Hey and welcome back to Heimler’s History,
and furthermore, welcome to the first video covering Unit 5 of the AP U.S. History
curriculum which is squarely nestled in the time period 1844-1877. And baby, in this
video we about to manifest some destiny, so if you’re ready to get them brain
cows milked, then let’s get to it. SO: westward expansion. In the end of the 18th
century and the first half of the 19th century, there was hardly a notion that more stirred the
guts of Americans than westward expansion. At first it was expansion west of the Atlantic
Coast. Then it was expansion into the Ohio River Valley. Then came the Louisiana
Purchase and Americans expanded like mad into that territory. Like,
if you weren’t expanding west, were you even an American? Westward
expansion was just kind of our thing. But in July of 1845, a newspaper editor by the
name of John O’Sullivan gave this most ancient of American impulses a name: Manifest Destiny.
He said: “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.” So in defining Manifest Destiny, O’Sullivan
gives us two pieces of information. First, what manifest destiny is: namely, to possess
the whole continent from sea to shining sea. And the second piece of information he gives is
to tell Americans WHO gave them that destiny, and his answer: Providence, which is another
way of saying, God. So the idea of Manifest Destiny is the notion that Americans
have a God-given right to have a nation that extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Oceans. And later, that impulse would include Islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean,
but that’ll have to wait for the next unit. And this idea articulated what Americans
had always felt but so far hadn’t put into words. But there were also practical reasons
why westward expansion was needed. First, Americans needed more access to mineral
and natural resources. Most notably here was the discovery of gold in California
in 1848 which created the occasion for what became known as the California Gold
Rush. People from the east rushed like mad to California to stake their claim and
strike it rich. Subsequent gold and silver discoveries in Colorado, the Dakotas, and
Nevada induced even more migrations west. Westward expansion also made sense to people
looking for new economic and homesteading opportunities. When Congress passed the Preemption
Acts during the 1830s and 1840s, it made vast tracts of land available for cheap to anyone who
wanted to buy it, set up a homestead and get to farming it. And because it did require some
boom boom to actually make the trip out west, this migration was largely made by
the middle class and not the poor. The third reason people moved west was
for the purpose of religious refuge. If you remember back in the last unit
we talked about the Mormons who fled the midwest states because of persecution,
largely due to their practice of polygamy, and settled in the Utah Territory.
Groups of Mormons would continue to migrate to Utah for the next twenty-ish
years to the tune of about 70,000 folks. Okay, so those are the main reasons Americans
pursued their Manifest Destiny and moved west. But the idea of Manifest Destiny also
made its way into the halls of power too: case in point: the election of James K.
Polk in 1844. Now Polk was a big believer in Manifest Destiny and as such he had his
eye on a couple of territories that he was frothing at the mouth to add to the union:
Texas and Oregon, and let’s look at both. Regarding Texas, Americans had been settling in
that territory since the 1820s, but at that time Texas still belonged to Mexico. By 1830,
there were three times as many Americans than Mexicans living in this territory,
and all those Americans were, in general, southern, Protestant, and slave-owning, or at
least, sympathetic to the cause of slavery. Now this’ll be important to keep in mind because in
1829, the Mexican government made two requirements of the immigrants living within their borders.
First, it was decreed that they must convert to Roman Catholicism, and second, they outlawed
slavery. And these two requirements were, to put it mildly, intolerable to the Americans
who had settled there, and so they basically ignored the new laws and kept being Protestant
and bringing enslaved people into the territory. In response, Mexico went ahead and shut
the border down to any further immigration, to which the immigrating Americans
responded, PLEASE, and just kept on coming. Now in 1834, there was a change in government
in Mexico, and the new dictator sought to clamp down on those insubordinate Texan immigrants
and enforce the laws on the books. Well, Texans be Texans and instead of submitting
to Mexican authority, they went ahead and revolted against it under the leadership of Sam
Houston and declared Texas to be an independent republic in 1836. Now, Mexico was like, nuh uh,
and so they sent forces north to put down this rebellion. The Mexicans won a stunning victory at
the Alamo and ended up killing every American who defended it. In retaliation, Houston and his army
engaged the Mexicans in the Battle of San Jacinto, and ended up capturing the Mexican general.
Upon doing so, they forced the general to sign a treaty granting Texas independence. And when
word of that got back to the Mexican government, they were like, do they understand that generals
can’t make official treaties? To which the Texans responded, Don’t mess with Texas.
To which the Mexican government responded, it’s not within his authority to… Don’t mess
with Texas! Are you just going to respond like that to everything we say? Well, are you messing
with Texas? Yeah. Then DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS! At this point Texas claimed its
independence, but Mexico didn’t recognize that independence. And so when Texas
applied to the UNited States for statehood, that complicated things a little. The first two
presidents who could have done it, Jackson and Van Buren, both said no to annexation because
of the very real possibility of causing a war with Mexico. John Tyler worked to admit Texas, but
ultimately annexation was denied by the Senate. So let’s leave Texas lingering in independence for a
moment, but don’t worry, we’ll get back to them. We also have to talk about the Oregon Territory.
So at this point in history, both the British and the Americans laid competing claims to this
territory. The British claimed it was theirs because they had established a profitable fur
trade there and had been settled there for much longer than the Americans. Americans
claimed it was theirs because, you know, WE WANT IT. Add to that, American missionaries
and farmers had been moving into the territory and settling there in far greater numbers than the
British. And so how would we solve this problem? And that brings us back to the election
of James K. Polk in 1844. As a big believer in Manifest Destiny, he wanted
America to annex both Oregon and Texas. Should we throw California in too? Throw
California in there too—it’s our destiny! Now, since Polk had run on this annexation
platform, he interpreted his election to be a mandate from the people to bring those territories
into the Union. So his predecessor, John Tyler, went ahead and used the waning months of his
presidency to push through the annexation of Texas, and Polk’s people went ahead and made an
agreement with the British concerning Oregon, and after the Senate had ratified the treaty, the
Oregon Territory was divided at the 49th parallel. Now the annexation of Texas is going to be no
bueno with the Mexican government, and that is going to lead the United States into war, but
alas, that will be the topic of the next video. Okay, that’s what you need to know about Unit
5 topic 2 of the AP U.S. History curriculum. If you need help getting an A in your
class and a five on your exam in May, Manifest Destiny of Heimler’s History
to spread over the whole of Youtube, then subscribe and we shall claim
our destiny together. Heimler Out.