Westward Expansion Dbq Essay

The U.S we see today looked very different only a mere 200 years ago, it was much smaller,but by westward expansion it grew. Coined the century of expansion, the 1800s were a defining time in U.S history, new technologies were created, the country grew economically and territorially as well, through treaties and annexations, America grew to the size it is today. America’s hard fought westward expansion, can be attributed to two ideals, the belief of manifest destiny, as our “God-given right to conquer North America, and land hunger by avid settlers, however it cannot be attributed to imperialistic notions to assert our global power as a regional hegemon.
Manifest Destiny, the belief that it is our “destiny” from God, as many were stringently religious at the time, as Americans to expand across the …show more content…
Before the advent of methods of transport to explore the west, many deemed the far reaches of the U.S, too far to govern, but as trains and horses, and steamboats took off, many Americans supported the belief of manifest destiny as “the westward march of constitutional government, supported by steamboats, railroads, and telegraphs dissolved such fears by the 1840s”(Doc 12), and as many believed France and Britain would issue a containment policy of U.S expansionism in North America, “this made expansion a matter of urgency”(Doc 12). All of this ties back into the religiosity and idealism of Americans at the time, especially highlighted in John Louis O'Sullivan’s magazine piece on the annexation of Texas ”we are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march, our future history will be to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man, the undeniable truth and goodness of God, America has been chosen for this mission”(Doc 1) and “our manifest