofty language and often invoked God and Nature to support expansion. Many Northern Whigs at first dismissed Manifest Destiny as a cover for those who desired the expansion of slavery. However, most of those who expounded on the destiny of expansion were neither explicitly for nor against slavery. More important to them was the prospect of opening the Pacific Ocean to trade, and preserving the agricultural nature of the US. Most expansionists associated the industrialization accompanying early expansion with social stratification and class struggle. The Democrats also saw support for their political ideology in Manifest Destiny. Where tariffs and banks would tend to support the factory system, expansion would provide farmers with land and access to distant markets. As Americans continued to become farmers, Democrats believed, the democratic foundations of the Union would be preserved. Expansionists trusted that the technology of telegraphs and the railroad would continue to make distance less and less of a concern, and encouraged all out expansion into the lands of the West by settlement and annexation.

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