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Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny is a phrase from 1845 holding that the United States had a God-given calling to spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The phrase is worth knowing because it shows how a justification can arrive after the act and still shape what follows: expansion was well under way before 1845, but the idea made it a duty rather than a choice. It was contested at the time — the Whigs rejected it, and the debate was as much about whether new territories would permit slavery. The phrase was reused for overseas expansion in 1898.
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