The 19th-century political and philosophical belief that it was America's divinely assigned mission to expand westward across the North American continent and to establish democratic and Protestant ideals was known as Manifest Destiny. John O'Sullivan, a journalist, coined the phrase in a 1845 newspaper editorial about the annexation of Texas, in which he spoke of America's “manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions.” The roots of the concept, however, can be traced to American and European writers of the colonial period and even earlier who professed the belief that the supplanting of the pagan practices of native peoples in the West was no less than an ordination from God. The term was used throughout the second half of the 19th century as justification for the United States acquisition of territory all the way to the Pacific Ocean and beyond, including Alaska and Hawaii. |