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Article: Teaching about Manifest Destiny: Clarifying the Concept.
- Article from:
- The Social Studies
- Article date:
- September 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the United States began to expand into its western territories. During the 1830s and 1840s, the migration began to pick up steam and led some Americans to begin to dream of a continental empire, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Like the Puritans, who envisioned their colony as a "city upon a hill," these Americans believed that the United States had a divine mission to spread liberty across the continent. A New York journalist named John L. O'Sullivan captured this sense of mission when he coined the phrase "Manifest Destiny."
John L. O'Sullivan was an ardent Jacksonian Democrat and a lawyer, as well ...