Manifest Destiny Westward Expansion

Westward Expansion From the Beginning, Americans had been interested in westward expansion, or extending the nation beyond its existing borders. By the 1840s, many Americans strongly favored westward expansion.

Manifest Destiny Newspaper editor John L. O’Sullivan wrote in 1845: “The American claim is by the right of our manifest [obvious] destiny to overspread and possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and… self-government entrusted to us.” -John L. O’Sullivan, United States Magazine and Democratic Review The phrase Manifest Destiny quickly became popular.

Manifest Destiny It described the belief that the United States was destined, or meant, to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific “from sea to shining sea.”