Manifest Destiny

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

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"Therefore lett us choose life, That wee, and our Seede, May live; by obeying his voyce and cleaveing to him, for he is out life, and our prosperity" (Winthrop, John 234) Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion was about using the free land as opportunities to further advance our culture. John Winthrop started the basic ideas behind Manifest Destiny but John O'Sullivan coined the term "Manifest Destiny". To further advance our culture, advancing in population, improving technology and financial stability to become a strong society that would be a model for the rest of the world. Railroads provided that financial advancement that Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion set out to accomplish. [ Railroads were the opportunity that sprung about economic growth in our nation.] "The divine presence of American society was a product of manifest destiny. America, an industrialized culture, was once the wasteland of open space and opportunity." Opportunities, which Americans felt, were their right.

This idea was first labeled as manifest destiny. The concept of manifest destiny was first introduced by John Winthrop. "John Winthrop was elected governor of the Company by King Charles in 1629. He left England with nearly 400 other people aboard the Arbella" (Winthrop, John 224). "Winthrop envisioned a city of God as the Utopian foundation for the new society that he and his fellow Puritans would be building"(Winthrop, John 224).Winthrop and his people set out to set up a society where they would become people who reflected the eyes of God. They were suppose to show the world how to live. The new land would be opportunity for Puritans according to Winthrop. "A Model of Christian Charity, a sermon delivered aboard the Arbella, is perhaps one of Winthrop's more famous writings was important because it eloquently forwards a spiritual blueprint...