MANIFEST DESTINY 1806 1855
MANIFEST DESTINY
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Many felt Manifest Destiny was “code” for spreading slavery.
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Many felt that Manifest Destiny only benefited other European countries.
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Many felt Manifest Destiny would decrease the need for slavery.
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Many felt that Manifest Destiny would only benefit agriculture and not manufacturing.
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Detailed explanation-1: -Some Americans were opposed to manifest destiny because other nations (Mexico & Great Britain) claimed the land and because they felt an expansive nation would be too large to govern. Abolitionists feared new territory would expand slavery. Only a few hundred Americans resided in the area that is now Texas in 1815.
Detailed explanation-2: -Although some northerners found the institution of slavery morally reprehensible, most did not believe in complete racial equality either. Slavery became even more divisive when it threatened to expand westward because non-slaveholding white settlers did not want to compete with slaveholders in the new territories.
Detailed explanation-3: -Expansionists such as Roosevelt, former President Harrison, and Captain Mahan argued for creating an American empire. However, others, including Grover Cleveland, Andrew Carnegie, and Mark Twain, opposed these ideas. Manifest Destiny became a disputed philosophy.
Detailed explanation-4: -U.S. expansion also fueled the growing debate over slavery, by raising the pressing question of whether new states being admitted to the Union would allow slavery or not-a conflict that would eventually lead to the Civil War.