Question

What does John O'Sullivan mean when he says it is “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence"?

Answer 1

Hint: We understand that the theory of Manifest Destiny was that apparently the white Americans were divinely destined to colonize the entire continent of North America. The Civil War erupted as a result of Manifest Destiny inflaming sectional conflicts over slavery.

Complete answer:
- Remember that the word "Manifest Destiny" was coined by newspaper editor John O'Sullivan in order to describe the philosophy of continental expansionism.
- It was understood that among the white Americans such a description was unfamiliar, but the concepts behind it were old and dated back to the first European-Native American contact. The belief in white Americans' moral dominance, as well as the conviction that they were destined by God to conquer the lands of North America from sea to across sea, became known as Manifest Destiny ideology.
- Also, the concept of "Manifest Destiny" was invented by John O'Sullivan himself, and it was based on the popular belief that God had hand-picked America to make the world better. Lincoln and Wilson have used the same term after that. During the conquest of the West, the term became a definition, followed by the interventionist foreign policy of the twentieth century.
- Therefore John believed that in the propagation of humanity, America played a very sacred part.

Note: Then as a consequence of President Polk's acceptance of Manifest Destiny and the gain of new lands exacerbated conflicts between the people who wanted to abolish this and people who kept slaves, as well as Native Americans and whites. As the North and South battled over whether the new states admitted to the Union should be free or slave states, fights between Plains Indians and settlers in Texas were especially bloody.