Editing Manifest destiny (section)

=== Continentalism ===
The 19th-century belief that the United States would eventually encompass all of North America is known as "continentalism".<ref name="Continental">{{Cite web |title=Continental and Continentalism |url=http://www.sociologyindex.com/continental.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150509193436/http://www.sociologyindex.com/continental.htm |archive-date=May 9, 2015 |website=Sociology Index.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=1820s – Continentalism {{pipe}} Savages & Scoundrels |url=http://www.savagesandscoundrels.org/flashpoints-conflicts/1820s-continentalism/ |website=www.savagesandscoundrels.org}}</ref> An early proponent of this idea, John Quincy Adams became a leading figure in U.S. expansion between the [[Louisiana Purchase]] in 1803 and the [[Polk administration]] in the 1840s. In 1811, Adams wrote to [[John Adams|his father]]:

<blockquote>The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one ''nation'', speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs. For the common happiness of them all, for their peace and prosperity, I believe it is indispensable that they should be associated in one federal Union.<ref>Adams quoted in {{Harvard citation no brackets|McDougall|1997|p=78}}.</ref></blockquote>

[[File:Alfred Jacob Miller - Fort Laramie - Walters 37194049.jpg|thumb|right|The first [[Fort Laramie]] as it looked prior to 1840. Painting from memory by [[Alfred Jacob Miller]]]]
Adams did much to further this idea. He orchestrated the [[Treaty of 1818]], which established the [[Canada–United States border|border between British North America and the United States]] as far west as the Rocky Mountains, and provided for the joint occupation of the region known in American history as the [[Oregon Country]] and in British and Canadian history as the [[New Caledonia (Canada)|New Caledonia]] and [[Columbia District]]s. He negotiated the [[Adams–Onís Treaty|Transcontinental Treaty]] in 1819, transferring [[Spanish Florida|Florida]] from Spain to the United States and extending the U.S. border with Spanish Mexico all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And he formulated the [[Monroe Doctrine]] of 1823, which warned Europe that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open for European colonization.

The Monroe Doctrine and "manifest destiny" formed a closely related nexus of principles: historian Walter McDougall calls manifest destiny a corollary of the Monroe Doctrine, because while the Monroe Doctrine did not specify expansion, expansion was necessary in order to enforce the doctrine. Concerns in the United States that European powers were seeking to acquire colonies or greater influence in North America led to calls for expansion in order to prevent this. In his influential 1935 study of manifest destiny, done in conjunction with the [[Walter Hines Page School of International Relations]],<ref>{{cite journal | author-last=Linebarger | author-first=Paul M. A. | title=Twenty SAIS Years, An Informal Memoir | journal= SAIS Review | volume= 8 | number= 1 | year=1963 | pages=4–40 | jstor=45348230 }}</ref> Albert Weinberg wrote: "the expansionism of the [1830s] arose as a defensive effort to forestall the encroachment of Europe in North America".<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|McDougall|1997|p=74}}; {{Harvard citation no brackets|Weinberg|1935|p=109}}.</ref>

==== Transcontinental railroad ====
Manifest destiny played an important role in the development of the [[transcontinental railroad]].{{When|date=May 2024|reason=[[First transcontinental railroad]]?}} The transcontinental railroad system is often used in manifest destiny imagery like John Gast's painting, American Progress where multiple locomotives are seen traveling west.<ref name=":3"/> According to academic [[Dina Gilio-Whitaker]], "the transcontinental railroads not only enabled [U.S. control over the continent] but also accelerated it exponentially."<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Gilio-Whitaker |first=Dina |title=As long as grass grows: the indigenous fight for environmental justice, from colonization to Standing Rock |date=2019 |publisher=[[Beacon Press]] |isbn=978-0-8070-7378-0 |location=Boston, Massachusetts |oclc=1044542033}}</ref> Historian Boyd Cothran says that "modern transportation development and abundant resource exploitation gave rise to an appropriation of indigenous land, [and] resources."<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Cothran |first=Boyd |title=Remembering the Modoc War: redemptive violence and the making of American innocence |date=2014 |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-1-4696-1861-6 |location=Chapel Hill, NC |oclc=897015863}}</ref>

==== All Oregon ====
Manifest destiny played its most important role in the [[Oregon boundary dispute]] between the United States and Britain, when the phrase "manifest destiny" originated. The [[Anglo-American Convention of 1818]] had provided for the joint occupation of the [[Oregon Country]], and thousands of Americans migrated there in the 1840s over the [[Oregon Trail]]. The British rejected a proposal by U.S. President [[John Tyler]] (in office 1841–1845) to divide the region along the [[49th parallel north|49th parallel]], and instead proposed a boundary line farther south, along the [[Columbia River]], which would have made most of what later became the state of [[Washington (state)|Washington]] part of [[British North America|their colonies in North America]]. Advocates of manifest destiny protested and called for the annexation of the entire Oregon Country up to the Alaska line ([[54-40|54°40ʹ N]]). Presidential candidate Polk used this popular outcry to his advantage, and the Democrats called for the annexation of "All Oregon" in the [[1844 U.S. presidential election]].

[[File:Emanuel Leutze - Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way - Smithsonian.jpg|thumb|American westward expansion is idealized in [[Emanuel Leutze]]'s famous painting ''[[Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way]]'' (1861).]]

As president, Polk sought compromise and renewed the earlier offer to divide the territory in half along the 49th parallel, to the dismay of the most ardent advocates of manifest destiny. When the British refused the offer, American expansionists responded with slogans such as "The whole of Oregon or none" and "Fifty-four forty or fight", referring to the northern border of the region. (The latter slogan is often mistakenly described as having been a part of the 1844 presidential campaign.)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Miles |first=Edwin A. |date=September 1957 |title='Fifty-four Forty or Fight'—An American Political Legend |journal=The Mississippi Valley Historical Review |publisher=Organization of American Historians |volume=44 |issue=2 |pages=291–309 |doi=10.2307/1887191 |jstor=1887191}}</ref> When Polk moved to terminate the joint occupation agreement, the British finally agreed in early 1846 to divide the region along the 49th parallel, leaving the lower Columbia basin as part of the United States. The [[Oregon Treaty]] of 1846 formally settled the dispute; Polk's administration succeeded in selling the treaty to Congress because the United States was about to begin the [[Mexican–American War]], and the president and others argued it would be foolish to also [[Two-front war|fight the British Empire]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2019}}

Despite the earlier clamor for "All Oregon", the Oregon Treaty was popular in the United States and was easily ratified by the Senate. The most fervent advocates of manifest destiny had not prevailed along the northern border because, according to [[Reginald C. Stuart|Reginald Stuart]], "the compass of manifest destiny pointed west and southwest, not north, despite the use of the term 'continentalism{{'"}}.<ref>Treaty popular: {{Harvard citation no brackets|Stuart|1988|p=104}}; compass quote p. 84.</ref>

In 1869, American historian [[Frances Fuller Victor]] published ''[[s:en:The Overland Monthly/Volume 3/Manifest Destiny in the West|Manifest Destiny in the West]]'' in the ''[[Overland Monthly]]'', arguing that the efforts of early American fur traders and missionaries presaged American control of Oregon. She concluded the article as follows:
{{Cquote|It was an oversight on the part of the United States, the giving up the island of Quadra and Vancouver, on the settlement of the boundary question. Yet, "what is to be, will be", as some realist has it; and we look for the restoration of that picturesque and rocky atom of our former territory as inevitable.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Victor |first=Frances Fuller |date=August 1869 |title=Manifest Destiny in the West |journal=[[Overland Monthly]] |volume=3 |issue=2 |title-link=wikisource:en:The Overland Monthly/Volume 3/Manifest Destiny in the West}}</ref>}}