The Forgotten Founders: Rethinking the History of the Old West by Stewart L. Udall

Author:Stewart L. Udall [Udall, Stewart L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, General, United States, 19th Century, nature, Natural Resources
ISBN: 9781610910705
Google: GAYgDWC4pyEC
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2012-06-30T23:41:56.303521+00:00

5

The Manifest Destiny Morass

“Manifest Destiny and imperialism were traps into which the nation was led in 1846 and 1899, and from which it extricated itself as well as it could afterward.”

—Frederick Merk

A New York editor, John L. O’Sullivan, coined the expression “Manifest Destiny” during the spirited public debate that preceded the Mexican War, and thereafter this jingoistic catchphrase has skewed interpretations of western history. O’Sullivan was a propagandist with a penchant for extravagant ideas. The exuberance that characterized his writing is on display in the following statement, written at the end of 1845:

[It is America’s] manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federative self government entrusted to us.

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