Schott's Miscellany 19 May 2009
MANIFEST DESTINY
Manifest Destiny was a popular mid-19th-century slogan expressing the conviction that no less than Divine Providence destined the United States to stretch (geographically and ideologically) from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Manifest Destiny justified the imperialist land acquisition westward, by force if necessary--as Native Americans learned. The philosophy was expounded by followers of President Jackson, but the term was coined by jouranlist John L. O'Sullivan in 1845, as settlers moved west to California and Oregon. He wrote of "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."
Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)