Did Slavery Kill Manifest Destiny?

I have recently been involved in a discussion in which the topic is the premise that slavery killed the idea of manifest destiny. However, after looking at the subject and thinking about it, I do not agree with this premise. Slavery, while being one of the causes of manifest destiny, was not the death of the ideal of territorial expansion. Prudence, if anything, was what ended the expansionist ideals of the mid-nineteenth century.

The term "manifest destiny" first arose during the furor over the annexation of the Republic of Texas in 1844-45. However, the ideal had been around for decades prior, even into the period before the War for Independence. But it wasn't until the uproar over Texas that the term "manifest destiny" was actually used. Daniel Howe, in his work What Hath God Wrought gives this statement, which fairly well defines manifest destiny: "'Manifest destiny' served as both a label and a justification for policies that might otherwise have simply been called American expansionism or imperialism. The assumption of white supremacy permeated these policies." Americans felt it was their right, almost a divine right, to expand and spread democracy and freedom to those peoples both to the north and to the south of the borders of the United States. Howe says that if "America had a divine mission to perform, to be a beacon of freedom...then perhaps increasing its extent and power would bring blessings to the whole world."

It is a fact that slaveowners wanted to expand American soil in order to spread slavery. It was painfully obvious to these men that if the peculiar institution was to survive, more territory was required. However, slaveowners were not the only group whose interests were vested in expansion. Land speculators saw the west as money in their pockets. Railroad men saw the vast western plains as a perfect avenue to build a railroad to the Pacific. And small farmers and new immigrants saw the west as a place to start over and make a family and a living. To them, the west was a vast, unclaimed expanse, that was theirs for the taking. Never mind the Native American tribes and the Mexicans; it was their right to take that territory and make it theirs.

So what stopped this expansion? What "killed" manifest destiny? In essence, it was prudence. During the decades of 1840 and into the 50's, expansion was a major goal. There was James Polk's idea to purchase Cuba for $100 million. There was the furor with England over the boundary of the Oregon Territory, which gave rise to the slogan "54º 40 or Fight!" There were the filibusteros who attempted to take territory for America in Central America and the Caribbean. And perhaps the greatest expansionist scheme of all, the Mexican War, which gained the United States the territory which became California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and part of New Mexico. The latter was the only scheme that worked, but these were all plans to expand the territory of the United States.

So why didn't they work? Spain wasn't going to give up Cuba, and the United States wasn't about to take on a major European power, even one in its decline. They were also not about to take on Great Britain in a third war with that country in less than 75 years. And the filibusteros? They were all stopped by the countries that they tried to take territory from or they failed due to illness or not enough backing. They were seen as imprudent and unwise ventures. Slavery did not have a direct impact on their failure. Though there were many who were rabidly against the war with Mexico because they saw it as a war to expand slavery, California came in a free state and slavery most likely would not have succeeded in the rest of teh territory gained in the Mexican Cession. Oregon was well above the Missouri Compromise line and though it might have succeeded there, probably wouldn't have gotten a hold there. So slavery had little impact on a much of the territory that was taken because of manifest destiny.

One must also take into account the imperialist attitude that arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. American expansion was not done, and the territory of Alaska and Hawaii, later to become states, and the Phillipines, Puerto Rico, and other islands, both in the Caribbean and the Pacific, came under United States control. So slavery, as can be seen, didn't kill these expansionist attitudes. Slavery, while it did a great deal to tear the nation apart in the 1850's, did not destroy the expansionist attitudes of the American people. Slavery did not kill manifest destiny.