The woman in snowy float above the verdant plain , eye turn westward , a superstar glow on her brow . She is a fantasm , hovering at the center of the oil on canvas painting completed in 1872 by a Prussian named John Gast . The oeuvre is call " American Progress . "
This simple painting , less than a foot marvelous , is the artistic realization of a conception that has been at the center of America ’s head for most of its existence . It ’s right on there , in the house painting ’s subtle and brutal allegory : The woman — a white charwoman , with crinkly , lucky fuzz — lead a group of settlers and farmers ( also all white-hot ) . In her left-hand hand is a string of telegraph wire , in her right , a book . A stage and a train follow in her backwash .
In front , dark sky and foreboding mountains expect . Aherd of buffalorumbles away in the distance . A idle beast snarl at her substructure . A banding of Native Americans flee as she glide ever onward .
She is Manifest Destiny , a belief born in America ’s infancy and fully implemented with the commonwealth ’s drive West in the 19th hundred . Manifest Destiny was a doctrine that wed , only put , that God wanted Americans to take over the continent .
In a single give-and-take , Manifest Destiny was — and still is — hassle .
God Wanted America to Have Texas and California?
The full term Manifest Destiny recoil from the fingers of a paper editorialist and editor in 1845 , though the basic estimation had been around from the land ’s get - go . After all , it take a goodly dose of self - entitlement to claim a state as your own even thoughmillions of people already live there .
In the early days of what we now know as America , what country could n’t be comparatively easily shoot ( like the Indian - possess lands east of the Mississippi ) were grease one’s palms ( like the Louisiana Purchase ) , split with others ( later on , theOregon Country ) , or fought over and taken ( like big parts of the West in theMexican - American Warof 1846 - 1848 ) .
It was the thrust to annex land held by Mexico , before it was won in the war , that move editor in chief John O’Sullivan to coin the term Manifest Destiny . " [ It is ] our manifest destiny,“he wrote , " to spread the continent allotted by Providence for the barren growing of our yearly multiplying million . "
Of of course , there ’s more to Manifest Destiny than some woman in white or the supporting hired man of the Almighty . The concept was inextricably tied into the politics of the time , which were ( as now ) fueled by something decidedly unholy : money .
What Lies Behind the Woman in White
America ’s land - lustfulness was driven , first and foremost , by the thirst for more wealth for its settlers . But spread that often poorly - gained premium was not easy . In a time when thescourge of slaveryalready was begin to rive apart the nation , the payoff of how to divide the new acquired land — which land - to - be would admit thralldom , and which would not — became a political hot potato .
Declaring the state grabs a divine right seemed , if nothing else , a nice cover story for expansionists of the time . But even more than money , politics or religion , Manifest Destiny demonstrated something else about the mind-set of many Americans .
" Implied in the notion of Manifest Destiny is that we bang serious , " suppose Don Haider - Markel , the head of the department of political science at the University of Kansas . " And basically , when we say ' we , ' we have in mind sort of Anglo - Saxon Protestant , otherwise bonk as sort of white .
" That ’s say Native Americans , that ’s telling Mexicans , that ’s telling Africans we abduct and used as slaves that we are superior . Our fashion is superior .
" I do n’t see how you’re able to break loose from the notion , " Haider - Markel says , " that this is a shape of snowy domination . "
Did People Really Accept the Idea?
Certainly , many people at the time believed in Manifest Destiny ; that God wanted the freshman to take over the continent , to work the land , to bring Christianity to the Indians and Mexicans , to be Biblically fruitful and multiply ( as O’Sullivan put it ) , and , if God found it within His grace , to originate ample while doing it . expel more than 100,000 Native Americans from their habitation in the American South , dispatch thousands of others , and take land from Mexicans was not simply accepted as a divine American right to these mass . It was a obligation .
But not everyone bought into that notion . Not by a prospicient shot . Many see the idea as small more than a dodge .
" There were masses , for example , who intend that the drive to annex Texas was a ploy to gain more land to create more slave country , because easterly Texas was suitable for growing cotton , " saysHarry Watson , a professor of southerly culture at the University of North Carolina . " Even then , there were people who were bitingly opposed to slavery and desperately wanted to abolish it , and the first stair to get rid of it might be to prevent it from growing . They did not want to accommodate Texas , they did not want to struggle Mexico to get Texas , they did not need slavery to be allow to spread . All of this was fought out very piercingly in Congress . "
Still , politicians likePresident James K. Polkfound it politically and economically favourable to contract onward . His call to annex both Texas and Oregon ( which would appeal to both Northern and Southern states)helped make headway him the presidencyin 1845 over anti - expansionist Henry Clay , even though Polk ’s parkway threatened warfare with both Great Britain and Mexico .
By the clip Polk give office in 1849 , Manifest Destiny was all but complete . America , barely 60 years after theU.S. Constitution was ratify , now stretch out from sea to smoothen ocean .
Beyond Manifest Destiny
In diachronic terms , Manifest Destiny is delineate only as the doctrine that increase the United States ' realm - holdings on the North American continent . The idea , though , is still referenced today , though it ’s less about expansionism and Divine intervention and more about unfold the American way of sprightliness to other place .
In that way , Manifest Destiny is a precursor to what is now termedAmerican exceptionalism , the belief that America is " uniquely virtuous " and that its virtues ( freedom , republic , capitalist economy ) are suitable of share with — or perhaps even impose on — other countries .
Historically that has often meant more trouble;war in the Philippines , for case . Not to mention World War I , World War II , Korea , Vietnam and the Gulf Wars . America ’s blooming account after the country ’s continental enlargement , which continues in places like the Middle East , read that the idea of American exceptionalism that was so evident in Manifest Destiny still lives .
" I think the melodic theme of Manifest Destiny supported the musical theme of a world-wide role for the United States in the twentieth century , " Watson says . " There is still this notion that it is not only America ’s rightfield but America ’s obligation to extend its influence over various countries . And that can run both ways , or many ways . "
The woman in lily-white presses ever forward .
