Manifest Destiny
Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:31 pm
Manifest Destiny. It’s a term we all remember from our school days. But what does it really mean? Many credit John O’Sullivan, a newspaper editor and journalist in the 1840s, as one of those key men who put forward the principal that it was predetermined by God that America should rule the continent from Atlantic to Pacific. While he may not have been solely responsible for the idea, he is the first to coin the term Manifest Destiny. This came at a time when settlements west of the Mississippi River were few and far between, the most notable exception being the frontier town of San Francisco, which in 1849 was to undergo a rapid transformation after the discovery of gold in the nearby hills.
The term was more than a catchphrase; it became the justification and driving force behind the annexation of Texas and the treatment of the native population of North America during the expansion westward. Manifest Destiny defined a period of rapid and controversial growth for the United States. What spoke of more promise, more growth and more possibility than the idea that God himself had decreed that Americans were to rule from sea to shining sea? Settlement was no longer a tentative exploration of a vast and imposing wilderness and the push to the Pacific became something more than our simple right; it became our God-given mission.
In his article “The Great Nation of Futurity” in The United States Democratic Review, O’Sullivan stated:
"Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other. We must onward to the fulfillment of our mission -- to the entire development of the principle of our organization -- freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and goodwill where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?"
O’Sullivan was the voice of what was still a very young nation with a proud history of rebellion against tyranny, but not much else. He demonized the existing nations of the world and their long, violent and sordid histories. “Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage,” he wrote, “where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes.”
“The expansive future is our arena, and for our history,” he continued. “We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past. We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can.”
It was a powerful and breathless time in American history when, spurred by O’Sullivan’s words, a nation pushed its borders to the Pacific, letting nothing stand in its way. It was a time of hope, vision, adventure and exploration. It was a time of weary settlers scraping out a living far from civilization on farms and homesteads. It was a time of frontiersmen, cowboys and lawlessness, too. And along America’s mightiest river, the Mississippi, it was a time of untold prosperity as thousands of citizens set their sights on the mountains and plains to the west, gathered their belongings and set forth on a quest for a new life that lived up to the ideals that Manifest Destiny had set for the nation. Riverboats fueled this growth, bringing people, goods and foodstuff as far as the rivers would go, deep into the new territories via rivers such as the Missouri which stretches west from St. Louis to the Rocky Mountains from the mighty Mississippi.
It is a story best told in person and features tales best understood by living them from the decks of a riverboat decked out with every conceivable modern amenity but designed to be true to its past. From September 20 to 28, 2013, the American Queen Steamboat Company explores the country’s divine expansion with a Manifest Destiny theme voyage on the grand American Queen.
Onboard we will have Robert W. Merry who is Editor of The National Interest, with an impressive resume in political journalism including the Denver Post, National Observer, The Wall Street Journal and Managing Editor for Congressional Quarterly, Inc. He has also authored many critically-acclaimed books including the New York Times Best Seller A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent. He is joined by Dr. Steven E. Woodworth, a renowned history professor at Texas Christian University who was named one of the best 300 professors in the United States by the Princeton Review. Dr. Woodworth has been author, co-author or editor of 31 books. An expert in Civil War history, he will explain the role Manifest Destiny played in the bloodiest war in U.S. history.
Sailing between Chattanooga, TN and St. Louis, MO, the American Queen will follow a route many settlers would have used to embark on their journey to a spot under what is now the Gateway Arch. The American Queen calls on Florence, AL where guests can visit the Florence Indian Mound & Museum. Savannah, TN is best known as the jumping off point for Shiloh National Military Park, commemorating the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, often referred to as Bloody Shiloh. Paducah, KY presents attractions like the Paducah Railroad Museum which explores the legacy of the Iron Horse which opened up the country to rail settlement in the latter part of the 19th century. Both Cape Girardeau, MO and Chester, IL help tell the story of Manifest Destiny through their museums, historic buildings and local legends. And below the famed arch in St, Louis, the Museum of Westward Expansion illustrates the stories you will be hearing onboard throughout your voyage.
We invite you to relive a time when anything was possible and settlers pushed across a hostile landscape according to, as they believed, God’s will to create the America that we know today.
The term was more than a catchphrase; it became the justification and driving force behind the annexation of Texas and the treatment of the native population of North America during the expansion westward. Manifest Destiny defined a period of rapid and controversial growth for the United States. What spoke of more promise, more growth and more possibility than the idea that God himself had decreed that Americans were to rule from sea to shining sea? Settlement was no longer a tentative exploration of a vast and imposing wilderness and the push to the Pacific became something more than our simple right; it became our God-given mission.
In his article “The Great Nation of Futurity” in The United States Democratic Review, O’Sullivan stated:
"Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other. We must onward to the fulfillment of our mission -- to the entire development of the principle of our organization -- freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and goodwill where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?"
O’Sullivan was the voice of what was still a very young nation with a proud history of rebellion against tyranny, but not much else. He demonized the existing nations of the world and their long, violent and sordid histories. “Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage,” he wrote, “where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes.”
“The expansive future is our arena, and for our history,” he continued. “We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past. We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can.”
It was a powerful and breathless time in American history when, spurred by O’Sullivan’s words, a nation pushed its borders to the Pacific, letting nothing stand in its way. It was a time of hope, vision, adventure and exploration. It was a time of weary settlers scraping out a living far from civilization on farms and homesteads. It was a time of frontiersmen, cowboys and lawlessness, too. And along America’s mightiest river, the Mississippi, it was a time of untold prosperity as thousands of citizens set their sights on the mountains and plains to the west, gathered their belongings and set forth on a quest for a new life that lived up to the ideals that Manifest Destiny had set for the nation. Riverboats fueled this growth, bringing people, goods and foodstuff as far as the rivers would go, deep into the new territories via rivers such as the Missouri which stretches west from St. Louis to the Rocky Mountains from the mighty Mississippi.
It is a story best told in person and features tales best understood by living them from the decks of a riverboat decked out with every conceivable modern amenity but designed to be true to its past. From September 20 to 28, 2013, the American Queen Steamboat Company explores the country’s divine expansion with a Manifest Destiny theme voyage on the grand American Queen.
Onboard we will have Robert W. Merry who is Editor of The National Interest, with an impressive resume in political journalism including the Denver Post, National Observer, The Wall Street Journal and Managing Editor for Congressional Quarterly, Inc. He has also authored many critically-acclaimed books including the New York Times Best Seller A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent. He is joined by Dr. Steven E. Woodworth, a renowned history professor at Texas Christian University who was named one of the best 300 professors in the United States by the Princeton Review. Dr. Woodworth has been author, co-author or editor of 31 books. An expert in Civil War history, he will explain the role Manifest Destiny played in the bloodiest war in U.S. history.
Sailing between Chattanooga, TN and St. Louis, MO, the American Queen will follow a route many settlers would have used to embark on their journey to a spot under what is now the Gateway Arch. The American Queen calls on Florence, AL where guests can visit the Florence Indian Mound & Museum. Savannah, TN is best known as the jumping off point for Shiloh National Military Park, commemorating the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, often referred to as Bloody Shiloh. Paducah, KY presents attractions like the Paducah Railroad Museum which explores the legacy of the Iron Horse which opened up the country to rail settlement in the latter part of the 19th century. Both Cape Girardeau, MO and Chester, IL help tell the story of Manifest Destiny through their museums, historic buildings and local legends. And below the famed arch in St, Louis, the Museum of Westward Expansion illustrates the stories you will be hearing onboard throughout your voyage.
We invite you to relive a time when anything was possible and settlers pushed across a hostile landscape according to, as they believed, God’s will to create the America that we know today.