Manifest Destiny
Empire of liberty
On Christmas Day in 1780, then governor of Virginia Thomas Jefferson wrote to fellow Virginian and distinguished Revolutionary War colonel George Rogers Clark, soon to be appointed brigadier general by Jefferson, calling for the United States to become a continental “empire of liberty,” a development that Jefferson argued would convert “dangerous Enemies into valuable friends.” These “dangerous enemies” included the British, Native American societies, and prospectively the Spanish, French and any other powers that sought to obstruct American expansionism. During Jefferson’s presidency, he dramatically expanded the reach of this “empire of liberty” through the Louisiana Purchase, which he had surveyed by **Merriweather Lewis **and William Clark, George Rogers Clark’s younger brother, and Zebulon Pike, the military leader and explorer for whom **Pike’s Peak **in southern **Colorado **was later named. By the time that Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, American settlers were moving westward and setting their sights on the Pacific coast.
Troublesome Texans
As Americans moved westward, they increasingly encroached upon the boundaries of other countries and indigenous societies. In the early 1800s, **Mexico **and many other Latin American countries fought for and gained their respective independence from Spain. While the United States issued the **Monroe Doctrine **in the early 1820s, warning European powers against attempts at restoring their previous empires in the western hemisphere, it became increasingly clear that a number of Americans were interested in expanding into what was then Mexican territory. With the forced removal of the **Cherokee **and other Native Americans nations from the southeastern United States to what is now Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears, the United States now controlled territory bordering what had a few years earlier been Mexican territory and what was then the independent republic of Texas.
The independence of Texas and its subsequent 9 year existence as an independent republic is a complex story involving famous American frontiersmen such as **Daniel Boone **and Davy Crockett, legendary events including the siege of the Alamo, and diplomatic and military jockeying between the United States, Mexico, and Great Britain. Eight years after obtaining its independence from Spain, in 1829 Mexico, under President Vicente Guerrero, a man of mixed Mexican and African heritage, became the second country in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery, a development that led to confrontations with Americans moving into what is now Texas, some of whom sought to bring enslaved persons with them. In April 1830, Mexican President Anastasio Bustamante signed the new **Immigration Act **passed by the Mexican Congress that prohibited further American immigration into Texas, further angering the white, or Anglo, settlers. Religious disputes arose, too, between Mexican Catholics and Anglo Protestants, and by the early 1830s, armed conflict erupted. Over the next few years, Texans and Mexicans fought battles at Goliad and the **Alamo **before Texan forces captured Mexican President and General Antonio López de Santa Anna and within weeks the new Republic of Texas was declared with **Sam Houston **its first president.
Many Americans sought to add Texas to the United States but President Andrew Jackson,** **fearful of potential divisions in the country and also of providing his **Whig **opponents with a divisive issue in a presidential election year, refused to consider annexing Texas in 1836. Throughout the late 1830s and 1840s, the issue of annexing Texas remained a source of potential controversy and conflict. With its enormous cotton production, Texas posed a challenge to cotton planters in much of the deep south while Great Britain sought to keep Texas independent of the United States to keep cotton import prices lower and prevent the United States from becoming a greater global power. Mexico remained steadfastly opposed to American annexation of Texas, warning that it would lead to war. In the presidential election of 1844, Senator James K. Polk of Tennessee was the only major candidate to openly call for the annexation of Texas - this stance helped him secure the Democratic nomination and eventually the presidency. As you will see in the next lesson, within 6 months of American annexation of Texas, the United States and Mexico were at war.
Great nation of futurity
In 1839, publisher **John L. O’ Sullivan **asserted that the United States was “destined to manifest” its divinely appointed purpose of extending its civilization and culture across the continent. O’ Sullivan would be a prominent supporter of the annexation of Texas in 1845, proclaiming that it was America’s “manifest destiny” to annex Texas and California soon thereafter.
John L. O’ Sullivan, United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 1839
54’ 40’’ or Fight!
As a presidential candidate in 1844, James K. Polk advocated for significant expansion of the United States in all directions except east. His strident support for the annexation of Texas was essential to secure the Democratic nomination in 1844, but his expansionist cry of “54’ 40” or fight!” about the need to secure territory all the way up to the eastern boundary of Alaska, then still Russian territory, remains one of the iconic political slogans of American presidential campaign history. The territory in question was still part of British Canada and the British government and their Canadian subjects rejected Polk’s demands; ultimately, the United States and Great Britain resolved this dispute by agreeing to the **49th parallel **as the northern boundary of the United States and the southern boundary of Canada all the way to the Great Lakes.