Manifest Destiny
The Power of an Idea
How did we get from….
Atlantic Coast all the way to the Pacific Ocean?
Manifest Destiny
• It is the driving force, the motivating idea
of Westward Expansion.
• Phrase is coined by John L. O’Sullivan in
1839 (Read editorial)
• Idea is present in Winthrop’s “City on a
Hill” speech 1630
Definition: Manifest Destiny
• The idea that it is
America’s God given
right or destiny to expand
her borders and spread
her way of life across
the continent.
3 Themes you usually see in the
idea of manifest destiny
• the virtue of the American people and
their institutions;
• Our destiny is to spread these institutions,
thereby redeeming and remaking the
world in the image of the U.S.
• America is under God to accomplish this
work
Jefferson: America a Beacon for World
• "Trusted with the destinies of this solitary
republic of the world, the only monument
of human rights, and the sole depository of
the sacred fire of freedom and selfgovernment, from hence it is to be lighted
up in other regions of the earth, if other
regions of the earth shall ever become
susceptible of its benign influence."
Gordon Wood Reflecting on Am Revolution
• "Our beliefs in liberty, equality,
constitutionalism, and the well-being of
ordinary people came out of the
Revolutionary era. So too did our idea that
we Americans are a special people with a
special destiny to lead the world toward
liberty and democracy."[
Walt Whitman
• "What has miserable, inefficient Mexico—
with her superstition, her burlesque upon
freedom, her actual tyranny by the few
over the many—what has she to do with
the great mission of peopling the new
world with a noble race? Be it ours, to
achieve that mission!"
John Quincy Adams 1811
• The whole continent of North America appears
to be destined by Divine Providence to be
peopled by one nation, speaking one language,
professing one general system of religious and
political principles, and accustomed to one
general tenor of social usages and customs. For
the common happiness of them all, for their
peace and prosperity, I believe it is
indispensable that they should be associated in
one federal Union.
Alexis de Tocqueville first wrote about it in his
1831 work, Democracy in America
• The position of the Americans is
therefore quite exceptional, and it
may be believed that no
democratic people will ever be
placed in a similar one.
American Progress
See, Think, Wonder
• In your groups answer the following
questions on the newsprint provided.
1.What do you see in the painting?
2.What do you think about that or what does
it mean?
3.What does it make you wonder or what
questions does it raise?
Gast
• his painting (circa 1872) by John Gast called American
Progress, is an allegorical representation of the
modernization of the new west. Here Columbia, a
personification of the United States, leads civilization
westward with American settlers, stringing telegraph wire
as she sweeps west; she holds a school book. The
different stages of economic activity of the pioneers are
highlighted and, especially, the changing forms of
transportation.
• Why a woman?
Standard and Learning Target
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1. Origin of the phrase
2. Analyze picture American Progress
SS-08-5.1.1
Students will use a variety of tools (e.g., primary and secondary sources) to describe and
explain historical events and conditions and to analyze the perspectives of different
individuals and groups (e.g., gender, race, region, ethnic group, age, economic status,
religion, political group) in U.S. history prior to Reconstruction.
DOK 3
Students will explain how the growth of democracy and geographic expansion occurred
and were significant to the development of the United States prior to Reconstruction.
DOK 3
Learning Target
Students can explain how the idea of Manifest Destiny is a driving force in the expansion
of the westward the United States.