Manifest Destiny, 1839

The American people having derived their origin from many other nations, and the Declaration of National Independence being entirely based on the great principle of human equality, these facts demonstrate at once our disconnected position as regards any other nation; that we have, in reality, but little connection with the past history of any of them, and still less with all antiquity, its glories, or its crimes.

On the contrary, our national birth was the beginning of a new history, the formation and progress of an untried political system, which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only; and so far as regards the entire development of the natural rights of man, in moral, political, and national life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity.

It is so destined, because the principle upon which a nation is organized fixes its destiny, and that of equality is perfect, is universal. It presides in all the operations of the physical world, and it is also the conscious law of the soul -- the self-evident dictates of morality, which accurately defines the duty of man to man, and consequently man's rights as man. Besides, the truthful annals of any nation furnish abundant evidence, that its happiness, its greatness, its duration, were always proportionate to the democratic equality in its system of government. . . .

What friend of human liberty, civilization, and refinement, can cast his view over the past history of the monarchies and aristocracies of antiquity, and not deplore that they ever existed? What philanthropist can contemplate the oppressions, the cruelties, and injustice inflicted by them on the masses of mankind, and not turn with moral horror from the retrospect?

America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defence of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement.

Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes. We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy.

We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity, only as lessons of avoidance of nearly all their examples. The expansive future is our arena, and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past.

We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can. We point to the everlasting truth on the first page of our national declaration, and we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that "the gates of hell" -- the powers of aristocracy and monarchy -- "shall not prevail against it."

The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High -- the Sacred and the True.

Its floor shall be a hemisphere -- its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling, owning no man master, but governed by God's natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood -- of "peace and good will amongst men.". . .

Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other.

We must onward to the fulfilment of our mission -- to the entire development of the principle of our organization -- freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality.

This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it.

All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field.

Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?

It is difficult to understand the thought process of the person who wrote this! He was correct in many respects, but why is their no mention (maybe even no thought of) huge numbers of slaves and numerous American indians who were hardly experiencing the equality of which he speaks.

Read a while back a book by Thomas Sowell one point stands
out the lives of the "slaves" you spoke of was wretched-and I do not deny that. But the lives of those sold into slavery( often by African Muslims) those lives are vastly
better today than they would have been had they remained in their home village in Africa. The same is True of the indians-people you say did not enjoy the equality.Had a friend who is Indian (more than the minimum required mix
of blood-I might add) He swears the American Indian was NOT
defeated by the white mans guns--but by the tools the white
mans culture had -that the Indians had not developed-by the iron pots, and hatchets-as much as the guns. And the Indian
today would be a fool to go back to what they had before the
white man came. I weary of the idiots who whine and cry about how EVIL the Americans are.

You are perfectly correct.

When O'Sullivan wrote this Wilberforce had not even started his anti-slavery campaign and therefore influenced John Brown.

American pioneers were being slaughtered as they crossed from East to West.

Texas was at war with the US.

Moreover,by a treaty signed on Apr. 30, 1803, the United States had purchased from France the Louisiana Territory, more than 2 million sq km (800,000 sq mi) of land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.Thus,effectively doubling the area of the United States.

However,in year 1843 the first significant migration over the Oregon Trail occurred. Here we must remember that the Oregon Territory was under British control. California was a Spanish/Mexican territory until the Mexican American War of 1846-1848. The average American does not grasp that the US in the 1800's consisted of a French area that ran from the Gulf Coast to Canada, a Spanish controlled area in the South West and the North West controlled by the British, and thirteen piddly States.

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