Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War of 1846
• The Lewis and Clark Expedition
• The Missouri Compromise
• Independence of Texas
• Mexican War of 1846-1848
• The California Gold Rush
Then, address the following for your selections:
• Which of your two selections do you consider most impactful on Westward Expansion during 1800-1848? Explain why.
• Analyze the effects of the ideology of Manifest Destiny on the two historical events that you chose from the list.
Sample Solution
Tensions between the United States and Mexico rapidly deteriorated in the 1840s as American expansionists eagerly eyed Mexico land to the west, including the lush northern Mexican province of California. By 1848, the United States encompassed much of North America, a republic that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A fervent belief in expansion gripped the United States in the 1840s. in 1845, a New York newspaper editor, John O`Sullivan, introduced the concept of Manifest Destiny” to describe the very popular idea of the special role of the United States in overspreading the continent – the divine right and duty of white Americans to seize and settles the American West, thus spreading Protestant, democratic values. In this climate of opinion, voters in 1844 elected James K. Polk, a slaveholder from Tennessee, because he vowed to annex Texas as a new slave state and take Oregon.
