From Ohio History Central Show In 1845, John L. O'Sullivan, a newspaper reporter in New York City, coined the phrase "manifest destiny." O'Sullivan claimed that it was the God-given destiny of the United States of America to spread over North America. O' Sullivan summarized his view this way: And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us. Many Anglo-Americans of various ethnicities agreed with O'Sullivan's view. Since the arrival of the first European colonists to what would eventually become the United States of America, many of the newcomers had believed that they were God's chosen people. Some of these same people had believed that the North American continent was destined to be under white control. Europeans drove American Indians away from their lands, including those in Ohio, throughout the 1600s and the 1700s. During the 1800s, the United States government began acquiring more land from both the American Indians and from European countries claiming land in North America. Through various treaties, land purchases, and wars, the United States, by 1848, acquired all of the territory that comprises the continental United States today. While manifest destiny united many Americans with a shared belief that God had a grand mission for them, it also divided them. As the United States acquired more territory during the first part of the nineteenth century, the issue of slavery and where it would be permitted began to divide the country. Increasingly through this period, many Southerners and some Northerners wanted slavery to exist everywhere in the United States, including in the new territories added to the country. Many other Americans did not want slavery to expand at all, and some people wanted slavery to be prohibited across the entire nation. Eventually these tensions would lead to the American Civil War. The concept of manifest destiny did not end with the American Civil War. Throughout the late nineteenth century and well into the recent history of the United States, many Americans continued to believe that it was their nation's duty to spread the American political and economic system around the world. See AlsoReferences
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 This photo entitled "American Progress" by George Crofutt in 1873 depicts the religious ideology behind United States expansion as an angel guides settlers to the west. The most influential ideology in our nation’s history is manifest destiny. The ideology of manifest destiny dates itself back to colonialism when Americans believed they would be the example for the rest of the world. Americans believed they were destined by God to remake the world. This ideal of American exceptionalism has fueled American expansion westward through the ideology of manifest destiny. A majority of Americans consider the ideology to represent expansion and the building of an empire. However, the ideology of manifest destiny represents more than that it is a culmination of American perspectives about how they view the United States in the world. It was not until 1839 when John O’Sullivan published in The United States Democratic Review, the meaning behind the ideology of manifest destiny. Prior to this publication the ideology of manifest destiny was simply an aspect of American culture that all Americans believed in but was never defined. O’Sullivan claimed that the ideology grew from “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” (“The Great”). Since the United States government was different than any other nations it would have to create their own path to destiny. In 1845 the phrase ‘manifest destiny’ was coined by John O’Sullivan. Manifest destiny would continue to represent American ideals for years to come. Who coined the phrase Manifest Destiny?John Louis O'Sullivan: (1813-1895) American editor who coined the phrase “Manifest Destiny” in 1845 to promote the annexation of Texas and the acquisition of the Oregon territory.
Where did the phrase Manifest Destiny first appear?War of 1812
The phrase “Manifest Destiny,” which emerged as the best-known expression of this mindset, first appeared in an editorial published in the July-August 1845 issue of The Democratic Review.
What started the idea of Manifest Destiny?Westward movement had been an American priority before the 19th century. As soon as the English colonized North America, they hoped to conquer the vast wilderness to the west. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase in 1803 had doubled the size of the country, sparking people's desire to move west.
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