The Civil War News & Views Open Discussion Forum

Manifest Destiny and the War

In the discussion of Lincoln and how he won the 1860 election, I came to wonder just how much the concept of Manifest Destiny may have played into those events.

The concept of Manifest Destiny and westward expansion was very much a part of the American mindset, in one form or the other, of a country that streached from one coast to the other from the earliest settlements. Following the Louisana Purchase, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the territories gained from that treaty, The California Gold Rush and the admission of California as a state along with the territories of Oregan and Washington and the plans for the expansion of the railroads westward, all of these things pointed to the fulfillment of that dream.

We know that by 1860 the debates over States rights, Slavery, the Constitution, the limits of powers of Congress and the Federal government, and abolishion had raised to a fever pitch. All of these issued threatened to tear apart that national dream of a manifest destiny of one united country. The southern states, following the example of other who had threaten secession in the past, had also expressed a desire to seceed, and split the country. It had been tried with the Nullification act of 1832 and was threatened again by South Carolina in 1860 IF Lincoln were elected as President.

However, Lincoln promised to keep the Union together if elected. How was another matter. Lincoln's promise would have kept the "National Dream" alive.

Does anyone have ideas on this?

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Manifest Destiny and the War
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