Manifest Destiny Overview

No nation ever existed without some sense of national destiny or purpose. Manifest Destiny — a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the United States — revitalized a sense of "mission" or national destiny for many Americans. And while the United States put into motion a quest for its Manifest Destiny, Mexico faced quite different circumstances as a newly independent country. Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, but suffered terribly from the struggle. Recovery was difficult.

Manifest Destiny

An Introduction

A Go-Ahead Nation

A Conversation With Robert W. Johanssen

The Power of an Idea

By Miguel Ángel González Quiroga

Native American Displacement

A Conversation With R. David Edmunds

An Ideal or a Justification?

A Conversation With David M. Pletcher

An Early Agenda of Expansion

A Conversation With Josefina Zoraida Vázquez

A Mexican Viewpoint on the War

By Jesús Velasco-Márquez

Manifest Destiny

By Sam W. Haynes

Manifest Destiny

By Robert E. May

Boundary Disputes

by Donald S. Frazier

Expansionism and Imperialism

by Thomas Hietala