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97-676: The Clark memorandum rejected the view that the Roosevelt Corollary was based on the Monroe Doctrine . However, it was not a complete repudiation of the Roosevelt Corollary but was rather a statement that any intervention by the U.S. was not sanctioned by the Monroe Doctrine but rather was the right of America as a state. This separated the Roosevelt Corollary from the Monroe Doctrine by noting that

194-531: 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

291-561: A New York company, taking over the Dominican’s finances in 1893. This brought the interests of the U.S. and Dominican closer together and so, when in 1897 the SDIC defaulted on its payments to European bondholders, the Dominican fell into economic disaster, leading to the U.S. calling for arbitration on the case. The arbitration established a payment schedule from the Dominican to the SDIC, with

388-620: A closely related nexus of principles: historian Walter McDougall calls manifest destiny a corollary of the Monroe Doctrine, because while the Monroe Doctrine did not specify expansion, expansion was necessary in order to enforce the doctrine. Concerns in the United States that European powers were seeking to acquire colonies or greater influence in North America led to calls for expansion in order to prevent this. In his influential 1935 study of manifest destiny, done in conjunction with

485-551: A foregone conclusion, the political, economic and military climate in the Americas at the beginning of the twentieth century made a declaration from the U.S. vital if they were to become the main police power of the Western hemisphere and ward off European intervention in what they deemed their territory. Critics, such as American professor and linguist Noam Chomsky , lie in-between the positive interpretations and avid opposers of

582-399: A great world power after the 1898 Spanish-American War, which largely marked the start of the U.S. expanding its interest in states beyond its own borders, promoting its influence and ideas abroad. By expanding on the Monroe Doctrine, rather than creating a whole new policy, Roosevelt was able to justify more easily the U.S. exercising “international police power” to put an end to wrongdoing in

679-512: A man of the common people. Yet his decision to take action in Latin America contradicts with the ideas enshrined in international law, which became a target for criticism. Manifest destiny This is an accepted version of this page " Manifest destiny " was a phrase that represented the belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America , and that this belief

776-465: A nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in

873-505: A part of the transition into the progressive era of American politics, with Roosevelt working towards combining U.S. foreign policy goals with private economic activity abroad, as seen with the SDIC in the Dominican Republic. He also uses the ideas of David Pletcher to back his ideas, showcasing the role that the Roosevelt Corollary played in transforming American foreign policy from the ‘uncertainty’ and ‘improvisation’ seen in

970-490: Is also associated with the settler-colonial displacement of Indigenous Americans and the annexation of lands to the west of the United States borders at the time on the continent. The concept became one of several major campaign issues during the 1844 presidential election , where the Democratic Party won and the phrase "Manifest Destiny" was coined within a year. The concept was used by Democrats to justify

1067-697: Is indispensable that they should be associated in one federal Union. Adams did much to further this idea. He orchestrated the Treaty of 1818 , which established the border between British North America and the United States as far west as the Rocky Mountains, and provided for the joint occupation of the region known in American history as the Oregon Country and in British and Canadian history as

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1164-555: The American Civil War as a struggle to determine if any nation with democratic ideals could survive; this has been called by historian Robert Johannsen "the most enduring statement of America's Manifest Destiny and mission". The third theme can be viewed as a natural outgrowth of the belief that God had a direct influence in the foundation and further actions of the United States. Political scientist and historian Clinton Rossiter described this view as summing "that God, at

1261-558: 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 opposition, Democrats annexed Texas in 1845. O'Sullivan's first usage of

1358-587: The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the Polk administration in the 1840s. In 1811, Adams wrote to his father : 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

1455-701: The New Caledonia and Columbia Districts . He negotiated the Transcontinental Treaty in 1819, transferring Florida from Spain to the United States and extending the U.S. border with Spanish Mexico all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And he formulated the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which warned Europe that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open for European colonization. The Monroe Doctrine and "manifest destiny" formed

1552-439: The Polk administration . Whigs denounced manifest destiny, arguing, "that the designers and supporters of schemes of conquest, to be carried on by this government, are engaged in treason to our Constitution and Declaration of Rights, giving aid and comfort to the enemies of republicanism, in that they are advocating and preaching the doctrine of the right of conquest ". On January 3, 1846, Representative Robert Winthrop ridiculed

1649-592: The Treaty of Ghent in 1814 with Britain. They rejected the British plan to set up an Indian state in U.S. territory south of the Great Lakes. They explained the American policy toward acquisition of Indian lands: The United States, while intending never to acquire lands from the Indians otherwise than peaceably, and with their free consent, are fully determined, in that manner, progressively, and in proportion as their growing population may require, to reclaim from

1746-669: The Walter Hines Page School of International Relations , Albert Weinberg wrote: "the expansionism of the [1830s] arose as a defensive effort to forestall the encroachment of Europe in North America". Manifest destiny played an important role in the development of the transcontinental railroad . The transcontinental railroad system is often used in manifest destiny imagery like John Gast's painting, American Progress where multiple locomotives are seen traveling west. According to academic Dina Gilio-Whitaker , "the transcontinental railroads not only enabled [U.S. control over

1843-407: The 1846 Oregon boundary dispute and the 1845 annexation of Texas as a slave state , culminating in the 1846 Mexican–American War . In contrast, the large majority of Whigs and prominent Republicans (such as Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant ) rejected the concept and campaigned against these actions. By 1843, former U.S. President John Quincy Adams , originally a major supporter of

1940-529: The 236-page Memorandum late in the Coolidge administration. Clark argued the following: While sometimes regarded as an outright repudiation of the Roosevelt Corollary, Clark was simply advancing his belief that the corollary was separate from the Monroe Doctrine and that American intervention in Latin America, when necessary, was sanctioned by U.S. rights as a sovereign nation, not by the Monroe Doctrine. Clark's views were not made public until March 1930 during

2037-415: The British refused the offer, American expansionists responded with slogans such as "The whole of Oregon or none" and "Fifty-four forty or fight", referring to the northern border of the region. (The latter slogan is often mistakenly described as having been a part of the 1844 presidential campaign.) When Polk moved to terminate the joint occupation agreement, the British finally agreed in early 1846 to divide

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2134-764: The Dominican exemplifies the power that the U.S. were able to exert in the Americas as a result of the Roosevelt Corollary, with them taking action to prevent European powers becoming involved in debt collection via their usual methods, such as blockades. It gave the U.S. an advantage as they were able to control the internal situations of countries, including the Dominican, to their benefit, even if this meant European powers waiting longer for their repayments. This model—in which United States advisors worked to stabilize Latin American nations through temporary protectorates, staving off European action—became known as " dollar diplomacy ". The Dominican experiment, like most other "dollar diplomacy" arrangements, proved temporary and untenable, and

2231-466: The European powers. This contributed to the domestic political situation in which Roosevelt was shaping his Corollary- making the introduction of the corollary harder to sell to the American public, especially as few people had any true understanding of the importance of America in international affairs. Even the long-existing concept of Manifest Destiny , which was commonly used during the expansion of

2328-536: The Hoover administration, when Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson was guiding American diplomacy toward the beginning of a Good Neighbor Policy with its Latin American neighbors. The memorandum also used the term " national security " in its first known usage. Roosevelt Corollary In the history of United States foreign policy , the Roosevelt Corollary was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine articulated by President Theodore Roosevelt in his State of

2425-413: The Indians' land: Till I came here, I had no idea of the fixed determination which there is in the heart of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory. The 19th-century belief that the United States would eventually encompass all of North America is known as "continentalism". An early proponent of this idea, John Quincy Adams became a leading figure in U.S. expansion between

2522-567: The Monroe Doctrine only applied to situations involving European countries. One main point in the Clark Memorandum was to note that the Monroe Doctrine was based on conflicts of interest only between the United States and European nations, rather than between the United States and Latin American nations. Historian Gene Sessions says the memorandum said the Monroe Doctrine did not explicitly renounce rights of intervention in Latin America (as often stated). It had little if any influence on

2619-476: The Monroe Doctrine sought to bar entry to the European empires, the Roosevelt Corollary arguably indicated the United States' intention to take their place. It could also be pointed out how the corollary violates the principles of self-determination and sovereignty that are noted in the Declaration of Independence. Roosevelt was a figure who embodied many American values: he was a war hero, an individualist, and

2716-583: The Monroe Doctrine, and of course, it becomes very, very important because over the next 15 to 20 years, the United States will move into Latin America about a dozen times with military force, to the point where the United States Marines become known in the area as "State Department Troops" because they are always moving in to protect State Department interests and State Department policy in the Caribbean. So what Roosevelt does here, by redefining

2813-528: The Monroe Doctrine, the United States was justified in exercising "international police power" to put an end to chronic unrest or wrongdoing in the Western Hemisphere. President Herbert Hoover in 1930 endorsed the Clark Memorandum that repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary in favor of what was later called the Good Neighbor policy . The Roosevelt Corollary was articulated in the aftermath of

2910-503: The Monroe Doctrine, turns out to be very historical, and it leads the United States into a period of confrontation with peoples in the Caribbean and Central America, that was an imperative part of American imperialism. U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic is generally seen as the first true use of the Roosevelt Corollary. The case in the Dominican arose due to the San Domingo Improvement Company (SDIC),

3007-578: The Monroe Doctrine. Rather, the Roosevelt Corollary was "an entirely new diplomatic tenet that epitomized his 'big stick' approach to foreign policy." Ricard continues that the Corollary shows the United States’ righteous and paternalistic views towards Central and Latin America, which it used to justify its foreign interference and enforcement of economic principles that the U.S. deemed to be secure and right for such states. In other words, while

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3104-545: The Oregon Treaty was popular in the United States and was easily ratified by the Senate. The most fervent advocates of manifest destiny had not prevailed along the northern border because, according to Reginald Stuart , "the compass of manifest destiny pointed west and southwest, not north, despite the use of the term 'continentalism ' ". In 1869, American historian Frances Fuller Victor published Manifest Destiny in

3201-522: The Pacific as less unruly and dominated by Old World conflicts than the Atlantic and therefore a more inviting area for the new nation to expand its influence in. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which doubled the size of the United States, Thomas Jefferson set the stage for the continental expansion of the United States. Many began to see this as the beginning of a new providential mission: If

3298-493: The Pacific, others saw the term as a call to example. Without an agreed-upon interpretation, much less an elaborated political philosophy, these conflicting views of America's destiny were never resolved. This variety of possible meanings was summed up by Ernest Lee Tuveson: "A vast complex of ideas, policies, and actions is comprehended under the phrase 'Manifest Destiny'. They are not, as we should expect, all compatible, nor do they come from any one source." Most historians credit

3395-455: The Roosevelt Corollary. He argues that the Roosevelt Corollary was merely a more explicit imperialist threat, building on the Monroe Doctrine, indicating that the US would not only intervene in defense of South America in the face of European imperialism but also use its muscle to obtain concessions and privileges for American corporations- giving a more balanced view of an advanced Monroe Doctrine that

3492-502: The U.S. being able to collect the money from the Dominican Republic for the SDIC if it failed to pay- expanding U.S. interests in the Dominican even further. The U.S. did end up having to become involved in debt collection from the Dominican when they defaulted on payments and European powers threatened to intervene should the U.S. not. In 1905, the U.S. sent in warships and demanded the customs house be turned over to U.S. negotiators, who used proceeds to pay foreign creditors. The case of

3589-491: The U.S. did not have the right to intervene when there was a threat by European powers. Herbert Hoover also helped to move the U.S. away from the imperialist tendencies of the Roosevelt Corollary by going on good-will tours, withdrawing troops from Nicaragua and Haiti, and abstaining from intervening in the internal affairs of neighboring countries. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt further renounced interventionism and established his " Good Neighbor policy " that led to

3686-537: The U.S. to intervene in Latin and Central America to maintain stability in these areas. Where the Monroe Doctrine had been asserted in the early nineteenth century when the European powers looked again to recolonise in the Western hemisphere, the Roosevelt Corollary nearly a century later looked to once again promote the United States in Central and Latin America. The Corollary contributed the United States’ transition into

3783-584: The Union address in 1904, largely as a consequence of the Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 . The corollary states that the United States could intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries if they committed flagrant wrongdoings that "loosened the ties of civilized society". Roosevelt tied his policy to the Monroe Doctrine, and it was also consistent with his foreign policy included in his Big Stick Diplomacy . Roosevelt stated that in keeping with

3880-533: The United States had the right to exercise military force in Latin American countries to keep European countries out. Historian Walter LaFeber wrote: [Roosevelt] essentially turns the Monroe Doctrine on its head and says the Europeans should stay out, but the United States has the right, under the doctrine, to go in to exercise police power to keep the Europeans out of the way. It is a very nice twist on

3977-452: The United States launched a larger military intervention in 1916 that lasted to 1924. U.S. Presidents also cited the Roosevelt Corollary as justification for U.S. intervention in Cuba (1906–1909), Nicaragua (1909–1910, 1912–1925 and 1926–1933), Haiti (1915–1934), and the Dominican Republic (1916–1924). Although the main rationale for the corollary was to keep Europe from meddling in

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4074-464: The United States was successful as a " shining city upon a hill ", people in other countries would seek to establish their own democratic republics. Not all Americans or their political leaders believed that the United States was a divinely favored nation, or thought that it ought to expand. For example, many Whigs opposed territorial expansion based on the Democratic claim that the United States

4171-484: The United States, as Texas had done. In 1845, O'Sullivan predicted that California would follow this pattern next, and that even Canada would eventually request annexation as well. He was critical of the Mexican–American War in 1846, although he came to believe that the outcome would be beneficial to both countries. Ironically, O'Sullivan's term became popular only after it was criticized by Whig opponents of

4268-412: The United States’ western frontier, came into play to build the Roosevelt Corollary. Manifest Destiny by the early twentieth century had become an expression of American exceptionalism, whereby the U.S. had superior virtue and a duty to help ‘lesser’ states in their development. Roosevelt himself showed longer-lasting ideas of the U.S. being the police state for the Western hemisphere than is seen simply in

4365-567: The Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903. In late 1902, Britain, Germany, and Italy imposed a naval blockade of several months against Venezuela after President Cipriano Castro refused to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European people in a recent Venezuelan civil war. The dispute was referred to the International Court of Arbitration at Hague, which concluded on 22 February 1904 that the blockading powers involved in

4462-662: The Venezuela crisis were entitled to preferential treatment in the payment of their claims. This left a number of other countries which did not take military action, including the United States, with no recourse. The U.S. disagreed with the outcome in principle and President Theodore Roosevelt saw the need to take action politically. The Corollary went towards ensuring that U.S. interests abroad were protected from, in future, European powers using this ruling at Hague as justification for military action and/or occupation in Central and Latin America. There were many contributing factors to

4559-556: The Venezuelan crisis, with him asserting in his 1901 annual message that international police duty “must be performed for the sake of the welfare of mankind”. Therefore, the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary was largely shaped and created due to the ruling of the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-03, but there were still underlying and previously seen ideas and domestic mentalities that contributed to its form. The Roosevelt Corollary, or

4656-523: The West in the Overland Monthly , arguing that the efforts of early American fur traders and missionaries presaged American control of Oregon. She concluded the article as follows: It was an oversight on the part of the United States, the giving up the island of Quadra and Vancouver, on the settlement of the boundary question. Yet, "what is to be, will be", as some realist has it; and we look for

4753-430: The Western Hemisphere as a more limited version of Corollary already existed in the Monroe Doctrine, despite the shift from verbal to active intervention in Central and Latin America. Though the Roosevelt Corollary was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine, it could also be seen as a departure. While the Monroe Doctrine said European countries should stay out of Latin America, the Roosevelt Corollary took this further to say

4850-447: The Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. While the Monroe Doctrine had been verbal and defensive in warning European powers to keep their hands off countries in the Americas, President Roosevelt now changed this into an aggressive military “obligation” of

4947-557: The annexation of the entire Oregon Country up to the Alaska line ( 54°40ʹ N ). Presidential candidate Polk used this popular outcry to his advantage, and the Democrats called for the annexation of "All Oregon" in the 1844 U.S. presidential election . As president, Polk sought compromise and renewed the earlier offer to divide the territory in half along the 49th parallel, to the dismay of the most ardent advocates of manifest destiny. When

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5044-745: The annulment of the Platt Amendment by the Treaty of Relations with Cuba in 1934, and the negotiation of compensation for Mexico's nationalization of foreign-owned oil assets in 1938. Indeed, leaving unchallenged the emergence of dictatorships like that of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, and François Duvalier in Haiti were each considered to be "Frankenstein dictators" due to

5141-493: The area of freedom", typified the conflation of America's potential greatness, the nation's budding sense of Romantic self-identity, and its expansion. Yet Jackson was not the only president to elaborate on the principles underlying manifest destiny. Owing in part to the lack of a definitive narrative outlining its rationale, proponents offered divergent or seemingly conflicting viewpoints. While many writers focused primarily upon American expansionism, be it into Mexico or across

5238-409: The assertion of the Roosevelt Corollary in 1904, including both physical events such as the Venezuelan Crisis and mentalities that existed within the U.S. that shaped the foreign policy of the period. One such mentality was the existence of anti-European sentiment amongst Americans that built during the Venezuelan crisis due to the preferential treatment that the International Court of Arbitration awarded

5335-553: The borders of the continental United States as they are today. One of the goals of the War of 1812 was to threaten to annex the British colony of Lower Canada as a bargaining chip to force the British to abandon their fortifications in the Northwestern United States and support for the various Native American tribes residing there. The result of this overoptimism was a series of defeats in 1812 in part due to

5432-481: The concept in Congress, saying "I suppose the right of a manifest destiny to spread will not be admitted to exist in any nation except the universal Yankee nation." Winthrop was the first in a long line of critics who suggested that advocates of manifest destiny were citing "Divine Providence" for justification of actions that were motivated by chauvinism and self-interest. Despite this criticism, expansionists embraced

5529-535: The concept of manifest destiny was born out of "a sense of mission to redeem the Old World by high example ... generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven". Merk also states that manifest destiny was a heavily contested concept within the nation: From the outset Manifest Destiny—vast in program, in its sense of continentalism —was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude. The reason

5626-501: The concept underlying manifest destiny, had changed his mind and repudiated expansionism because it meant the expansion of slavery in Texas. Ulysses S. Grant served in and condemned the Mexican–American War , declaring it "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Historian Daniel Walker Howe summarizes that "American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within

5723-596: The conservative newspaper editor and future propagandist for the Confederacy, John O'Sullivan with coining the term manifest destiny in 1845. However, other historians suggest the unsigned editorial titled "Annexation" in which it first appeared was written by journalist and annexation advocate Jane Cazneau . O'Sullivan was an influential advocate for Jacksonian democracy , described by Julian Hawthorne as "always full of grand and world-embracing schemes". O'Sullivan wrote an article in 1839 that, while not using

5820-505: The continent] but also accelerated it exponentially." Historian Boyd Cothran says that "modern transportation development and abundant resource exploitation gave rise to an appropriation of indigenous land, [and] resources." Manifest destiny played its most important role in the Oregon boundary dispute between the United States and Britain, when the phrase "manifest destiny" originated. The Anglo-American Convention of 1818 had provided for

5917-512: The correlation between manifest destiny and Doctrine of Christian Discovery by using the statement made by Chief Justice John Marshall during the case, as he "spelled out the rights of the United states to Indigenous lands" and drew upon the Doctrine of Christian Discovery for his statement. Marshall ruled that "indigenous peoples possess 'occupancy' rights, meaning their lands could be taken by

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6014-544: The country's existing boundaries; they feared (correctly) that expansion raised a contentious issue, the extension of slavery to the territories. On the other hand, many Democrats feared industrialization the Whigs welcomed... For many Democrats, the answer to the nation's social ills was to continue to follow Thomas Jefferson's vision of establishing agriculture in the new territories to counterbalance industrialization. Two Native American writers have recently tried to link some of

6111-548: The destiny God had provided the United States. Faragher 's 1997 analysis of the political polarization between the Democratic Party and the Whig Party is that: Most Democrats were wholehearted supporters of expansion, whereas many Whigs (especially in the North) were opposed. Whigs welcomed most of the changes wrought by industrialization but advocated strong government policies that would guide growth and development within

6208-419: The development evolution of US Latin American policy. During the late 1920s, a number of American foreign policy leaders started to argue for a softer tone in US relations with Latin American nations, which had been chafing under decades of intervention by the United States. Under secretary of State, and later Ambassador to Mexico, J. Reuben Clark (1871–1961) held these conciliatory views and completed work on

6305-475: The historical records show that they were a part of expeditions, resided and worked on the frontier, founded towns, and were educators and entrepreneurs. In short, people of color were very important actors in westward expansion." The desire for trade with China and other Asian countries was another ground for expansionism, with Americans seeing prospects of westward contact with Asia as fulfilling long-held Western hopes of finding new routes to Asia, and perceiving

6402-500: The ideas it contained regarding the U.S. becoming the policeman of the Western hemisphere, were first articulated by Secretary Root in a speech on 20 May 1904, and expanded on in Roosevelt’s annual message to congress on 6 December 1904, as seen below: All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If

6499-457: The imperialism of manifest destiny as both unjust and unreasonable. He objected to the Mexican war and believed each of these disordered forms of patriotism threatened the inseparable moral and fraternal bonds of liberty and union that he sought to perpetuate through a patriotic love of country guided by wisdom and critical self-awareness. Lincoln's " Eulogy to Henry Clay ", June 6, 1852, provides

6596-483: The intervention of Soviet communism in Guatemala . This was used to justify Operation PBSuccess that deposed the democratically elected president Jacobo Árbenz and installed the military regime of Carlos Castillo Armas , the first in a series of military dictators in the country. Historians Cyrus Veeser and Matthias Maass present a positive view of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Veeser sees it as

6693-633: The joint occupation of the Oregon Country , and thousands of Americans migrated there in the 1840s over the Oregon Trail . The British rejected a proposal by U.S. President John Tyler (in office 1841–1845) to divide the region along the 49th parallel , and instead proposed a boundary line farther south, along the Columbia River , which would have made most of what later became the state of Washington part of their colonies in North America . Advocates of manifest destiny protested and called for

6790-437: The late nineteenth century to the ‘executive-driven, interventionist strategies’ of the early twentieth century. This shift aided the U.S. in their goal for becoming a global power. Maass is equally complimentary of the role played by the Roosevelt Corollary, which he sees as being an updated version of the Monroe Doctrine suited to the modern circumstances of global imperialism. Although he acknowledges that it wasn’t necessarily

6887-685: The mishandlings of the American occupations in the countries. The era of the Good Neighbor policy ended with the start of the Cold War in 1945, as the United States felt there was a greater need to protect the Western Hemisphere from Soviet influence. In 1954, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles invoked the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary at the Tenth Pan-American Conference in Caracas , denouncing

6984-528: The most cogent expression of his reflective patriotism. The phrase "manifest destiny" is most often associated with the territorial expansion of the United States from 1812 to 1867. This era, from the War of 1812 to the acquisition of Alaska in 1867, has been called the "age of manifest destiny". During this time, the United States expanded to the Pacific Ocean—"from sea to shining sea"—largely defining

7081-442: The national polity". There was never a set of principles defining manifest destiny; it was always a general idea rather than a specific policy made with a motto. Ill-defined but keenly felt, manifest destiny was an expression of conviction in the morality and value of expansionism that complemented other popular ideas of the era, including American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism . Andrew Jackson , who spoke of "extending

7178-507: The phrase "manifest destiny" attracted little attention. O'Sullivan's second use of the phrase became extremely influential. On December 27, 1845, in his newspaper the New York Morning News , O'Sullivan addressed the ongoing boundary dispute with Britain. O'Sullivan argued that the United States had the right to claim "the whole of Oregon": And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess

7275-556: The phrase, which caught on so quickly that its origin was soon forgotten. The concept and the term are also used by scholars in discussing the push to into the Amazon—the west—in Brazil. According to J. P. Dickenson, "There is an implicit identification in this Brazilian geopolitical writing of a manifest destiny....Brazil's 'Marcha para oeste' is as legitimate as America's Manifest Destiny." Historian Frederick Merk wrote in 1963 that

7372-414: The possession of lands more than they can cultivate, and more than adequate to their subsistence, comfort, and enjoyment, by cultivation. If this be a spirit of aggrandizement, the undersigned are prepared to admit, in that sense, its existence; but they must deny that it affords the slightest proof of an intention not to respect the boundaries between them and European nations, or of a desire to encroach upon

7469-530: The powers of 'discovery'". Frichner explains that "The newly formed United States needed to manufacture an American Indian political identity and concept of Indian land that would open the way for united states and westward colonial expansion." In this way, manifest destiny was inspired by the original European colonization of the Americas, and it excuses U.S. violence against Indigenous Nations. According to historian Dorceta Taylor : "Minorities are not usually chronicled as explorers or environmental activists, yet

7566-450: The present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand... Many Americans agreed with Paine, and came to believe that the United States' virtue was a result of its special experiment in freedom and democracy. Thomas Jefferson , in a letter to James Monroe , wrote, "it is impossible not to look forward to distant times when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits, and cover

7663-607: The proper stage in the march of history, called forth certain hardy souls from the old and privilege-ridden nations ... and that in bestowing his grace He also bestowed a peculiar responsibility". Americans presupposed that they were not only divinely elected to maintain the North American continent, but also to "spread abroad the fundamental principles stated in the Bill of Rights". In many cases this meant neighboring colonial holdings and countries were seen as obstacles rather than

7760-499: The region along the 49th parallel, leaving the lower Columbia basin as part of the United States. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 formally settled the dispute; Polk's administration succeeded in selling the treaty to Congress because the United States was about to begin the Mexican–American War , and the president and others argued it would be foolish to also fight the British Empire . Despite the earlier clamor for "All Oregon",

7857-424: The state of nature, and to bring into cultivation every portion of the territory contained within their acknowledged boundaries. In thus providing for the support of millions of civilized beings, they will not violate any dictate of justice or of humanity; for they will not only give to the few thousand savages scattered over that territory an ample equivalent for any right they may surrender, but will always leave them

7954-475: The term "manifest destiny", did predict a "divine destiny" for the United States based upon values such as equality, rights of conscience, and personal enfranchisement "to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man". This destiny was not explicitly territorial, but O'Sullivan predicted that the United States would be one of a "Union of many Republics" sharing those values. Six years later, in 1845, O'Sullivan wrote another essay titled "Annexation" in

8051-416: The territories of Great Britain... They will not suppose that that Government will avow, as the basis of their policy towards the United States a system of arresting their natural growth within their own territories, for the sake of preserving a perpetual desert for savages. A shocked Henry Goulburn , one of the British negotiators at Ghent, remarked, after coming to understand the American position on taking

8148-518: The territory should be overruled. O'Sullivan believed that manifest destiny was a moral ideal (a "higher law") that superseded other considerations. O'Sullivan's original conception of manifest destiny was not a call for territorial expansion by force. He believed that the expansion of the United States would happen without the direction of the U.S. government or the involvement of the military. After Americans immigrated to new regions, they would set up new democratic governments, and then seek admission to

8245-514: The themes of manifest destiny to the original ideology of the 15th-century decree of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. Nick Estes (a Lakota) links the 15th-century Catholic doctrine of distinguishing Christians from non-Christians in the expansion of European nations. Estes and international jurist Tonya Gonnella Frichner (of the Onondaga Nation) further link the doctrine of discovery to Johnson v. McIntosh and frame their arguments on

8342-561: The war with Mexico and later wrote: I was bitterly opposed to the measure [to annex Texas], and to this day regard the war [with Mexico] which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory. In the mid‑19th century, expansionism, especially southward toward Cuba, also faced opposition from those Americans who were trying to abolish slavery. As more territory

8439-440: The western hemisphere, other intentions were hidden to retain the United States' reputation. Many other benefits such as the acquisition of raw materials and new markets attracted Roosevelt. These gains can be seen in the copious amount of sugar in Cuba or the abundant oil in Nicaragua. In 1928, President Calvin Coolidge issued the Clark Memorandum , often seen as a partial repudiation of the Roosevelt Corollary, which stated that

8536-409: The whole northern, if not the southern continent." To Americans in the decades that followed their proclaimed freedom for mankind, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, could only be described as the inauguration of "a new time scale" because the world would look back and define history as events that took place before, and after, the Declaration of Independence. It followed that Americans owed to

8633-466: The whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us. That is, O'Sullivan believed that Providence had given the United States a mission to spread republican democracy ("the great experiment of liberty"). Because the British government would not spread democracy, thought O'Sullivan, British claims to

8730-586: The wide use of poorly-trained state militias rather than regular troops. The American victories at the Battle of Lake Erie and the Battle of the Thames in 1813 ended the Indian raids and removed the main reason for threatening annexation. To end the War of 1812 John Quincy Adams , Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin (former treasury secretary and a leading expert on Indians) and the other American diplomats negotiated

8827-445: The world an obligation to expand and preserve these beliefs. The second theme's origination is less precise. A popular expression of America's mission was elaborated by President Abraham Lincoln's description in his December 1, 1862, message to Congress. He described the United States as "the last, best hope of Earth". The "mission" of the United States was further elaborated during Lincoln's Gettysburg Address , in which he interpreted

8924-444: The world". Author Reginald Horsman wrote in 1981, this view also held that "inferior races were doomed to subordinate status or extinction." and that this was used to justify "the enslavement of the blacks and the expulsion and possible extermination of the Indians". The origin of the first theme, later known as American exceptionalism , was often traced to America's Puritan heritage, particularly John Winthrop 's famous " City upon

9021-491: Was able to benefit the U.S. in their hemisphere. There are obvious differences between the Monroe Doctrine, which focused on defence of the Americas, and the Roosevelt Corollary that asserted U.S. power and ensured they were able to advance their own goals for U.S. gain. Frenchman Serge Ricard of the University of Paris argues that these differences are significant and that the Roosevelt Corollary did not simply escalate

9118-497: Was added to the United States in the following decades, "extending the area of freedom" in the minds of southerners also meant extending the institution of slavery. That is why slavery became one of the central issues in the continental expansion of the United States before the Civil War. Before and during the Civil War both sides claimed that America's destiny was rightfully their own. Lincoln opposed anti-immigrant nativism , and

9215-666: Was both obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). The belief was rooted in American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism , implying the inevitable spread of the Republican form of governance . It was one of the earliest expressions of American imperialism in the United States of America. According to historian William Earl Weeks, there were three basic tenets behind the concept: Manifest destiny remained heavily divisive in politics, causing constant conflict with regards to slavery in these new states and territories . It

9312-563: Was destined to serve as a virtuous example to the rest of the world, and also had a divine obligation to spread its superordinate political system and a way of life throughout North American continent. Many in the Whig party "were fearful of spreading out too widely", and they "adhered to the concentration of national authority in a limited area". In July 1848, Alexander Stephens denounced President Polk 's expansionist interpretation of America's future as "mendacious". Ulysses S. Grant served in

9409-479: Was it did not reflect the national spirit. The thesis that it embodied nationalism, found in much historical writing, is backed by little real supporting evidence. A possible influence is racial predominance, namely the idea that the American Anglo-Saxon race was "separate, innately superior" and "destined to bring good government, commercial prosperity and Christianity to the American continents and

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