Question

I really really really need help so please please plese help. Question: If the United States had not followed the idea of manifest destiny, would its national security have been compromised?

Answer 1

Manifest Destiny is a nineteenth-century belief that the United States had a mission to expand westward across the North American continent, spreading its form of democracy, freedom, and culture. The expansion was deemed to be not only good, but also obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). Many believed the mission to be divinely inspired while others felt it more as an altruistic right to expand the territory of liberty. Originally a political catch phrase of the nineteenth century, Manifest Destiny eventually became a standard historical term, often used as a synonym for the territorial expansion of the United States across North America.

Answer 2

Thanks so much :)

Answer 3

Probably. Had the United States not expanded all the way to the Pacific, it would have left Great Britain in charge of the Oregon and Washington area, and Mexico in charge of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and perhaps Texas, probably some other bits as well.

It seems likely the Pacific Northwest would just have been incorporated into Canada, which was and very likely still would be a friendly Anglosphere nation. However, Mexico was and very likely still would have been a weak and divided nation, with significant internal difficulties stemming from the friction and distrust between its Spanish-heritage rulers and Mesoamerican-Indian peasant class. As it was, the territory of Mexico was not especially fruitful, and the United States was on record (e.g. the Monroe Doctrine) of greatly resenting any European power involvement in Central America. But...if the US had indicated it would NOT resent European power involvement, and Mexico remained divided and weak, and there were the opportunities presented by California -- particularly after gold was discovered in the 1840s -- then I can very easily see a European power, such as Napoleonic France, or even France under Napoleon III, taking over in Mexican North America, either by directly annexing Mexico, or, more likely, by establishing a strong colonial presence in the area and ruling Mexico and Mexican North America as a client state.

That would certainly have involved the United States much more directly in the Napoleonic Wars. It seems certain that the US would have been forced to become the client of either Great Britain or France, and would therefore have become the enemy of the other. How that would've worked out -- whether Britain would still have prevailed against Napoleon, for example -- is unclear. An interesting additional question would be whether the US as a British or French client state would've been forced to give up slavery, since on the one hand both Britain and France had outlawed it, but on the other hand either would've needed the US at maximum strength, not riven by internal disruption and economic weakness driven by overturning "the peculiar insttiution." Perhaps either would've turned a blind eye to it, for practical reasons, much as the US turned a blind eye to some human rights abuses by its allies during the Cold War.

Answer 4

Wow, thanks

Answer 5

Although...I guess you're really asking about at time later than the Napoleonic Wars, around the 1840s. I can still see France and Britain struggling over control of the Pacific North American coast, with the US kind of caught in the middle. Perhaps there would've been a North American war specifically to settle that question, and certainly that would've probably trumped the US Civil War and had a big effect on slavery, but to what effect, I have no idea.