Since the European’s first step on American soil it has
been the belief that it was their destiny to expand the throughout the
continent. This idea has led to challenging ourselves to go farther, bigger,
and faster. It has led to positives and negatives including both European vs.
Native battles as well as invention and innovation. This has been commonly
known as Manifest Destiny. From the
expansion of the west, to the race to the moon, Americans have felt that it was
our destiny to go beyond where we are today. But with the defunding of NASA and
overall apathy towards anything outside the United States by our typical
citizens, are our expansion days over?
Expanding
the West
The philosophical justification for Manifest Destiny was
based on the idea that America was destined to expand the establishment of
democracy in North America. This gave us a sense of moral superiority which
justified our actions. We felt like we had the right to govern areas where they
did not support this goal of expanding democracy (Crocker, 2006).
One of the most important roles that Manifest Destiny
played was in the boundary dispute with Britain over Oregon. The Anglo-American Convention of 1818 had provided for
the joint occupation of the Oregon Country, and thousands of Americans migrated
there in the 1840s over the Oregon Trail (Merk, 1963). The British rejected a
proposal by President John Tyler to divide the region along the
49th parallel, and instead proposed a boundary line farther south along
the Columbia River. This would have made most of what later became the state of
Washington part of British North America. Manifest Destiny supporters protested
and called for the annexation of the entire Oregon Country up to the Alaska
line (54°40สน N). Presidential candidate James K. 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 (Greenber, 2005). Once
Polk became President, however, he was more willing to compromise. The British
refused the offer so the Manifest Destiny advocates responded with slogans
like, “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!” and “The Whole Oregon or None!” This led to
the British agreeing to divide the region. Even though it was not all of Oregon
like they had claimed that they would only accept, this treaty was very
popular. The US was about to begin war with Mexico and they did not want to
also fight the British as well. This was the last of the expansion of the North
during this time. “The compass of Manifest Destiny pointed west and southwest,
not north…” (Hietala, 2003).
Manifest
Destiny played another important role in the expansion of Texas. In 1836, the
Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico and, after the Texas Revolution,
sought to join the United States as a new state. This was an idealized way of
expansion which had been advocated from Jefferson to O'Sullivan. Instead of
forcing people who did not want to join the US to join, newly democratic and
independent states would request entry. The annexation of Texas was
controversial as it would add another slave state to the Union. Presidents
Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren declined Texas's offer to join the United
States because the slavery issue threatened to divide the Democratic Party (Fuller,
1936).
This issue led to
an unexpected shift by the Democratic Party away from President Martin Van
Buren and towards Polk because Polk favored annexation while Van Buren opposed
annexation. The victory was small but Polk took the victory as justification
for mandating expansion (Fuller, 1936).
Manifest Destiny
was very negative for the Native Americans. Continental expansion meant the
occupation and annexation of Native American land and the expansion of slavery.
This ultimately led to the ethnic cleansing of several groups of native
peoples. The United States continued the European practice of recognizing only
limited land rights of indigenous peoples. In a policy formulated largely by
Henry Knox, Secretary of War in the Washington Administration, the
U.S. government sought to expand into the west through the purchase of
Native American land in, typically unethical, treaties. Native Americans were
encouraged to sell their vast tribal lands and become "civilized The
United States therefore acquired lands by treaty from Native Nations, usually
under nonconsensual circumstances by the Native signers (Fisher, 1985).
Advocates of
civilization programs believed that the process of settling native tribes would
greatly reduce the amount of land needed by the Native Americans, making more
land available for settling by white Americans. Thomas Jefferson believed that Native
Americans had to live like the whites or inevitably be pushed aside by them.
Jefferson's belief, rooted in Enlightenment thinking, that whites and Native
Americans would merge to create a single nation did not last his lifetime, and
he began to believe that the natives should emigrate across the Mississippi
River and maintain a separate society, an idea made possible by the Louisiana
Purchase of 1803 (Fisher, 1985).
With Manifest Destiny,
the idea known as "Indian removal" gained ground. Although some
humanitarian advocates of removal believed that Native Americans would be
better off moving away from whites, an increasing number of Americans regarded
the natives as nothing more than savages who stood in the way of American
expansion. Americans increasingly believed that Native Americans would fade
away as the United States expanded. (Fisher, 1985).
During this time of
heavy expansion, Manifest Destiny was used to justify unethical acts as well as
very well-timed political moves. The effective rhetoric used by the politicians
and expansionists was very effective in increasing the land controlled by the
US. Although I believe that the expansion of democracy was just a tool to make
these unethical moves seem justified, the fact remains that Manifest Destiny
was very effective in expanding US control.
The Space Race
The belief that it was America’s mission
to expand and defend democracy continued on, adding two states and 14
territories. In the 1950s, there was a shift in where we would be looking to
for our expansion.
The Space Race was a competition between
two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union and the United States, for supremacy in
spaceflight capability. The technological superiority required for such
supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of
ideological superiority. The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch
artificial satellites, unmanned probes of the Moon, Venus and Mars, and human
spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon. It began on August 2, 1955,
when the Soviet Union responded to the United States announcement of intent to
launch artificial satellites, by declaring they would also launch a satellite
"in the near future". The Soviets won the first "lap" with
the October 4, 1957 launch of Sputnik 1 (Polmer, 1990).
The Soviet success
caused public controversy in the United States, and Eisenhower ordered the
civilian rocket and satellite project, Vanguard, to move up its timetable and
launch its satellite much sooner than originally planned. The December 6, 1957
Project Vanguard launch failure occurred at Cape Canaveral in front of a live
broadcast television audience (it was the first live countdown broadcast
nationally) in the United States. It was a monumental failure, exploding a few seconds
after launch, and it became an international joke. The satellite appeared in
newspapers under the names Flopnik, Stayputnik, Kaputnik, and Dudnik (Brzezinski, 2007). In the United Nations, the Russian
delegate offered the U.S. representative aid "under the Soviet program of technical
assistance to backwards nations.” (Brzezinski, 2007).
Only in the wake of this very public failure did von Braun's Redstone team get
the go-ahead to launch their Jupiter-C rocket as soon as they could (Brzezinski, 2007). Nearly four months after the launch of
Sputnik 1, the United States successfully launched its first satellite under
the name Juno 1.
On April 20, 1961,
President John F. Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking
him to look into the state of America's space program, and into programs that
could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up. Johnson responded about one week
later, concluding that the United States needed to do much more to reach a
position of leadership. Johnson recommended that a piloted moon landing was far
enough in the future that it was likely that the United States could achieve it
first (Chaikin, 1994).
On May 25, Kennedy
announced his support for the Apollo program and redefined the ultimate goal of
the Space Race in an address to a special joint session of Congress: "I
believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before
this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to
the earth."
On 1969, after year
of failure and devastation, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. At 4:17 pm EDT,
July 20, 1969. At 10:56:15 pm EDT, July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became
the first human to set foot on the Moon (Chaikin, 1994).
Manifest Destiny
found a new meaning during this time. What was previously a tool for conquering
became a tool for unity. The Space Race helped create huge advances in
technology and education and gave so many students motivation to study science.
It also helped America regain its superiority over the USSR. For a generation,
America valued science, space exploration, and adventure. This justified years
of funding for NASA which led to countless inventions that are used today.
After the Space Race
What is now
commonly phrased as Nation-Building, Manifest
Destiny has been used throughout the world in the last few decades. In 1980s the
United States had strategic interests in urging its autocratic Latin American
and East Asian allies toward democracy. And so, in the 1980s, the United States
supported land reforms in El Salvador that were deeply unpopular among ruling
elites; facilitated the departure of General Augusto Pinochet as Chile’s
leader; and pushed Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines in the direction of
veritable electoral democracy.
After 9/11, President George W. Bush elevated
democratization in the Middle East as a strategic priority. Bush led a
successful push to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan in his push for democracy.
This aim, however, was undermined by several factors:
The association
of democracy promotion with military intervention in Iraq. The entire idea of
democracy is a government by the people. By forcing it onto the people and
killing those who opposed, it completely undermined the idea that democracy and
freedom were one in the same
The use of torture
undermined our moral authority that we had over other countries. All the power
we have in America over tyranny is economic sanctions, invasion, and moral
authority. Economic sanctions do very little against tyrannical leaders because
they will not feel the pain of the sanctions. Only the people of the country
do. In the time of nuclear weapons, invasion will lose its effect. Once every
country has the nuclear capability, the fear of invasion will be too high. That
leaves only moral authority. We lost that authority when we violated the Geneva
Convention (rules of war) by torturing prisoners.
The tendency to
be unhappy when likely winners of elections were not ideal. We often preach
elections and democracy but when an election does not go the way we want it, we
do not hesitate to complain or try to tell the country what to do. We know of
at least one case that we have helped to overthrow a democratically elected
leader. It is known for sure that the CIA was involved in the overthrowing of
Mohammad Mossadegh (National Security Archive, No 43, 2013). In 1953, democratically elected Iranian leader Mohammed
Mossadegh was overthrown in a military coup after he threatened to nationalize
British oil.
Just like we did during the Western
Expansion, we used democracy rhetoric to justify our countless unethical acts.
We support democracy and freedom when it helps our agenda but ignore the lack
of freedom from countries like Saudi Arabia because we get things from them. We
continue to expand out empire and continue to hide behind democracy to do it.
Conclusion
America has used the Manifest Destiny philosophy
to extend its imperialism across a fast array of land. What began as European
expansion into America has turned into a different creator. America spread like
wildfire across North America. After North America was finished, we began
buying other territories and states. We had a brief period where this
philosophy helped shape a culture of ingenuity, invention, and education, but
that time has gone. In the apathetic America we have today where science is
demonized, we no longer use Manifest Destiny in a positive way. Manifest
Destiny is not dead, but it has transformed back into its original form.
Manifest Destiny is a justification to expand our power without having guilt.
Reference
List
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Crocker, H. W. (2006). Don't
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Fisher, Philip (1985). Hard
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Fuller, John
Douglas Pitts (1936). The Movement for the Acquisition of All Mexico,
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S. (2005). Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire.
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