MANIFEST DESTINY
"O'Sullivan's phrase provided a label
for sentiments which had become particularly popular during the
1840s, but the ideas themselves were not new. O'Sullivan himself had
earlier expressed some of these ideas, notably in an 1839 essay
entitled "The Great Nation of Futurity". O'Sullivan was not the
originator of the concept of Manifest Destiny, but he was one of its
foremost advocates." -Wikipedia
John L. O'Sullivan
on Manifest Destiny, 1839
The American people having derived their origin from many other
nations, and the Declaration of National Independence being entirely
based on the great principle of human equality, these facts
demonstrate at once our disconnected position as regards any other
nation; that we have, in reality, but little connection with the
past history of any of them, and still less with all antiquity, its
glories, or its crimes. On the contrary, our national birth was the
beginning of a new history, the formation and progress of an untried
political system, which separates us from the past and connects us
with the future only; and so far as regards the entire development
of the natural rights of man, in moral, political, and national
life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be
the great nation of futurity.
It is so destined, because the principle upon which a nation is
organized fixes its destiny, and that of equality is perfect, is
universal. It presides in all the operations of the physical world,
and it is also the conscious law of the soul -- the self-evident
dictates of morality, which accurately defines the duty of man to
man, and consequently man's rights as man. Besides, the truthful
annals of any nation furnish abundant evidence, that its happiness,
its greatness, its duration, were always proportionate to the
democratic equality in its system of government. . . .
What friend of human liberty, civilization, and refinement, can cast
his view over the past history of the monarchies and aristocracies
of antiquity, and not deplore that they ever existed? What
philanthropist can contemplate the oppressions, the cruelties, and
injustice inflicted by them on the masses of mankind, and not turn
with moral horror from the retrospect?
America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory
that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defense of
humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of
conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals
describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by
hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to
emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes. We
have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no
aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever
suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate
the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being
might be placed on a seat of supremacy.
We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity, only as lessons of
avoidance of nearly all their examples. The expansive future is our
arena, and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden space,
with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our
hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past. We are
the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to
our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can.
We point to the everlasting truth on the first page of our national
declaration, and we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that
"the gates of hell" -- the powers of aristocracy and monarchy --
"shall not prevail against it."
The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American
greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation
of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of
divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever
dedicated to the worship of the Most High -- the Sacred and the
True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere -- its roof the firmament of
the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of many
Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling, owning no
man master, but governed by God's natural and moral law of equality,
the law of brotherhood -- of "peace and good will amongst men.". . .
Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of
universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our
union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of
individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot
retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other. We
must onward to the fulfilment of our mission -- to the entire
development of the principle of our organization -- freedom of
conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business
pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high
destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and
effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history,
to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the
immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to
the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving
light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall
smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and
carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now
endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of
the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be
the great nation of futurity?
See Wikipedia Article
here
See Timothy O'Sullivan's "The Great Nation of
Futurity"
here.
