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- As president, he led the United States to victory over Mexico in the Mexican-American War, which culminated in the transfer of a vast new territory, comprising almost the whole of the modern-day Southwest, from Mexico to the United States. 2
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Did James K Polk support Manifest Destiny?
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Feb 28, 2024 · In late 1845, Polk sent the diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to purchase New Mexico and California with a purse of up to forty million dollars and settle the border location in favor of the Rio Grande. Upon Slidell’s arrival in Mexico City, the president of Mexico was unwilling to receive him.
- Overview
- From sea to shining sea
- James K. Polk and Manifest Destiny
- Consequences of Manifest Destiny
- What do you think?
In the mid-nineteenth century, newspaper editor John O'Sullivan coined the term 'manifest destiny' to describe the belief that God intended for the United States to occupy North America from Atlantic to Pacific.
In 1845, newspaper editor John O’Sullivan coined the term “Manifest Destiny” to describe the ideology of continental expansionism.
Though the term was new, the ideas underlying it were much older, dating back to the first colonial contact between Europeans and Native Americans. The ideology that became known as Manifest Destiny included a belief in the inherent superiority of white Americans, as well as the conviction that they were destined by God to conquer the territories of North America, from sea to shining sea.
US President James Polk, who served one term in office, from 1845 to 1849, is the leader most associated with the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Polk was a Democrat from Tennessee who had served as Speaker of the House of Representatives and Governor of Tennessee before becoming president. As president, he led the United States to victory over Mexico in the Mexican-American War, which culminated in the transfer of a vast new territory, comprising almost the whole of the modern-day Southwest, from Mexico to the United States.2
Polk also resolved the boundary dispute with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory, which had been jointly occupied since 1818. Polk's administration negotiated the Oregon Treaty of 1846 with Britain, which accepted a division of the territory between the United States and Canada at the 49th parallel. The territory acquired by the United States under the provisions of the treaty include the present-day states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, as well as parts of Montana and Wyoming.
Polk's embrace of Manifest Destiny and the acquisition of new territories inflamed tensions between abolitionists and slaveholders and heightened conflict between white settlers and Native Americans.3 While the North and South fought over whether the new states admitted to the Union were to be free states or slave states, the battles between the Plains Indians and settlers in Texas grew particularly vicious. Though Comanches put up an especially fierce resistance to the encroachment of white people onto their lands, they were ultimately vanquished and relocated to a reservation in Oklahoma in 1875.
Meanwhile, the debate over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the major events leading up to the Civil War. The proviso, which was strongly opposed by the slaveholding South, asserted that the Mexican-American War had not been fought for the purpose of expanding slavery, and stipulated that slavery would never exist in the territories acquired from Mexico in the war. Ultimately, Polk’s territorial expansionism, though aimed at national unity, wound up intensifying sectional conflict and further paving the road to civil war.4
Why do you think Polk went to war with Mexico but negotiated with Great Britain?
In your view, what was the most significant component of the ideology of Manifest Destiny?
What sorts of policies were justified in the name of Manifest Destiny?
What were the most consequential outcomes of the ideology of Manifest Destiny?
By the time Polk left office in 1849, Manifest Destiny was all but complete. America, barely 60 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified, now stretched from sea to shining sea.
Dec 6, 2023 · With the settlement of the Oregon dispute, manifest destiny’s aim of having the United States span from the Atlantic to the Pacific coastlines was fulfilled — but Polk wanted more.
Apr 21, 2016 · Rhetoric and public address scholars often discuss the powers of U.S. presidents to shape national discourse and to set goals in order to meet what Justin Vaughn and Jennifer Mercieca (2014) identi...
- Svilen Veselinov Trifonov
- 2016
May 9, 2023 · The Monroe Doctrine was first articulated by President James Monroe as a foreign policy opposing European colonialism in the Americas. It claimed to work in the interests of the US’ neighbors, but instead, the doctrine functioned at times more like a new brand of Manifest Destiny.
Nov 2, 2016 · Polk entered the presidency with a clear plan of action rooted in westward expansion. Seen by contemporaries as conscientious and attentive to the needs of the country, in his presidential campaign he promised not to run for a second term.
