8. John L. O’Sullivan Defines
“Manifest Destiny,” 1845
Texas is now ours. Already, before these words are written
, her Convention has un
doubtedly ratified the acceptance, by her Congress,
of our proffered invitation into
the Union; and made the requisite changes in her
already republican form of con
stitution to adapt it to its future federal relations. Her
star and her stripe may already
be said to have taken their place in the glorious blazon
of our common nationality;
and the sweep of our eagle’s wing already includes within
its circuit the wide extent
of her fair and fertile land.
Why, were other reasoning wanting, in favor of now
elevating this question of
the reception of Texas into the Union, out of the lower
region of our past party dis
sensions, up to its proper level of a high and broad
nationality, it surely is to be
found, found abundantly, in the manner in which
other nations have undertaken to
intrude themselves into it, between us and the proper
parties to the case, in a spirit
of hostile interference against us, for the avowed object
of thwarting our policy and
hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checki
ng the fulfilment of our man
ifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by
Providence for the free develop
ment of our yearly multiplying millions. This we have
seen done by England, our old
rival and enemy; and by France, strangely coupled
with her against us.
It is wholly untrue, and unjust to ourselves, the pretenc
e that the Annexation
has been a measure of spoliation, unrightful and unrig
hteous—of military conquest
under forms of peace and law—of territorial aggran
dizement at the expense of jus
tice, and justice due by a double sanctity to the weak.
If Texas became peopled
with an American population, it was by no contrivance
of our government, but on
the express invitation of that of Mexico herself;
accompanied with such guaranties
of State independence, and the maintenance of
a federal system analogous to our
own, as constituted a compact fully justifying the
strongest measures of redress on
the part of those afterwards deceived in this guaran
ty, and sought to be enslaved
under the yoke imposed by its violation. She was release
d, rightfully and absolutely
.
..
.
released, from all Mexican allegiance, or duty of
cohesion to the Mexican political
body, by the acts and fault of Mexico herself, and
Mexico alone. There never was a
clearer case. It was not revolution; it was resistance
to revolution...
Nor is there any just foundation for the charge that
Annexation is a great proslavery measure—calculated to increase and perpetu
ate that institution. Slavery had
nothing to do with it. Opinions were and are greatly
divided, both at the North and
South, as to the influence to be exerted by it on Slaver
y and the Slave States....
California will, probably, next fall away from
the loose adhesion which, in
such a country as Mexico, holds a remote province
in a slight equivocal kind of de
pendence on the metropolis. Imbecile and distracted,
Mexico never can exert any
real governmental authority over such a country.
Already the advance guard of
the irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration
has begun to pour down upon it,
armed with the plough and the rifle, and marking its
trail with schools and colleges,
courts and representative halls, mills and meeting-houses.
A population will soon be
in actual occupation of California, over which it will be
idle for Mexico to dream of
dominion. They will necessarily become independent.
All this without agency of our
government, without responsibility of our people—in
the natural flow of events,
the spontaneous working ot principles and the adapta
tion of the tendencies and
wants of the human race to the elemental circumstances
in the midst of which they
find themselves placed.
.
.
.
John L. O’Sullivan. Editorial on Manifest Destin
y arid Texas Annexation, United States Magaz
ine and
t)emocranc Review (October 1837).
9. Senator Thomas Hart Benton
Justifies White Supremacy, 1846
It would seem that the White race alone received the divine command, to subdue and
replenish the earth! for it is the only race that has obeyed it—the only one that hunts
out new and distant lands, and even a New World, to subdue and replenish. Starting
from western Asia, taking Europe for their field, and the Sun for their guide, and
leaving the Mongolians behind, they arrived, after many ages, on the shores of the
Atlantic, which they lit up with the lights of science and religion, and adorned with
the useful and the elegant arts. Three and a half centuries ago, this race, in obedience
to the great command, arrived in the New World, and found new lands to subdue and
The van of the Caucasian race now top the Rocky Mountains, and
replenish..
spread down to the shores of the Pacific. In a few years a great population will grow
up there, luminous with the accumulated lights of European and American civiliza
tion. Their presence in such a position cannot be without its influence upon eastern
Civilization, or extinction, has been the fate of all people who have found
Asia.
themselves in the track of the advancing Whites, and civilization, always the prefer
ence of the Whites, has been pressed as an object, while extinction has followed as
a consequence of its resistance. The Black and the Red races have often felt their
ameliorating influence.
.
.
.
.
.
10. Senator John Dix Advocates
Expansion into Mexico, 1848
and elements of
Sir, no one who has paid a moderate degree of attention to the laws
itself across the
our increase, can doubt that our population is destined to spread
to attrac
American continent, filling up, with more or less completeness, according
Pacific
and
tions of soil and climate, the space that intervenes between the Atlantic
exten
distant
very
oceans. This eventual, and, perhaps, in the order of time, this not
westward,
we
go
sion of our settlements over a tract of country, with a diameter, as
interest to
greatly disproportioned to its length, becomes a subject of the highest
the point
to
us. On the whole extent of our northern flank, from New Brunswick
with
contact
in
are
we
where the northern boundary of Oregon touches the Pacific,
ourselves,
with
origin
British colonists. having. for the most part, the same common
if
but controlled and moulded by political influences from the Eastern hemisphere,
not adverse, certainly not decidedly friendly to us.
From our northern boundary. we turn to our southern. What races are to border
on us here, what is to be their social and political character, and what their means
of annoyance? Are our two frontiers, only seven parallels of latitude apart when we
with
pass Texas, to be flanked by settlements having no common bond of union
with
extent,
whole
its
ours? Our whole southern line is conterminous, throughout
The
lated...
unpopu
nearly
the territories of Mexico, a large portion of which is
Mex
New
and
California
of
aboriginal races, which occupy and overrun a portion
ico, must there, as everywhere else, give way before the advancing wave of civiliza
tion, either to be overwhelmed by it, or to be driven upon perpetually contracting
they
areas, where, from a diminution of their accustomed sources of subsistence,
operation
the
see
We
law.
invincible
must ultimately become extinct by force of an
of this law in every portion of this continent. We have no power to control it, if we
would. It is the behest of Providence that idleness, and ignorance, and barbarism,
shall give place to industry, and knowledge, and civilization. The European and
mixed races, which possess Mexico, are not likely, either from moral or physical
energy, to become formidable rivals or enemies. The bold and courageous enter
prise which overran and conquered Mexico, appears not to have descended to the
present possessors of the soil. Either from the influence of climate or the admixture
of races—the fusion of castes, to use the technical phrase—the conquerors have, in
turn, become the conquered. The ancient Castilian energy is, in a great degree, sub
dued; and it has given place, with many other noble traits of the Spanish character,
to a peculiarity which seems to have marked the race in that country, under what
ever combinations it is found—a proneness to civil discord, and a suicidal waste of
its own strength.
.
With such a territory and such a people on our southern border, what is to be the
inevitable course of empire? It needs no powers of prophecy to foretell. Sir, I desire
to speak plainly: why should we not, when we are discussing the operation of moral
and physical laws, which are beyond our control? As our population moves westward
on our own territory, portions will cross our southern boundary. Settlements will be
formed within the unoccupied and sparsely-peopled territory of Mexico. lJnconge
mal habits and tastes, differences of political opinion and principle, and numberless
other elements of diversity will lead to a separation of these newly-formed societies
from the inefficient government of Mexico. They will not endure to be held in sub..
jection to a system, which neither yields them protection nor offers any incentive to
their proper development and growth. They will form independent States on the basis
of constitutions identical in all their leading features with our own; and they will
naturally seek to unite their fortunes to ours. The fate of California is already sealed:
it can never be reunited to Mexico. The operation of the great causes, to which I
have alluded, must, at no distant day, detach the whole of northern Mexico from the
southern portion ot that republic. It is for the very reason that she is incapable of
defending her possessions against the elements of disorder within and the progress
of better influences from without, that I desire to see the inevitable political change
which is to be wrought in the condition of her northern departments, brought about
without any improper interference on our part.
11. Walter Colton, a Californian, Describes
the Excitement.of the Gold Rush, 1848
‘msday, June 20. [18481 My messenger sent to the mines, has returned with
imens of the gold; he dismounted in a sea of upturned faces. As he drew forth
yellow lumps from his pockets, and passed them around among the eager
ajowd, the doubts, which had lingered till now, fled.. All were off for the mines,
litter. An
i me on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches, and one went in a
up
pulled
here,
se
boarding-hou
a
established
recently
had
who
woman,
American
ran,
Debtors
bills
their
pay
to
time
even
had
lodgers
her
before
was
off
and
stakes,
course. I have only a community of women left, and a gang of prisoners, with
bere and there a soldier, who will give his captain the slip at the first chance. I don’t
b)ame the fellow a whit; seven dollars a month, while others are making two or
three hundred a day! that is too much for human nature to stand....
Tuesday, July 18. Another bag of gold from the mines, and another spasm
In the community. It was brought down by a sailor from Yuba river, and contains a
bundred and thirty-six ounces. It is the most beautiful gold that has appeared in the
market; it looks like the yellow scales of the dolphin, passing through his rainbow
hues at death. My carpenters, at work on the school-house, on seeing it, threw
down their saws and planes, shouldered their picks and are off for the Yuba. Three
seamen ran from the Warren, forfeiting their four years’ pay; and a whole platoon
of soldiers from the fort left only their colors behind. One old woman declared
she would never again break an egg or kill a chicken, without examining yolk and
gizzard....
Thursday, Aug. 16. Four citizens of Monterey are just in from the gold mines
on Feather River, where they worked in company with three others. They employed
about thirty wild Indians, who are attached to the rancho owned by one of the party.
They worked precisely seven weeks and three days, and have divided seventy-six
thousand eight hundred and forty-four dollars,—nearly eleven thousand dollars to
each. Make a dot there, and let me introduce a man, well known to me, who has
worked on the Yuba river sixty-four days, and brought back, as the result of his in
dividual labor, five thousand three hundred and fifty-six dollars.. Make another
dot there, and let me introduce a woman, of Sonoranian birth, who has worked
in the dry diggings forty-six days, and brought back two thousand one hundred
and twenty-five dollars. Is not this enough to make a man throw down his leger and
shoulder a pick?...
Tuesday, Aug. 28. The gold mines have upset all social and domestic
arrangements in Monterey; the master has become his own servant, and the servant
his own lord. The millionaire is obliged to groom his own horse, and roll his
wheelbarrow; and the hidalgo—in whose veins flow the blood of all the Cortes—to
clean his own boots! Here is lady L—, who has lived here seventeen years, the
pride and ornament of the place, with a broomstick in her jewelled hand!
.
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.