Obviously, this was not always the case.  When those earliest settlers landed on the east coast and carved out their stark settlements, they had no idea of huge expanse of land that lay to the west.  It took the bold explorations of surveyors such and Lewis and Clark to report back how stunningly huge the amount of physical space that was available for America to inhabit.

At first, the very idea of becoming a nation was seemingly impossible for the early settlers to grasp.  They came here to escape persecution, tyranny or to make a new home for their families.  If they could have looked a few hundred years down the line into the future and seen the powerhouse of a nation that would grow up from their work in those early years, they would have been stunned that this country grew to be such a world force.  So the earliest challenges of settlers and early leaders of the citizens of the young America was to grasp the scope of what they were about to set about to achieve.

But grasp that scope they did.  It seemed that the physical majesty of what was to become the nation of America inspired a concept that was just as grand as the land itself and that was the concept of Manifest Destiny.  Manifest destiny was the force that drove those settlers and explorers to drive their wagon trains across sometimes impossible terrain through difficult weather conditions and facing many dangers from animals and Native Americans alike to build a nation that spanned form the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.

This was the dream of the early settlers of this country.  They did not just see a new nation but one of importance, of an almost holy calling to become a virtual utopia of democracy and opportunity.  And part of that utopian vision was the idea of a nation that spanned ocean to ocean and from Mexico to the Canadian border as well. 

When you think about it, its phenomenal that a people who did not have space photographs of a landscape or high speed travel such as is common today to get a vision of a unified nation of such vast size and scope.  But it was more than just physical size that spoke to the hearts and souls of those early Americans.  Manifest Destiny spoke to a vision of greatness for America that was birthed in the hearts of even these early citizens. 

The size of the country was to be a reflection of the majesty of the human spirit and the magnificence of the American experiment to build a nation built on freedom, the will of the people and on democracy and opportunity.  Today such concepts seem ordinary and for that we can thank the early founders of this country for catching that dream together and making it a reality.

Many have criticized Manifest Destiny as greed or empire building.  And to be sure, mistakes were made and many people died or had their individual destinies hurt in the wholesale rush to the west that America experienced in its early decades.  But what is not diminished is that sense of calling and that sense that America was put here for something great.  That calling lives still in the hearts of all true Americans as we find out how we too can help our country fulfill its Manifest Destiny to be a voice for freedom and liberty in the world.  Let’s hope Americans never loose their sense of calling and destiny.  Because if that dies away, something holy and magnificent will die with it.

Manifest destiny and slavery DBQ

          In 1860 the southern half of the United States seceded from the union. A policy of manifest destiny and conflicting views of slavery pushed the country to split and start the civil war.

     Manifest destiny was a popular view during the 1840’s and 1850’s. The edition of all the land from America’s current border, at that time up to the end of the Louisiana Purchase, to California was seen as America’s fate. Some saw the dangers of expanding, especially if slavery expanded as well. Ralph Waldo Emerson stated that by conquering Mexico and taking her land, it would poison America (document A). He felt that with the strong pro and anti-slavery views eminent within the country, that the issue of expanding slavery into these new territories would tear the U.S apart. Anti-slavery politicians in the House of Representatives passed an amendment called the Wilmot proviso, to try and stop slavery from expanding. The amendment was subsequently refuted by the senate (document B). The idea of stopping the expansion of slavery even manifested into its own political party, named the free-soil party. Even though the Wilmot proviso was not passed, the ideals it represented split the parties between north and south, so that some Whigs were for it and some against it and some democrats were for it and some against it.

     The country was deeply divided between slavery in the years coming up to the civil war. The choice to split may have been influenced by the south’s decreasing power and say in government. According to a chart on election results from 1852-1860, the Republican Party became a strong, dominant party, winning majorities of the popular and electoral votes (document D). The Republican Party was a northern based party and had instilled in them the ideas of freeing slaves and abolition. The success of this party shows the south’s weakening grasp on politics and the strength of the abolitionist movement. Some abolitionists were much more radical than those leading the Republican Party, including people like john brown. He was radical abolitionist who led raids against pro-slavery groups, and armed slaves so that they could revolt against their masters. Another example of the south, or slave states diminishing power, is a chart depicting congressional representation. It clearly shows Free states gaining more seats in both houses, than the slave states, from 1813-1860(document J). This could be a prime reason for the south to secede from the union. Discontent with their decrease in power, no longer able to pass bills or amendments that benefited them or could protect their way of life, the south seceded from the union. The pro-slavery and anti-slavery views and stubbornness traveled all the way to the senate (document F). Two senators, Preston Brooks and John Sumner, were so stuck in their way that they actually fought on the senate floor. It ended in Preston beating Sumner with his cane. The two senators became heroes in their home states of South Carolina and Massachusetts, and were almost unanimously re-elected.

     Slave owners became upset at their loss of power and pushed the passing of the fugitive slave act. This allowed for slave catchers to go into Free states and recapture slaves that belonged to the slave owner. In some cases free blacks were captured and taken to be slaves from northern cities. Posters were put up, warning about these dangers and how back people should not talk to the police (document C). Posters like this, were posted in northern cites, like Boston, where abolitionists wanted to protect blacks from these slave catchers. In one case a fugitive slave, Anthony burns, was recaptured. 50,000 Bostonians protested, in hopes that Anthony would be set free (document G). This shows how strongly that disagreed, slave and free. This event also caused many people to become abolitionists. In one case, ammos E. Lawrence tells about how his whole family became abolitionist overnight due to this event. Another slave, Dred Scott, Sued for his freedom because he felt that if he traveled to free land before that meant he became free. His Supreme Court case was concluded with Roger B. Taney saying that black people are not citizens and that the Missouri compromise is unconstitutional,  in 1857(document E).

     Many people were undecided in their views of slavery, especially in the north, because many northerners had never seen a slave before or how they were treated on a plantation. That was the case until Uncle Toms Cabin was published, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (document I). The book contained many of the atrocities of slavery, even though it was exaggerated in some parts, it become the number one book of the time. Many northerners read these books and due to their reading became strong abolitionists. In the south the book was banned because it portrayed southern slave owners very badly and evil.

     Sectional differences, caused by slavery and the expansion of slavery through manifest destiny, is what caused the civil war. The south’s loss of power and defense of and outdated and immoral system led to a war with ourselves; a Civil War.

After I made it across the great spans of rotunda and began looking at actual artifacts, the reasoning for so much “wasted space”, as I overheard someone call it, became apparent.  The tens of thousands of years the Native Americans inhabited this land before European civilization; there were no skyscrapers, no enormous houses, and no children of industry.  The native people lived at one with the land and felt great accomplishment by doing just that.  This philosophy was not understood by the English, French, Spanish, and Dutch imperialists that came to conquer.  That fundamental difference immediately rooted a thought of superiority in the Europeans.  As the Europeans continued to spread throughout the land, Native American artifacts devolved from the one great piece of physical history, and their means of transportation around it, to increasing amounts of tangible items that were decreasing in size and value. 

Examples of such depreciation were the Peace Medals that Presidents gave to tribal leaders of powerful Indian nations in order to form alliances.  In the beginning, George Washington’s peace medal was ornately engraved by hand on a sheet of silver.   Washington’s medal depicted an American and an Indian shaking hands across a creek as a display of equality and friendship.   Thomas Jefferson’s medals were made much more hastily by striking the ever shrinking sheets of silver with a mold of the president’s likeness.  When the practice originated, Indians lived on vast expanses of land.  As the land became more occupied by the Americans it seemed, by looking at the exhibit, that pleasing the Natives was becoming less of a priority and more of a hassle.

The prejudice of the time, which sprouted from the economic need for success and the spread of capitalism, was utilized to squash what was not understood and further the cause of colonization in the Americas.  “To colonize is to conquer”, and the reciprocity the natives lived by had no room for conquest.  This, being their way of life, left them open for the subconsciously racist and genocidal plans of the Europeans such as Columbus and Ponce de Leon who were in constant search of gold.  This practice continued throughout the 1800’s with the intentional infection of Indians with the Smallpox virus at Fort Pitt, and Manifest Destiny that was based on the expansionist ideals of Thomas Jefferson.   

After seeing the museum and visualizing the story of the Native Americans through every aspect of the structure from artifacts to architecture, the most important part of the Native American story was the many thousands of years that were spent living at one with the earth and not continually acquiring more things of treasure.  The only way that this intangible piece of history could be displayed was to show a sort of, “Empty Architecture” that would represent wasted space to an expansionist but reveals the greatest achievement the natives reached, survival.

The charged antebellum political climate, now plagued with the issue of slavery brought to the forefront of American politics as a result of manifest destiny policies, made secession inevitable due to the irreconcilable sectionalism present between North and South.

            The Mexican War (1846-1848), caused in part by the idea of manifest destiny, created a new immediacy to the issue of slavery. Motivation for the war was primarily fueled by Southern ambitions for additional territory to expand their agricultural economy – essentially, they required more land for farming. Increased territory, however, would be useless without the labor to exploit it, and so the new territories would have to allow slavery in order to provide a stable workforce and preserve the Southern agricultural economy. The notions of manifest destiny and slavery became inextricably interrelated, as one cyclically necessitated the other. As a result, American expansionism one of the prevalent trends of the time, and it was not only directed to the west. James Buchanan, in a letter written to the Secretary of State, discussed the potential annexation of Cuba as a slave state in the event that the United States could not buy it from Spain. Buchanan was a Democrat, and, like many others in his party, wished to extend the boundaries of the United States through any means necessary. Prominent Democrats would continue to push forward policies justified by manifest destiny in the antebellum period, and the inability for any compromise between them and Republicans would split the country in two.

On the matter of sectionalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “Mexico will poison us,” referring to the polarizing nature of the war on the United States. His prediction would prove to be correct, as the conflict was one of the clear precursors to the Civil War. America acquired various territories from Mexico as a result of the war, and the pressing issue of the time was the status of slavery within those territories. Disagreements over slavery in the territories would ignite sectionalist disputes, and, though there were many attempts to foster compromise between the two sides, they would all ultimately fail to amicably determine the status of slavery within the new territories.

The Wilmot Proviso, introduced in 1846, was one of those ultimately unsuccessful attempts to determine the status of slavery within the territories. The bill proposed that slavery would be banned in the territories acquired from Mexico in the war. The legislation passed in the House of Representatives, where there were more Northern delegates, but was knocked down in the Senate, which had a more even distribution between the states. The war was viewed by some Northerners as a Southern ploy to extend the “slave power,” and so they were necessarily hostile against any pro-slavery policies in the new territories.

The North’s vocal opposition to slavery only grew in the years following the Mexican War, furthering the growing sectionalist divide. The Fugitive Slave Act, passed in 1850, was a response to some of “personal liberty laws” passed by the Northern states that gave Northerners the option to not turn in escaped slaves. It penalized not only fugitive slaves but also those who aided them, and thus was looked down upon by abolitionists in the north. An abolitionist broadside printed in response to the conviction of fugitive slave Thomas Sims warned “colored people of Boston” to be wary of watchmen and police officers, as they were now effectively “kidnappers and slave catchers” due to the Act. This turned Northern public opinion against slavery – Amos A. Lawrence wrote in response to the Act that, after an incident involving a fugitive slave being recaptured, his family “went to bed one night old fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.”

In response to the Fugitive Slave Act, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a highly influential anti-slavery novel. The “great book of the age,” as it was touted by some, became immensely popular, with “270,000 volumes sold,” primarily in the North. The novel made the debate about slavery a far more personal one, moving it from the public to the private sphere of life. People began to discuss the issue of slavery through the book at the home, and this contributed to the growing Northern resentment of Southern slavery policies.

Sectionalism was further exacerbated with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, proposed by Democrat Stephen Douglas of Illinois. It would leave the status of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska up to popular sovereignty, which effectively assured that slavery would be made legal in the two states due to overwhelming popular support. This effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, overriding the previous decision of the 36’30 parallel as the benchmark for slave and free state division. The Compromise could no longer hold, as the political climate in the United States had fundamentally been altered. The vote on the Act showed that the country was now acting based primarily on sectional rather than party divides, as Southern Democrats and Southern Whigs both voted for the Act while Northern Democrats and Northern Whigs voted against it. This division led to the dissolution of the Whig party and the creation of the Republican party in 1854 as an anti-slavery sectional party. The Republican party immediately rose to prominence, gaining 1,339,932 popular votes in the election of 1856 and winning the election of 1860 with 1,865,593 popular votes.

Violent conflict began between pro-slavery and abolitionist elements on the Kansas borders from 1854-8 in what became known as “Bleeding Kansas.” Now, the fears of violence between North and South became reality, and, although they were condemned by more moderate Northerners, the violent abolitionists confirmed the Southern belief of violent Northern antagonism. Violent antagonism spread even to the political institutions when Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner gave an impassioned speech attacking the Democratic administration. His speech insulted the South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, whose nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks, beat Sumner over the head with a cane. This outraged Northern Democrats, who disapproved of Brooks’ caning. However, Southern opinion was positive – in an issue of the South Carolinian, Brooks was given “not only the approval, but the hearty congratulations of the people of South Carolina.” The conflict between the North and South had moved from verbal political dispute to actual, physical violence – it now approached the precipice of war.

The Dred Scott decision of 1857 in the Supreme Court solidified the divide between North and South. Dred Scott, who had been held as a slave in Missouri, was taken to the free territory of Wisconsin where he lived for two years before being taken back to Missouri. He sued for his freedom, arguing that his period of residence on free soil made him a free citizen. The Supreme Court ruled in a proslavery decision that Scott had no right to sue because persons of African descent were not U.S. citizens, Congress could not deprive his owner of property, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

The issue of popular sovereignty in the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision led to a series of debates between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln known as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. In these debates, Lincoln made his famous “House Divided” speech, in which he discussed the growing antagonism between the North and South resulting from disagreement over the slavery issue . Douglas responded with his “Freeport Doctrine” speech, in which he argued that the only way to justly determine the status of slavery in the territories was through popular sovereignty, regardless of any Supreme Court decision. The Lincoln-Douglas debates embodied the political scene as a whole, and here Lincoln made one of his most famous and foreboding quotes: “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Indeed, the United States would not remain as a unified whole for long.

In 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a rebellion at Harper’s Ferry in hopes of starting a slave uprising in Virginia. He orchestrated an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, planning on using the guns obtained from the arsenal to arm Virginia’s slaves. This, like the violence in “Bleeding Kansas,” confirmed the fear that many Southerners had of Abolitionist radicalism, despite some condemnation of Brown’s actions by more moderate Northerners. Brown was a highly polarizing figure, viewed as a martyr by some in the North and a treasonous revolutionary by those in the South. The polarization that Brown represented and took to the extreme would soon tear the country apart.

The election of Lincoln in 1860 would mobilize the southern secessionists into action. Lincoln, who won with a minority of the popular vote but the necessary majority of the electoral vote, was univocally opposed by those in the South. The new president was perceived by those in the South as a direct threat to its survival, and state committees for secession began to form – first in South Carolina in December 1860, and then in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Each state convention voted to secede, and the seven states created the Confederate States of America. The sectionalist ideology and passionate political rhetoric of the preceding decades manifested itself in the way pro-secession Southerners viewed themselves – they envisioned themselves as similar to the revolutionaries of 1776, fighting for freedom in the face of unjust tyranny.

Lincoln would stand by his promise to preserve the union in the face of any contingency, and the Civil War would begin shortly after the secessions in 1861. The war was caused by the fragmentation between the North and South on questions brought about by territories acquired through policies of manifest destiny – questions of slavery and states’ rights. Political discourse had moved from compromise to increased sectionalism, and eventually to direct violence and secession. An escalating ideological battle in the United States broke down any chance of compromise, and war became the final conclusion.

The Manifest Destiny was the idea that it was the United States’ destiny to take over all of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The majority of the American public was in favor of territorial expansion, although some politicians and groups opposed it. O’Sullivan’s three ideas that supported the belief in the Destiny were that American expansionism was God’s will, free development, and the fact that national population growth required more land for the people to spread out upon. The proclamation that the broadening of the United States boarders was long implanted in God’s blueprint, and that Americans were the “chosen” people. This idea could be traced back to the New England Puritans.

Spirituality Guidance is a term that defines the art of awakening individuals to the truth of their value. Each and every one of us has worth and value within us. Whether it has been tapped or not, it is there waiting to be expressed. Why? Because this universe (or multiverse) is a living entity that constantly creates and re-creates itself. This is similar to our daily journey through life. Each day we tackle our various duties and responsibilities, interact with other individuals and manifest our destiny based upon our awareness of that destiny. We engage in periods of activity and rest that express our attitudes about life.

The greatest tool in observing the facts necessary to guide yourself and others to a deeper understanding of the world in which we live is by the process of scientific discovery. Scientific discovery involves the processes of observing, predicting, hypothesizing, inferring, identifying, recognizing, reasoning and further analyzing. Through the methodical employment of these processes we can dig down to the core of the facts that we observe. This method is referred to as the hypothetico-deductive method of observing reality. Its guiding principle is found in the Law of Parsimony, a.k.a. Occam’s Razor.

The Law of Parsimony states that in considering all aspects of an observation, reducing the occurrence of what is being observed to the simplest explanation or strategy is the best explanation. If an apple falls from the tree without any visible external forces, then it must be something that we cannot observe that is causing the object to move. It is not a non-corporeal entity cutting the apple from the tree, but a force that we experience and that we can only observe the results of that force. That force is gravity. In other words, don’t make assumptions as to the causes. Seek out the facts by reducing the conclusions of what you observe to the simplest explanation.

In reality, how many people really do that? How many times does something have to occur before you accept it as true? Once, twice, three times? Only by developing a strategy and subsequent processes of revealing the truth does one come to a deeper understanding of why things occur the way that they do. Did you get what you wanted or did you get what you needed? Did you obtain the job that you thought was best for you or did you feel you settled for something less than what you deserved? Your attitudes and feelings affect the outcome of the results that are manifested in your life. In order to conduct a scientific experiment to observe the results that you have obtained in your life and understand why those results have been manifested, you must remove your opinions, emotions and attitudes and reduce your observations to the simplest explanation.

For example, it’s like a person who joined a gym in order to exercise and get fit. They began paying a set fee per month to maintain their membership. However, they never disciplined themselves to get out of bed every morning and show up at the gym to exercise. As their weight began to increase, they began to become more angry. Not being able to see that their behavior was the cause of their weight gain, they pushed the blame for their condition onto the gym. Was it the gym’s fault? Hardly. It was their lack of discipline that caused the situation. They could not step out of their own head to view and embrace the simplest explanation. The truth is that if they had disciplined themselves to show up every day and exercise they would begin to see the overall change in their weight and subsequently, their attitude. Attitudes are a result of observed behavior. If you want a healthy attitude, you need to observe the facts and not employ the untested opinions of yourself and others.

The purpose of Spirituality Guidance is to guide others to seek out the facts by scientifically observing them and reducing their causes to the simplest explanation. By accepting the simplest explanation, we can begin to unfold our innermost desires and develop strategies to accomplish those desires. Truth is revealed through accurate and effective observation of the facts. Values are created by a set of rules that we establish based on physical conditions, emotional reactions, mental pro-actions and spiritual awareness. Our worth is based on how much we accept the truth, act on our values and develop strategies that contribute to growth and expansion of life instead of living mediocrity. The processes of asking through prayer, seeking through meditation and opening the door through service, will actualize our desires and lead our lives into complete fulfillment.

An essential moment in United States history was from 1800 to 1850, in which the ideas of expanding from “sea to shining sea” seemed of paramount importance to copious Americans, particularly apparent in the beliefs of the Democrats. The immense quantity of territory attained during this time had numerous contrasting affects on national unity and sectionalism in America. Initially, the acquisition of land had a positive affect on the United States, which empowered the idea of Manifest Destiny. Eventually, political quagmires emerged due to the exponentially increasing magnitude of American territory, ultimately threatening the national unity that had developed during the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

Land was an efficient tool in developing national unity in America. Such notable moments in history in which the United States was able to prosper would include the Louisiana Purchase, the Missouri Compromise, and the industrial revolution. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was noteworthy in developing national unity because it unlocked additional land for the agrarian society to thrive, and it allowed for a dual-nature trade system between the agrarian society and the industrializing society. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 affected the national unity of America in a dissimilar method. The Compromise did not create reciprocated relationships between regions; instead, it settled the free state versus the slave state dispute. This assuaged the radical feelings of various people and prevented disunity. The industrial revolution did not take place within a couple of years but over an expansive duration of time in which several aspects of American life changed. Moreover, land acquisition was exceedingly promoted by it because it required an abundance of land and various resources. Furthermore, it allowed America to transport resources swiftly, and communicate further distances; overall, this led to improved relations between distant regions. Evidently, America was experiencing fervent national unity during the initial quarter of the nineteenth century because there was mutual trade between diverse regions, there were agreements on different conflicts, and because relationships across distances improved.

Acquiring land could not always be characterized as improving national unity because it did begin to alter between 1815 and 1825. This period of time can be exemplified as the transition period between national unity, and disunity. Disunity became more of an ominous and plausible possibility because of two major political issues that was separating the nation, slavery and sectionalism. The periods of 1815 to 1825 were periods in which both of these factors were strongest because this was the time period, in which new states were being organized. Slavery and sectionalism during this period of time were interrelated, and were both caused by immense territorial expansion. The slave states were equivalent in number to the free states for an extensive period, but with the addition of land, an unbalance occurred between the two distinct regions. The conflict was primarily between the North and the South, in which the South was pro-slavery, and the North was anti-slavery. With this dispute of the regions came sectionalism, in which the South and the North tried to claim supremacy in American politics. An example of sectionalism on the rise would be the nullification crisis, which was caused by Calhoun’s theory of nullification. This was caused because western lands were dominating the trade of agricultural products, in which South Carolina could not compete. Calhoun argued this as an injustice and threatened secession. Therefore, the national unity was not always empowered by land acquisition.

America after the 1840s was close to disunity and maybe even secession of the South from the Union. During the 1840s, over a million square miles of land was added to the United States of America, and with the addition of this came the loss of something much more precious. Much of purchases or conquests for land were in lands known as the Mexican cession, and Texan lands. The Mexican cession caused disunity because it created a sectional debate by producing so much more land for America it became improbable the South and the North would agree on the organization of the states. This caused the South to retaliate with the North when they felt the North attained to many political unfair advantages, and vise versa. Examples of retaliations from both sides in order to gain political supremacy would be the Wilmot Proviso, suggested by David Wilmot, stating all slavery should be prohibited from all lands obtained by the Mexican cession. Calhoun, in response argued there were many injustices in the American government in which the North obtained too many advantages. Disunion was a very likely result of these conflicts, but was “resolved” by the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 consisted of several acts, in which none directly solved the issue of slavery. Ultimately, the land conquests influenced by the idea of Manifest Destiny would pose the challenge of disunion.

Conclusively, the territorial expansions promoted by Manifest Destiny initially positively influenced national unity for the United States of America. However, through time it transitioned into a negative effect on the national unity. It created a sense of national unity in the beginning because the land allowed for resources that would help the country flourish and slavery had not developed into much of an issue yet. Then slavery became a much more prominent issue and sectionalism was on the rise. Finally, political issues, strongly encouraged by the acquisition of land, lead to the weakening of national unity and the possible threat of disunion or secession. America between the periods of 1800 and 1850 experienced many changes in nationalism.

    Manifest Destiny is the philosophical idea that we should claim the North American continent for the whole U.S.  Manifest Destiny is supported by many fellow Americans.  However, some feel it is necessary to leave the western land to the Indians and other nations.  Others feel that God didn’t mean for us to claim the land. By letting western land escape America’s grasp, the economy will be forced into an economical depression because land and supplies will all be used in the small the area of the U.S. right now, until it all depletes completely. 

    Manifest Destiny needs to be embraced.  God put the land here for us to take, so let us take it!  The frontier land lends economic opportunities to farmers because of the land’s rich, fertile soil.  Maritime merchants will be able to build ports on the west coast to expand trade.

    Dilemmas concerning the issue of embracing Manifest Destiny and heading west include the possibilities of crop failure, not finding gold, dying of a disease, business failure, or home-sickness.  Many of those rarely happen, so embracing Manifest Destiny and heading west is a good choice.

In the beginning there were the thirteen colonies. “The very first permanent colony was in Jamestown, New York” (Rubenstein 151). Most of the colonial Americans were people who were outcasts in the eyes of the British. However the colonies flourished, but were in all reality thirteen very separate states with differing visions as well as dialects, “having come from different parts of England, Quakers from the North of England and Puritans from East Anglia” (Rubenstein 151). Of course there was the mix of Irish and Scottish in the middle Atlantic. A great big melting pot, which is what America is.

Then the British began to make decisions without allowing the Americans to put anything to the vote. Voting is representation and when the ludicrous taxations came into play the states began to get upset. One of those taxes was first imposed in 1765 as the Stamp Act which taxed official documents, commercial contracts, licenses, publications, and even playing cards in the Northern colonies” (Encarta). This was repealed in 1766 but it came back in the form of many other crazy taxes which were used by the crown to fight the many wars it was having between other colonies. All of this taxation led to the Boston Tea Party which was thrown in 1773 by the colonists. Of course it wasn’t a real tea party, this one involved boarding three British ships and throwing all of the cargoes of tea overboard into the Boston harbor in protest to the crown’s tax on tea. This was the precursor to the American Revolution.

The American Revolution was the direct result of poor governance on the part of the British Empire, but more or less, it was the beginning of a long history of war and bloodshed for the Americas. In 1775 the first shots were fired beginning the American Revolution with one of the bloodiest battles of the time, the battle of Bunker Hill. The battle was a defeat for the colonists but it inspired the colonists to come together. Many battles were fought back and forth between 1775 and 1783, and many great things took place as well. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and the Americans even had the support of the French, who also had a colony in Louisiana at the time. For their support, America had promised to come to the aid of France when they called for it. Keep this in mind for later. The final battle of the revolution was decided in 1781 at the battle of Yorktown where George Washington decisively triumphed over Lord Charles Cornwallis. The Americans gained their freedom through war and that was just the beginning.

Freedom was no longer enough for the Americans. After defeating a giant, they knew nothing of humility and even worse so when Thomas Jefferson said that America was destined to spread from sea to shining sea or what is better known as the move west. This expansion showed only one thing, that the Americans would stop at nothing to make the entire continent theirs, which eventually, they did. Never mind the fact that their were native American tribes who had been living peacefully on the land until the iron horse rolled through it. One thing was learned by the original colonists. If they wanted it, they would have to fight for it. America had become an isolationist nation while it was expanding and even refused to offer aid to France during the Napoleonic war. This is one of the many times that America has gone back on a promise. Of course the west wasn’t just handed over to America, except for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, much of the land was annexed by force.

There was the American Indian war, the Mexican American war, and many skirmishes in the name of expansion. But once the country had reached the Pacific ocean they looked in on themselves and began to see problems there. The War Between the States began in 1861 and ended in 1865, but not before it could inflict a severe death toll on the American population. However, slavery was made illegal as a result. In contrast, the death and destruction cannot be justified by any means. Brothers killing brothers, this is the result of poor governance as well. When a country knows nothing but conflict, that is what it typically resorts to during trying times. America has never really been much of a humane country, as it is always trying to bolster its arsenal and spread democracy all over the world. What they need to realize is that democracy is a very difficult thing to spread to other countries as they tend to be multi-ethnic and therefore less likely to work together. An interesting thing as well when America has had forty three white presidents and one black one, safe to say that there is not a very fair representation of the population of America.

Geographically, America is blessed. It is flanked by two oceans, which improve its ability to trade with neighbors in a more cost effective manner and eliminates the threat of invasion from those fronts. As long as America remains allied with Canada to the North and Mexico to the South, it will continue to have a safe buffer from direct attack. For this very reason America was able to safely participate in two world wars. The first of which they used to bring themselves out of a depression through war-profiteering, and the second as an excuse to test out their advanced military might. Nearly every war America has been involved in such as Vietnam, WWI and WWII, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait, have all been fought in the enemy country. This idea that America will bring the fight to its enemies has evolved over the years from the similar attitudes of the western frontiersmen. This is one of the many ways America likes to spread its militaristic dominance. Through demonstration America has proven its willingness to seize whatever it can so as to mold it into something more in their vision. As much as America has tried to fight Imperialist urges, the power has them addicted . They act as if they are destined to rule the world, as if they are an Empire by birthright. How would they control the world though?

In 1945 the world changed. America was viewed in a whole new way. Ask the Japanese. The country responsible for what happened on that August day is now one that is trying to rid the world of Nuclear weapons one country at a time. Though history holds that America is the only country in the world to have tested and utilized the atomic bomb, as well as developed and tested the devastatingly more powerful hydrogen bomb, which requires four simultaneous atomic explosions just to generate the heat required to fuse two hydrogen nuclei together. Why would a country who is not interested in becoming an Empire develop such a destructive weapon? They haven’t said yet, but a nuclear weapon sure does hold a whole lot of bargaining weight when demanding things of other countries. Its extortion potential is quite high actually.

On its own, America can be quite violent, but when provoked, the offender usually faces catastrophic destruction. Several examples are as follows: Pearl Harbor- Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Lusitania-WWI, The Maine-to hell with Spain, Communism-Fire in Vietnam, Twin towers-carpet bombing of Iraq. Usually what throws America into a huge conflict is when anyone tries to challenge their policies, control, or attacks their ego in any way. America’s army has even been known to help corporations with mutual interest such as Chevron and Haliburton. Haliburton has profited a lot off of the Iraqi conflict and Chevron employed several military mercenary units to kill off a tribe in Africa for its oil pipeline. Ethics do not belong in the vocabulary of the American.

In conclusion it is safe to say that America has grown to such a powerful state because of its geographic location, its belligerence, and possibly Imperialist motives. There has got to be a reason why America is the only country who lists democracy as one of its exports. It has never known humility even when it has lost wars, such as Vietnam. Ten years were spent showing the Vietcong how much more military might the United States had and ten years the Vietcong showed the United States that they would not be bullied. Iraqi insurgents have taken a very similar stance as the Vietcong, and only time will tell whether or not America is truly destined to rule. As it should also be noted, even though America was forged by fire, they don’t have to be consumed by it. But only time can tell.

References

Rubenstein, James M. “Human Geography” Pearson Prentice Hall, USA. 2008.

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Davidson, Gienapp et al. “Nation of Nations” fifth edition. McGraw-Hill Co. USA 2005.

Wikipedia.org various searches

Brooks, Max “The Zombie Survival Guide” spf Islands. Three Rivers Press, NY 2003.

This kind of (formerly curious) negative attitude was not always the historical case, however, as will be later discussed. So, more immediately, the highly interesting and complex question is being here posed: When will they, those having this observed inferiority complex, have finally arrived at their assumed terrene nirvana (of a decadently Europeanized “Weimar Republic” created in the New World)?

Significantly, this basically concerns when it may finally occur to them, if ever, that this nation’s own domestic culture and civilization may someday be thought of as at least equal to that which is now said, one assumes, to greatly exist in the Old World. (Europe, to the effete and degenerate part of the upper class, easily has more liberated and greatly enlightened attitudes toward sex, pornography, social experimentation, collectivism especially, etc.)

Or, will that supposed “day” never truly come in the (radically defective) minds of those who always will necessarily think, more or less, that the proverbial grass is surely greener always on the other side.

Perhaps, moreover, no national outstanding achievements or incredible accomplishments in, say, the arts may ever substantively or substantially reach, to them, the then assumed exalted level regularly expected as, thus, mainly coming from Europe, the superior locus of all that remains or becomes truly great in terms of culture and/or civilization (in their ever pre-prejudiced minds).

And yet, the aforementioned attitude, within this nation’s history, is still relatively recent concerning, at the least, the massive disaffection of most of the upper class in this country. Previously, it had only or normally been a relatively tiny minority of expatriot types who had sought relief by leaving these shores for an improved vision of what they thought they needed or, perhaps, desired to so successfully find. What, nonetheless, does the older historical record reveal, in the following very brief survey, given merely to be just illustrative and suggestive?

Some American artists in the Colonial Era and after became major international successes, meaning in Europe; but, this was not at all, however, any dramatic sign of presumed alienation on any grand scale; in the 19th century, there were, it is true, some unique writers such as Henry James who, for instance, said that he could not withstand his country because it lacked a sense of tragedy [though his earlier years here had covered the time of the War Between the States, though presumably not tragic even for James with his quite ultra-refined tastes]. As is known, he became, consequently, a naturalized British subject.

After World War I, as yet another limited example for an era, there occurred what was called the “Lost Generation” of Americans, such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and many others among them, who turned up usually in Paris. Although born in Missouri, Eliot, of course, had sought his particular form of cultural solace and revelation in England and, thus, became a naturalized British subject.

But, as was noted correctly in the first paragraph of this article, various arbiters of American tastes were not, in fact, predominantly alienated from these shores nor predisposed to eagerly look elsewhere for varieties of cultural or civilizational enlightenment. And, most of this nation’s history, in general, proves this point most easily.

The Puritans, for instance, pertaining to very early American history, sought to come to the New World, as it used to be called, to found, according to John Winthrop, the forever shining “City upon a Hill” (1630) that would, supposedly, act as a light to wondrously attract the interest and admiration of the rest of the civilized world in a spiritual sense.

The majority of the American revolutionaries, later, thought that, indeed, a New Order of the Ages (see the Latin inscription noting this on the back of a $1 bill) had surely begun in America to stimulate all valuable human achievement ever after on this planet, especially for political enlightenment purposes. The American Revolution, moreover, has been said to have inspired the French Revolution of 1789 and various other revolutions, throughout the 19th century, in Latin America and, of course, elsewhere.

In the early to mid 19th century, the “imperialistic” concept and slogan of Manifest Destiny kept being enlarged further and further, meaning that the USA simply had to “naturally” expand its own known, superior, democratic culture and civilization from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, hopefully, to include someday or somehow all of Canada and Mexico, of course. The progressive march of America across the North American continent was held synonymous with the true progress of democracy at home and, by a nationalistic expression in such thought, around, in effect, the entire world. Americanism and progressivism in thought, therefore, were then widely held to, basically speaking, be just entirely synonymous.

Many of the mid to late 19th century American filibuster adventurers, e.g., going into Latin America, as a seemingly logical extension of the preceding thinking, saw then no actually necessary limits to this understanding of an expansive and self-justifying destiny covering the whole Western hemisphere itself. Thus, in the early 20th century, as simply a part of the “logical” culmination of such an attitude, there was in firm empirical existence the Panama Canal Zone, perceived as permanently sovereign American soil, to be kept there for protecting, of course, the American-built canal by that same name.

However, the aforementioned kind of rather nasty disaffection and, yes, massive alienation that has, in fact, occurred is not that unusual within the recorded history and context of the modern era. In the 18th and into the early 19th century, the majority of the Spanish elite, meaning primarily the aristocracy, had become extremely Francophile in their sympathies, viewpoints, and general attitudes, so much so that they had become divided against the common people who generally held to nationalistic feelings. Things French were thought, by definition, to be so genuinely much better, to be, in short, truly enlightened, correct, reasonable, and rational.

When the Napoleonic conquerors had, in fact, arrived, in the very early 19th century, the bulk of the aristocrats then greeted them as supposedly heroic spirits who were simply and fortunately liberating their benighted country from its, as they perceived it, vile sluggishness and backwards, reactionary orientation and nature as to age-old Spanish cultural characteristics and domestic social thought.

Thus, there are certain sure parallels in history that can be clearly cited, to good effect, concerning how alienated, upper-class, effete people can come to nihilistically detest and decisively reject the bulk of the cultural and social realities, the national patrimony; these are, thus, so overtly represented by their own disvalued, disrespected, and, yes, quite thoroughly detested countrymen, meaning the broad population base of their dishonored native land.

So, this article, in reiteration, pushes fast forward a problematic question that may not, perhaps, ever be really answered. Alienation has truly been its own kind of sordid tautology of self-justification and self-serving rationalization, though rarely, if ever, recognized as such by the enlightened snobs, by the nattering nabobs of negativism, as was once, in fact, so keenly and correctly said. The self-inflicted inferiority complex, inherent within the decayed intellects of these despicable and contemptible moral cretins, will forever keep them (sufficiently and dedicatedly) alienated from their detested country, from the land of their birth.

And yet, … and yet, the vast majority will never seek to leave these cursed shores, presumably because they are confirmed masochists as well as being slimy and vile cultural traitors. [The author of this article, for those interested readers, has posted an earlier one fully exploding, refuting easily, the alienation thesis as supposedly being only an intellectual and cultural possession of the ideological Left.]

The major irony to all of the above considerations , however, is that when the supposed utopia arrives, its many possessors actually, on the whole, do seriously hate it; the great 20th century philosopher, Leo Strauss, had tried, mostly uselessly, to urgently warn people against the false ideal of a universalization of an idealized Weimar Republic; because with it, necessarily and automatically, comes its enemies who will prove much tougher and tenacious than the deconstructionist or relativistic supporters of any moral chaos conceivable.

Today, the crescive Moslem fanatics, as, e.g., in Holland, analogously do take the place of the Nazis as virile and insistent opponents, dedicated enemies, of Weimarization in Europe or anywhere else. But, the Islamic community (subversively) insists, at the same time, that it does not wish to ever be a victim of discrimination or, of course, have any of its civil rights abused; it is as certain that if any European nation became an Islamic republic, on the other hand, the then true nature of this intolerant religious group’s protests would be, at last, revealed as being completely hypocritical and, as noted, subversive of free government, of all basic civil liberties and rights; their deceptive rhetoric, thus, needs much solid exposure.

Yet, the too willingly tolerant Europeans, meaning the majority, become then, increasingly, ideologically disarmed by those who so plead minority rights and seek protection, they say, against discrimination. Much has been and is and will be allowed to aggressively occur in Europe in the name of Islam, in the 21st century, which is no longer permitted at all if it would be done for the sake of promoting or much less carefully protecting Christianity; such is, interestingly, part of the aforementioned irony involved in all of this weird trans-cultural scenario sadly presaging the decline and fall of Western culture and its liberating civilization.

Perhaps, many liberal-minded Americans now see Obama as their true or, thus, expected champion to revolutionize the USA and take it more into the direction wanted, by them, in terms of Europeanization, if not yet a full attempt at radical Weimarization. In any event, it is, on the part of any conservatives or so-called conservatives (the neocons), simply morally reprehensible and, moreover, totally antithetical to an extreme in genuinely wanting to sincerely wish the President-elect well (concerning – what? – his ideological agenda’s basic welfare and success).

Such basely absurd sentiments of (bizarre) well wishing, when properly examined, are nothing short of social, political, cultural, and moral insanity and, moreover, a vile masochistic desire for attaining, in its ultimate, a form of national suicide. So, in conclusion, the asseverated real answer to the proposed rhetorical question is that “they” will never have finally arrived, meaning that always going too far to the Left can, thus, never ultimately be actually that far enough.

As with any mirage, therefore, the closer people get to it, the faster it necessarily fades away into mere nothingness as readily compared to its original image, perceived clearly, when at a distance; the “it” (that does not ever exist) is justifiably called Utopia; it is the realm of ideological fanatics who, in the cited case above, positively hate their own native land as a sure way of not knowing how much they hate themselves in the psychological process of such a convenient detestation.