today on the daily bellringer we're taking a look at manifest destiny hello and welcome to
the daily Bellary or please don't forget to take a look at the questions down in the description
and don't forget to subscribe and of course I'd love to see your answer to question number five
in the comments below so manifest destiny you know this is a covers a huge time period in American
history basically the entire antebellum period of American history in the antebellum period
period of American history is from the end of the war of 1812 basically to the beginning of
the the Civil War but you might be asking what is manifest destiny manifest destiny was basically
the idea that the United States must expand its boundaries to the Pacific Ocean and not only was
it the idea that they must do this it was also the idea that this was their right and that this was
their duty and this was what a lot of Americans believed in throughout this time period and
early manifest destiny that term was coined by a newspaper editor columnist named John O'Sullivan
in 1845 in an article that he wrote arguing for the annexation of Texas or adding Texas to the
United States I'll put a link to that article down in the description if you want to take a
look at it but in order to understand manifest destiny and really why Americans were so bound
and determined to control the western part of the United States we kind of have to look at see what
was going on on the east coast of the United States in order to understand why they wanted
to push to the west so one of the huge things that's going on at the in this time period is of
course the Industrial Revolution the production of the means of producing products was not handmade
anymore basically we were getting to the point to where machines were beginning to take the place of
handmade goods you know textiles cloth being made in mass production you know clothing being able to
bought like you know bought in different sizes in the stores things like that instead of just
making it by hand at home people were now working in factories especially in the northeast part of
the United States to create all of these products alright and as they're doing this you know the
cities are getting bigger and bigger but we also have to consider here - what northeasterners in
particular we're thinking about how their life was supposed to how things are supposed to be
accomplished or I guess basically their ideology their idea all about life and actually at this
time historians consider this ideology that they had at this time is known as the free labor
ideology basically this idea that you were going to work hard you were gonna get a job probably a
wage labor job or you gonna wait maybe work in a factory but you were gonna learn some sort of
a skill and while learning the skill you know you could you continue building yourself up and
eventually you would save up enough money to buy your own piece of land start your own business
you'd have those skills you just gained and you'd become independently wealthy so that was the idea
of what they thought life was really going to be about but in order for this to happen there
had to be some stuff present in order for it to happen one thing was there had to be cheap land
available there had to be some land to be able to buy and it had to be relatively a good price so
you could afford to buy it you could save up and buy it while you were working your way through
also there couldn't be an aristocracy so in other words a group of people who were just wealthy that
controlled all of the wealth all right instead it was you know everybody working their way up
now that's what they thought would be going on during this time period but what was actually
the reality the reality was is that wealth was becoming more and more concentrated actually if
you look at these statistics in 1820 ten percent of the population owned about fifty percent of the
wealth in the United States by 1860 ten percent of the population owned about seventy-three percent
of the wealth so wealth was getting much more concentrated people were not necessarily working
their way through this free labor ideology and also you know of course the Industrial Revolution
is moving quickly wage labor is becoming permanent people are not working their way out of it and so
cities are getting bigger and bigger and so that meant there was less land available and the land
was more expensive so we have an aristocracy here we have land that's not available in the
Northeast in particular and so of course what is the answer manifest destiny move to the west move
somewhere where there's land available where you could be able to you know work your way up where
there was an aristocracy where you could get your own young little piece to be able to work on and
so nor there is this was kind of what drove them to move west was this idea that they could move
west and make this new life for themselves alright but one big thing that northerners in particular
we're really against was having slavery out in the West because they saw that as competition
to the being able for them to be able competition to them being able to accomplish these goals and
so they were very very against slavery moving to the west and actually that's a big reason
the civil war is eventually going to happen is because northerners were so opposed to slavery
moving into the western part of the United States of course that's gonna be one of the big issues as
we're moving through this time period but here real quickly at the end as I always say answer
question number five in the comments here's the question I want you to look at or at least what
I want you to kind of analyze here well you see here this is a painting titled American Progress
painted by John gassed in 1872 and really this painting encapsulates what manifest destiny was
all about or what it really looked like alright and so I'm gonna put a link to this painting in
the description as well and kind of what I'd like for you to do is look at the painting and kind
of analyze it what is it that you see in this painting that really symbolizes what manifest
destiny was all about but we got to think about you know manifest destiny this is really what's
in the back of people's minds throughout this entire antebellum period from the war of 1812
to the beginning in the Civil War that's really pushing them to move to the west and really drives
a lot of American policy okay so hopefully you learn something there and thanks for watching
you