Manifest destiny: a contemporary framework

Throughout our education, the phrase “manifest destiny” is always associated with the westward expansion of the United States. In the simplest terms, it was taught as the idea that the country was meant to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, that it was our obvious fate—our “manifest” destiny—to cover the continent with farms, towns and railroads. In mid-20th-century classrooms, it was presented almost like a natural law, an inevitable unfolding of progress without much thought about the people already living here.

At the time, the phrase carried religious weight. To many 19th-century Americans, scriptures such as Genesis—commanding humanity to subdue the earth—and Psalm 2:8—promising “the heathen for thine inheritance”—were not abstract but divine directives. Coupled with the conquest stories of Exodus and Joshua, and reinforced by the New Testament’s call to spread the gospel, expansion became more than politics or economics. It was cast as providence. The wilderness was to be tamed, and indigenous peoples were to be converted or displaced.

A more cynical reading strips away the patriotic gloss and sees Manifest Destiny as a justification for imperialism, no different from the ambitions of European empires. Beneath the rhetoric of Providence and progress lay conquest and profit. While the phrase itself was uniquely American, coined in the 1840s, the mindset was not. The English spoke of a “civilizing mission” in Ireland and the New World, while Spain’s Requerimiento demanded submission of indigenous peoples under threat of war. Each blended divine sanction with raw power.

The phrase was first used in 1845 by journalist John L. O’Sullivan, editor of the “United States Magazine and Democratic Review.” In arguing for the annexation of Texas, he declared it America’s “manifest destiny to overspread the continent.” At the time, war with Mexico loomed and Britain contested claims in Oregon. O’Sullivan’s phrasing gave the push for expansion a veneer of inevitability. Manifest, from Latin roots meaning “plain to the senses,” meant evident, undeniable. Destiny, from destinare, meant “to make firm, determine.” Together: an outcome plainly determined, a future self-evidently ordained.

Understanding the words themselves helps us see why the phrase still matters. Stripped of theology, “manifest destiny” is about recognizing futures that are both evident and predetermined. In the 19th century, that meant the westward sweep of settlement. Today, the phrase can be borrowed to frame outcomes that are already unfolding in our own time—developments we can see plainly enough that the real question is not if but how we respond.

In politics, demographic change and climate adaptation are not abstract predictions but realities governments must manage, regardless of how one interprets their causes. In education, the shift from one-size-fits-all classrooms toward individualized, self-paced learning is underway. In technology, artificial intelligence and genetic medicine are advancing with the certainty of inevitability, raising questions of timing, application, and ethics. Driverless vehicles are another example, widely regarded as a matter of “when” rather than “if.”

None of these carries the sacred language of O’Sullivan’s coinage, but all share its etymological core: futures both evident and determined. The challenge is to acknowledge trends with clarity and without partisanship, and to prepare accordingly. In other words, to reclaim the concept of manifest destiny not as a justification for conquest, but as a framework for dealing with the future honestly.