TEXT 1
Excerpts from speech by U.S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, “MARCH OF THE FLAG”
(16 September 1898)
[1] Fellow-citizens–It is a noble land that God has given us; a land that can feed and
clothe the world; a land whose coast lines would in close half the countries of Europe; a
land set like a sentinel between the two imperial oceans of the globe; a greater England
with a nobler destiny. It is a mighty people that He has planted on this soil; a people
sprung from the most masterful blood of history; a people perpetually revitalized by the
virile working folk of all the earth; a people imperial by virtue of their power, by right of
their institutions, by authority of their heaven-directed purposes…. It is a glorious
history our God has bestowed upon His chosen people; … a history of statesmen, who
flung the boundaries of the Republic out into unexplored lands and savage wildernesses;
a history of soldiers, who carried the flag across blazing deserts and through the ranks of
hostile mountains, even to the gates of sunset; a history of a multiplying people, who
overrun a continent in half a century; a history divinely logical, in the process of whose
tremendous reasoning we find ourselves to-day.
[2] … Shall the American people continue their resistless march toward the commercial
supremacy of the world? Shall free institutions broaden their blessed reign as the
children of liberty wax in strength until the empire of our principles is established over
the hearts of all mankind? … Has the Almighty Father endowed us with gifts beyond
our deserts, and marked us as the people of His peculiar favor…? And shall we reap the
reward that waits on the discharge of our high duty as the sovereign power of earth; shall
we occupy new markets for what our farmers raise, new markets for what our factories
make, new markets for what our merchants sell–aye, and, please God, new markets for
what our ships shall carry? Shall we conduct the mightiest commerce of history with the
best money known to man…?
[12] … William McKinley is continuing the policy that Jefferson began, Monroe
continued, Seward advanced, Grant promoted, Harrison championed, and the growth
of the Republic has demanded. Hawaii is ours; Porto Rico is to be ours; at the prayer of
the people Cuba will finally be ours; in the islands of the east, even to the gates of Asia,
coaling stations are to be ours; at the very least the flag of a liberal government is to float
over the Philippines, and it will be the stars and stripes of glory….
[13] The opposition tells us that we ought not to govern a people without their consent.
First Light Learning Resources – Doctrine of Discovery http://upstanderproject.org/firstlight/doctrine I answer, the rule of liberty that all just government derives its authority from the
consent of the governed, applies only to those who are capable of self-government. We
govern the Indians without their consent; we govern our territories without their
consent; we govern our children without their consent. I answer, would not the natives
of the Philippines prefer the just, humane, civilizing government of this Republic to the
savage, bloody rule of pillage and extortion from which we have rescued them? ... Shall
we abandon them to their fate with the wolves of conquest all about them?
[14] They ask us how we will govern these new possessions. I answer, out of local
conditions and the necessities of the case methods of government will grow. If England
can govern foreign lands so can America…. We do but what our fathers did–but pitch
the tents of liberty farther westward, farther southward; we only continue the march of
the flag.
[15] The march of the flag! In 1789 the flag of the Republic waved over 4,000,000 souls
in thirteen States, and this a savage territory which stretched to the Mississippi, to
Canada, to the Floridas. The timid minds of that day said that no new territory was
needed, and, for the hour, they were right. But under the lead of Jefferson we the
territory which sweeps from the Mississippi to the mountains, from Texas to the British
possessions, and the march of the flag began. The infidels to the gospel of liberty raved,
but the flag swept on. The title to that noble land out of which Oregon, Washington,
Idaho and Montana have been carved was uncertain.
Jefferson obeyed the Anglo-Saxon impulse within him and another empire was added
the Republic and the march of the flag went on….
[22] … The commercial supremacy of the Republic means that this Nation is to be the
sovereign factor in the peace of the world. For the conflicts of the future are to be
conflicts of trade–struggles for markets–commercial wars for existence. And the golden
rule of peace is impregnability of position and invincibility of preparation…. Ah! as our
commerce spreads, the flag of liberty will circle the globe and the highways of the oceancarrying trade of all mankind be guarded by the guns of the Republic…. We are enlisted
in the cause of American supremacy, which will never end until American commerce has
made the conquest of the world; until American citizenship has become the lord of
civilization, and the stars and stripes the flag of flags throughout the world.
[30] Now on the threshold of our career as the first power of earth, is the time to
permanently adjust our system of finance…. There are so many real things to be done–
canals to be dug, railways to be laid, forests to be felled, cities to be builded, unviolated
fields to be tilled, priceless markets to be won, ships to be launched, peoples to be saved,
First Light Learning Resources – Doctrine of Discovery http://upstanderproject.org/firstlight/doctrine civilization to be proclaimed and the flag of liberty flung to the eager air of every sea….
It is a time to sustain that devoted man, servant of the people and of the most high God,
who is guiding the Republic out into the ocean of infinite possibility. It is a time to
cheer the beloved President of God’s chosen people, till the whole world is vocal with
American loyalty to the American government of William McKinley, its head and chief.
First Light Learning Resources – Doctrine of Discovery http://upstanderproject.org/firstlight/doctrine TEXT 2
Excerpts from website: American History From Revolution to Reconstruction and
Beyond
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/essays/1801-1900/manifest-destiny/the-components-ofmanifest-destiny.php
The Components Of Manifest Destiny
The notion of Manifest Destiny had many components, each serving people in different
ways. Manifest Destiny reflected both the prides that characterized American
Nationalism in the mid 19th century, and the idealistic vision of social perfection
through God and the church. Both fueled much of the reform energy of the time.
Individually, the components created separate reasons to conquer new land. Together
they exemplified Americas [sic] ideological need to dominate from pole to pole.
The Religious Influence
To some, the Manifest Destiny Doctrine was based on the idea that America had a
divine providence. It had a future that was destined by God to expand its borders, with
no limit to area or country. All the traveling and expansion were part of the spirit of
Manifest Destiny, a belief that it was God's will that Americans spread over the entire
continent, and to control and populate the country as they see fit. Many expansionists
conceived God as having the power to sustain and guide human destiny….
A Sense Of A Mission
While some were driven by what they considered God's will, others saw Manifest
Destiny as the historical inevitability of American domination of North America from
sea to sea. It was an altruistic way to extend American liberty to new realms. North West
expansion started with the American fur trappers. In their search for new reserves of
beaver, they blazed new trials [sic] and passages through the mountains. In doing so,
they traversed new and fertile valleys of the Far West. Their exaggerated stories and
accounts of their travels publicized the newly found region of the West and aroused
interest in people contemplating agricultural possibilities. It also gave the land an air of
romance and adventure.
The Dark Side
For all the positive atmosphere and grand spirit Manifest Destiny created, it also created
the dark side of American History, non[e] darker than the plight of the American Indian.
While the positive side of Manifest Destiny was a surge of enthusiasm and energy for
First Light Learning Resources – Doctrine of Discovery http://upstanderproject.org/firstlight/doctrine pushing West, the negative side was the belief that the white man had the right to
destroy anything and anyone -- namely Indians -- who got in the way. Tracing the path
of Manifest Destiny across the West would highlight mass destruction of tribal
organizations, confinement of Indians to reservations, and full blown genocide. The
dark side of Manifest Destiny revealed the white man's belief that his settlement of the
land and civilization of its native peoples was preordained.
The settlements that extended across the Western territories promised the American
dream: the freedom and independence of a seemingly limitless land. This, coupled with
the Agrarian spirit produced an attitude that nothing was gong to stand in the way of
progress, the progress of Manifest Destiny. In the name of this doctrine, Americans took
what ever land they wanted. With a belief that Manifest Destiny gave them a right and
power to do so, many simply settled, planted and farmed Indian land.
The large-scale annihilation and movement of Native American onto Indian reservations
reached its peak in the late 19th century. The U.S. government intended to destroy
tribal governments and break up Indian reservations under, what was then considered,
the progressive Manifest Destiny Doctrine. The arrogance that flowed from the Manifest
Destiny philosophy was exemplified when Albert T. Beveridge rose before the U.S.
Senate and announced:
"God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Tectonic peoples for a thousand
years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. No! He has made us the master
organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns... He has made us adepts
in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples.
Theodore Roosevelt, John Cabot Lodge, and John Hay, each in turn, endorsed with a
strong sense of certainty the view that the Anglo-Saxon [Americans] was destined to
rule the world. Such views expressed in the 19th century and in the early 20th century
continues [sic] to ring true in the minds of many non-Indian property owners. The
superiority of the "white race" is the foundation on which the Anti-Indian Movement
organizers and right-wing helpers rest their efforts to dismember Indian tribes."
(Ryser).
First Light Learning Resources – Doctrine of Discovery http://upstanderproject.org/firstlight/doctrine