Editing Manifest destiny (section)

==Etymology==
Most historians credit the conservative newspaper editor and future [[Propaganda|propagandist]] for the Confederacy, [[John L. O'Sullivan|John O'Sullivan]], with coining the term ''manifest destiny'' in 1845.<ref name="coined">{{Cite web |title=29. Manifest Destiny |url=http://www.ushistory.org/us/29.asp |website=American History |publisher=USHistory.org}}</ref> However, other historians suggest the unsigned editorial titled "Annexation" in which it first appeared was written by journalist and annexation advocate [[Jane Cazneau]].<ref>[https://janecazneau.omeka.net/exhibits/show/whosaid/whocoined/whosaid "Who Coined the Phrase Manifest Destiny?"]. Jane Cazneau Omeka Net. Jane Cazneau Omeka website. Retrieved October 25, 2020</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last=Hudson | first=Linda S. | title=Mistress of Manifest Destiny: A Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807–1878 | publisher=Texas State Historical Association | date=2001 | isbn=0-87611-179-7}}</ref>

[[File:John O'Sullivan.jpg|thumb|[[John L. O'Sullivan]], sketched in 1874, was an influential columnist as a young man, but he is now generally remembered only for his use of the phrase "manifest destiny" to advocate the annexation of Texas and Oregon.]]
O'Sullivan was an influential advocate for [[Jacksonian democracy]], described by [[Julian Hawthorne]] as "always full of grand and world-embracing schemes".<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|Merk|1963|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GhYJTaZiuxwC&pg=PA27 27]}}</ref> O'Sullivan wrote an article in 1839 that, while not using the term "manifest destiny", did predict a "divine destiny" for the United States based upon values such as equality, rights of conscience, and personal enfranchisement "to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man".<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Sullivan |first=John |title=The Great Nation of Futurity |url=http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=usde;cc=usde;idno=usde0006-4;node=usde0006-4%3A6;view=image;seq=350;size=100;page=root |website=The United States Democratic Review Volume 0006 Issue 23 (November 1839)}}</ref> This destiny was not explicitly territorial, but O'Sullivan predicted that the United States would be one of a "Union of many Republics" sharing those values.<ref name="O">{{Cite web |last=O'Sullivan, John L. |date=1839 |title=A Divine Destiny For America |url=http://www.newhumanist.com/md4.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041016015009/http://www.newhumanist.com/md4.html |archive-date=October 16, 2004 |website=New Humanist }} {{Cite web |url=http://www.newhumanist.com/md4.html |title=A Divine Destiny for America by John L. O'Sullivan |access-date=May 20, 2008 |archive-date=October 16, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041016015009/http://www.newhumanist.com/md4.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Six years later, in 1845, O'Sullivan wrote another essay titled "Annexation" in the ''Democratic Review'',<ref name="Annex">{{Cite journal |last=O'Sullivan |first=John L. |date=July–August 1845 |title=Annexation |url=http://web.grinnell.edu/courses/HIS/f01/HIS202-01/Documents/OSullivan.html |journal=United States Magazine and Democratic Review |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=5–11 |access-date=May 20, 2008 |archive-date=November 25, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051125043717/http://web.grinnell.edu/courses/HIS/f01/HIS202-01/Documents/OSullivan.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> in which he first used the phrase ''manifest destiny''.<ref>See Julius Pratt, "The Origin Of 'Manifest Destiny{{'"}}, ''American Historical Review'', (1927) 32#4, pp. 795–798 [https://www.jstor.org/pss/1837859 in JSTOR]. Linda S. Hudson has argued that it was coined by writer Jane McManus Storm; Greenburg, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=EQV6wPzlyOcC&pg=PA20 20]; Hudson 2001; O'Sullivan biographer Robert D. Sampson disputes Hudson's claim for a variety of reasons (See note 7 at {{Harvard citation no brackets|Sampson|2003|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=d1y5ew93xxIC&pg=PA244 244–45])}}.</ref> In this article he urged the U.S. to [[Texas annexation|annex]] the [[Republic of Texas]],<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|Adams|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9SE_zwYlXrQC&pg=PA188 188]}}.</ref> not only because Texas desired this, but because it was "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by [[Divine providence|Providence]] for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions".<ref>Quoted in Thomas R. Hietala, ''Manifest design: American exceptionalism and Empire'' (2003) p. 255</ref> Overcoming Whig opposition, Democrats [[Texas annexation|annexed Texas]] in 1845. O'Sullivan's first usage of the phrase "manifest destiny" attracted little attention.<ref>Robert W. Johannsen, "The Meaning of Manifest Destiny", in {{Harvard citation no brackets|Johannsen|1997}}.</ref>

O'Sullivan's second use of the phrase became extremely influential. On December 27, 1845, in his newspaper the ''New York Morning News'', O'Sullivan addressed the [[Oregon boundary dispute|ongoing boundary dispute]] with Britain. O'Sullivan argued that the United States had the right to claim "the whole of Oregon":
<blockquote>And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.<ref name="McCrisken">McCrisken, Trevor B., [https://books.google.com/books?id=QHDkqb-myscC&pg=PA68 "Exceptionalism: Manifest Destiny"] in ''Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy'' (2002), Vol. 2, p. 68</ref></blockquote>

That is, O'Sullivan believed that Providence had given the United States a mission to spread [[Democratic republic|republican democracy]] ("the great experiment of liberty"). Because the [[British government]] would not spread democracy, thought O'Sullivan, British claims to the territory should be overruled. O'Sullivan believed that manifest destiny was a moral ideal (a "higher law") that superseded other considerations.<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|Weinberg|1935|p=145}}; {{Harvard citation no brackets|Johannsen|1997|p=9}}.</ref>

O'Sullivan's original conception of manifest destiny was not a call for territorial expansion by force. He believed that the expansion of the United States would happen without the direction of the U.S. government or the involvement of the military. After Americans immigrated to new regions, they would set up new democratic governments, and then seek admission to the United States, as Texas had done. In 1845, O'Sullivan predicted that California would follow this pattern next, and that even [[British North America|Canada]] would eventually request annexation as well. He was critical of the [[Mexican–American War]] in 1846, although he came to believe that the outcome would be beneficial to both countries.<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|Johannsen|1997|p=10}}</ref>

Ironically, O'Sullivan's term became popular only after it was criticized by [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]] opponents of the [[Polk administration]]. Whigs denounced manifest destiny, arguing, "that the designers and supporters of schemes of conquest, to be carried on by this government, are engaged in treason to our Constitution and Declaration of Rights, giving aid and comfort to the enemies of republicanism, in that they are advocating and preaching the doctrine of the [[right of conquest]]".<ref>"Prospectus of the New Series", ''The American Whig Review'' Volume 7 Issue 1 (Jan 1848) p. 2</ref> On January 3, 1846, in a speech Representative [[Robert Charles Winthrop|Robert Winthrop]] used the term for the first time in Congress stating:<blockquote>There is one element in our title [to Oregon], however, which I confess that I have not named, and to which I may not have done entire justice. I mean that new revelation of right which has been designated as the right of our manifest destiny to spread over this whole continent. It has been openly avowed in a leading Administration journal that this, after all, is our best and strongest title-one so clear, so pre-eminent, and so indisputable, that if Great Britain had all our other titles in addition to her own, they would weigh nothing against it. The right of our manifest destiny! There is a right for a new chapter in the law of nations; or rather, in the special laws of our own country; for I suppose the right of a manifest destiny to spread will not be admitted to exist in any nation except the universal Yankee nation!<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pratt |first=Julius W. |date=July 1927 |title=The Origin of "Manifest Destiny" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1837859 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=795–798 |doi=10.2307/1837859|jstor=1837859 }}</ref></blockquote>"<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lsFCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA134 |title=The Congressional Globe |publisher=United States Congress |year=1846 |volume=86 |page=134}}</ref> Winthrop was the first in a long line of critics who suggested that advocates of manifest destiny were citing "Divine Providence" for justification of actions that were motivated by chauvinism and self-interest. Despite this criticism, expansionists embraced the phrase, which caught on so quickly that its origin was soon forgotten.<ref>Winthrop quote: Weingberg, p. 143; O'Sullivan's death, later discovery of phrase's origin: Stephanson, p. xii.{{cnf|reason=No full cite for "Weinberg" in the article|date=January 2022}}</ref>