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Manifest Destiny
Manifest destiny was the belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American pioneer, American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("''manifest''") and certain ("''destiny''"). The belief is rooted in American exceptionalism, Romantic nationalism, and white nationalism, implying the inevitable spread of republicanism and the American way. It is one of the earliest expressions of American imperialism in the United States. According to historian William Earl Weeks, there were three basic tenets behind the concept: * The assumption of the unique moral virtue of the United States. * The assertion of its mission to redeem the world by the spread of republican government and more generally the "American way of life". * The faith in the nation's divinely ordained destiny to succeed in this mission. Manifest destiny remained heavily divisive in politics, causing constant conflict ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Progress (John Gast Painting)
''American Progress'' is an 1872 painting by John Gast, a Prussian-born painter, printer, and lithographer who lived and worked most of his life during 1870s in Brooklyn, New York. ''American Progress'', an allegory of manifest destiny, was widely disseminated in chromolithographic prints. It is now held by the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, California. Description The painting ''American Progress'', which is considered to be historically significant, is considered an important example of American Western Art, since it represents the Manifest Destiny and American westward expansion. This painting, which is 11.50 by 15.75 inches, (29.2 cm × 40.0 cm) was commissioned in 1872 by George Crofutt, a publisher of American Western travel guides and has since been frequently reproduced. The woman in the center is Columbia, the female personification of the United States. On her head is what Crofutt calls "The Star of the Empire." In the painting, Columbia repres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oregon Boundary Dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute or the Oregon Question was a 19th-century territorial dispute over the political division of the Pacific Northwest of North America between several nations that had competing territorial and commercial aspirations in the region. Expansionist competition into the region began in the 18th century, with participants including the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain, Spain, and the United States. After the War of 1812, the Oregon dispute took on increased importance for diplomatic relations between the British Empire and the fledgling American republic. In the mid-1820s, the Russians signed the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 and the Russo-British Treaty of 1825, and the Spanish signed the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, by which Russia and Spain formally withdrew their respective territorial claims in the region, and the British and the Americans acquired residual territorial rights in the disputed area. But the question of sovereignty ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William McKinley
William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until Assassination of William McKinley, his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans History of the Republican Party (United States), largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. McKinley successfully led the U.S. in the Spanish–American War and oversaw a period of Manifest destiny, American expansionism, with the annexations of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and American Samoa. McKinley was the last president to have served in the American Civil War; he was the only one to begin his service as an enlisted soldier, enlisted man and ended it as a brevet (military), brevet major. After the war, he settled in Canton, Ohio, where he practiced law and married Ida Saxton. In 1876, McKinley was elected to Congress, where he became the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alaska Purchase
The Alaska Purchase was the purchase of Russian colonization of North America, Alaska from the Russian Empire by the United States for a sum of $7.2 million in 1867 (equivalent to $ million in ). On May 15 of that year, the United States Senate ratified a bilateral treaty that had been signed on March 30, and American sovereignty became legally effective across the territory on October 18. During the first half of the 19th century, Russia had established a colonial presence in parts of North America, but few Russians ever settled in Alaska. Alexander II of Russia, having faced a catastrophic defeat in the Crimean War, began exploring the possibility of selling the state's Alaskan possessions, which, in any future war, would be difficult to defend from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom. To this end, William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, entered into negotiations with Russian diplomat Eduard de Stoeckl toward ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven Southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusias ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expansionism
Expansionism refers to states obtaining greater territory through military Imperialism, empire-building or colonialism. In the classical age of conquest moral justification for territorial expansion at the direct expense of another established polity (who often faced displacement, subjugation, slavery, rape and execution) was often as unapologetic as "because we can" treading on the philosophical grounds of might makes right. As political conceptions of the nation state evolved, especially in reference to the inherent human rights, rights of the governed, more complex justifications arose. Anarchy#Examples of state-collapse anarchy, State-collapse anarchy, reunification or pan-nationalism are sometimes used to justify and legitimize expansionism when the explicit goal is to reconquer territories that have been lost or to take over ancestral lands. Lacking a viable historical claim of this nature, would-be expansionists may instead promote ideologies of promised lands (such as ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825. During his long diplomatic and political career, Adams served as an ambassador and also as a member of the United States Congress representing Massachusetts in both chambers. He was the eldest son of John Adams, who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801, and First Lady of the United States, First Lady Abigail Adams. Initially a Federalist Party, Federalist like his father, he won election to the presidency as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and later, in the mid-1830s, became affiliated with the Whig Party (United States), Whig Party. Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams spent much of his youth in Europe, where his father served as a diplomat. After returning to the United States, Adams established a successful leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defeating the Confederate States of America and playing a major role in the End of slavery in the United States, abolition of slavery. Lincoln was born into poverty in Kentucky and raised on the American frontier, frontier. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Illinois state Illinois House of Representatives, legislator, and U.S. representative. Angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened the territories to slavery, he became a leader of the new History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the Lincoln–Douglas debates, 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln won the 1860 United States presidential election, 1860 presidential election, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), is one of the two major political parties in the United States. It is the second-oldest extant political party in the United States after its main political rival, the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party. In 1854, the Republican Party emerged to combat the expansion of slavery into western territories after the passing of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The early Republican Party consisted of northern Protestants, factory workers, professionals, businessmen, prosperous farmers, and after the American Civil War, Civil War also of black former slaves. The party had very little support from white Southerners at the time, who predominantly backed the Democratic Party in the Solid South, and from Irish and German Catholics, who made up a major Democratic voting block. While both parties adopted pro-business policies in the 19th century, the early GOP was distinguished by its su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a mid-19th century political party in the United States. Alongside the Democratic Party, it was one of two major parties from the late 1830s until the early 1850s and part of the Second Party System. As well as four Whig presidents (William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Millard Fillmore), other prominent members included Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, William Seward, John J. Crittenden, and John Quincy Adams (whose presidency ended prior to the formation of the Whig Party). The Whig base of support was amongst entrepreneurs, professionals, Protestant Christians (particularly Evangelicals), the urban middle class, and nativists. It had much less backing from poor farmers and unskilled workers. The party was hostile towards the ideology of " manifest destiny", territorial expansion into Texas and the Southwest, and the Mexican–American War. It disliked presidential power, as exhibited by Andrew Jackson and James K. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848) was an invasion of Second Federal Republic of Mexico, Mexico by the United States Army. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was ''de facto'' an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States. Sectional politics over slavery in the United States had previously prevented annexation because Texas would have been admitted as a slave state ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
