Manifest Destiny manifest: clear or obvious destiny: future or fate

John Gast, American Progress, 1872 Question to students: What do you see in this painting?

Map of the United States, 1872

Contemporary Map of the 1816 United States

John Melish, Map of the U. S John Melish, Map of the U.S. with the contiguous British and Spanish Possessions,1816

Melish’s comments on his 1816 map of the United States To present the country this way was desirable . . . The map shows at a glance the whole extent of the United States territory from sea to sea. In tracing the probable expansion of the human race from east to west, the mind finds an agreeable resting place on its western limits. The view is complete and leaves nothing to be wished for. It also adds to the beauty and symmetry of the map. Source: John Melish. Map of the United States with the contiguous British and Spanish Possessions. Philadelphia, 1816. Question for class: How does John Melish justify drawing the map as if the country stretches from sea to sea?

Other Historians Views on Manifest Destiny Weinberg, Albert Katz. Manifest Destiny; a Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935. He celebrates the fact that “in the light of present American values and contemporary world circumstances, it may seem that an internationally beneficent destiny can lie in only one path. It is the path of active leadership in organizing the rational international life essential to the security of all other humane values.” Just like Turner, he relies on a unique and exceptional past, to interpret the current position of America. Merk, Frederick. Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1963. Merk understands that some believed they were fulfilling Mission, but were confused about the differences between enduring values and momentary appeal. While Manifest Destiny was short-lived, Mission continues in to the present and is a “dedication to the enduring values of American civilization.

Views on Manifest Destiny Hietala, Thomas R. Manifest Design : Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. He emphasizes that Americans should be more concerned with the legacy of the 1840s, as it was a period that defined “national identity, national character, and national purpose.” While Merk saw Manifest Destiny as a form of propaganda that eventual ended, Hietala worries that it continued as exceptionalism and the design by leaders with “ambitions for riches and dominion.” Stephanson, Manifest Destiny : American Expansionism and the Empire of Right. Anders. 1st ed. Critical Issue. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995. He worries that the “perpetual present” is a “virtual reality empty of value, a postmodern world where destiny cannot be manifest and certainly not managed.” Stephanson has a nuanced view of American Exceptionalism, believing that there is a moral component, but that the United States had often fallen short.

Views on Manifest Destiny West, Elliott. The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, & the Rush to Colorado. Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 1998. West separates himself from American Exceptionalism by only explaining change within a single time period and not attempting to interpret the present because of this unique past. For West, the past only affords us lessons to learn from. Manifest Destiny was simply a glorified term used in place for the competition for ownership of the American West.