WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.439 Have you ever wondered how a single catchy phrase 00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:06.240 managed to actually draw the physical map of 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:09.160 an entire continent? Oh, it really is wild when 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:11.279 you think about it. Right. A phrase that sparked 00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:14.779 multiple wars, justified taking land, justified 00:00:14.779 --> 00:00:18.039 refusing to take land, and somehow still echoes 00:00:18.039 --> 00:00:21.420 in presidential speeches nearly two centuries 00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:24.620 later. It is the ultimate example of how words 00:00:24.620 --> 00:00:27.640 can literally become geography. I mean, we often 00:00:27.640 --> 00:00:30.100 think borders are drawn by surveyors and generals. 00:00:30.539 --> 00:00:32.859 But in this case, the borders were drawn by an 00:00:32.859 --> 00:00:35.359 ideology. OK, let's unpack this, because today 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:37.659 our mission for this deep dive is to explore 00:00:37.659 --> 00:00:40.600 the Wikipedia article on Manifest Destiny. And 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:42.939 we are going to track how this highly influential 00:00:42.939 --> 00:00:46.320 and obviously deeply controversial concept evolved 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:49.539 from a 19th century expansionist slogan all the 00:00:49.539 --> 00:00:52.590 way to a modern 21st century geopolitical talking 00:00:52.590 --> 00:00:55.289 point and to do that we really have to look past 00:00:55.289 --> 00:00:57.689 the mythology of it all right we need to examine 00:00:57.689 --> 00:01:00.310 the why so we'll be unpacking the underlying 00:01:00.310 --> 00:01:03.789 political racial and you know economic engines 00:01:03.789 --> 00:01:06.930 that actually drove this ideology forward yeah 00:01:06.930 --> 00:01:08.969 and the real world consequences it had on the 00:01:08.969 --> 00:01:11.390 people who are already living on that land exactly 00:01:11.390 --> 00:01:13.969 so we need to start with the anatomy of the idea 00:01:13.969 --> 00:01:16.750 of itself like what does manifest destiny actually 00:01:16.750 --> 00:01:19.400 mean and where did it come from Well, just looking 00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:22.140 at the words manifest means obvious and destiny 00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:25.099 means certain. Obvious and certain. Right. It 00:01:25.099 --> 00:01:28.379 implies this 19th century belief that US settlers 00:01:28.379 --> 00:01:31.319 expanding across North America was simply going 00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:33.739 to happen no matter what. Which is such a bold 00:01:33.739 --> 00:01:36.319 assumption, but I know it wasn't just like a 00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:38.900 blind land grab. I saw historian William Earl 00:01:38.900 --> 00:01:41.060 Weeks mentioned in the sources. What were the 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:43.519 actual mechanics of this belief? So Weeks points 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:46.340 out there were three basic tenets to this ideology. 00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:50.790 First, The assumption of the unique moral virtue 00:01:50.790 --> 00:01:53.109 with the United States Okay, second a mission 00:01:53.109 --> 00:01:55.750 to spread Republican government basically spreading 00:01:55.750 --> 00:01:58.750 the American way of life, right? And third a 00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:01.829 deep unwavering faith that this mission was divinely 00:02:01.829 --> 00:02:04.950 ordained by God It sounds like manifest destiny 00:02:04.950 --> 00:02:07.349 was the ultimate 19th century corporate mission 00:02:07.349 --> 00:02:10.490 statement But you know one backed by divine providence. 00:02:10.530 --> 00:02:13.789 That is a perfect analogy But here is the massive 00:02:13.789 --> 00:02:17.419 irony of that so -called mission statement The 00:02:17.419 --> 00:02:21.219 origin of the phrase. Most historians credit 00:02:21.219 --> 00:02:24.259 a newspaper editor named John O'Sullivan with 00:02:24.259 --> 00:02:27.939 coining the term in 1845. Okay, in 1845. Yeah, 00:02:28.180 --> 00:02:30.580 in an essay titled Annexation. Yeah. Though it 00:02:30.580 --> 00:02:32.819 should be noted, there is some historical debate. 00:02:33.379 --> 00:02:35.419 A few historians suggest the term was actually 00:02:35.419 --> 00:02:38.490 coined by a journalist named Jane Casano. Interesting. 00:02:38.750 --> 00:02:41.889 Either way, it emerges in print in 1845. But 00:02:41.889 --> 00:02:44.389 O'Sullivan's original conception was not a call 00:02:44.389 --> 00:02:47.310 for military conquest. Wait, really? No, not 00:02:47.310 --> 00:02:49.650 at all. He believed expansion would just happen 00:02:49.650 --> 00:02:51.710 naturally and peacefully. Peacefully? How does 00:02:51.710 --> 00:02:54.250 that work? He envisioned American settlers moving 00:02:54.250 --> 00:02:57.210 into new regions, setting up democratic governments, 00:02:57.550 --> 00:03:00.490 and then politely asking to join the U .S., kind 00:03:00.490 --> 00:03:02.610 of like how the Republic of Texas was pushing 00:03:02.610 --> 00:03:04.810 for annexation at the time. Wait, if the person 00:03:04.810 --> 00:03:07.909 who supposedly invented the phrase it peacefully, 00:03:08.050 --> 00:03:10.729 how did it become the ultimate battle cry for 00:03:10.729 --> 00:03:12.650 military expansion? Well, it gained traction 00:03:12.650 --> 00:03:14.569 because the opposing political party actually 00:03:14.569 --> 00:03:17.009 started using the phrase to make fun of it. You're 00:03:17.009 --> 00:03:20.449 kidding! Nope. So the Democrats, led by President 00:03:20.449 --> 00:03:23.569 James K. Polk, were pushing these really aggressive 00:03:23.569 --> 00:03:26.789 expansionist policies. And the opposition party, 00:03:26.849 --> 00:03:29.530 the Whigs, completely rejected that approach. 00:03:29.849 --> 00:03:32.550 Let me pause you there. The Whigs, just to clarify 00:03:32.550 --> 00:03:34.569 for anyone listening who hasn't, you know, taken 00:03:34.569 --> 00:03:36.469 a U .S. history class recently, who were they? 00:03:36.599 --> 00:03:39.400 The Whig Party was the major political rival 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:42.520 to the Democrats during this era. They generally 00:03:42.520 --> 00:03:46.439 favored modernization, banking, and economic 00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:50.479 protectionism over rapid, chaotic territorial 00:03:50.479 --> 00:03:53.490 expansion. Got it. So Representative Robert Winthrop, 00:03:53.689 --> 00:03:55.870 a prominent Whig, basically threw the phrase 00:03:55.870 --> 00:03:58.349 manifest destiny back in the Democrats' faces 00:03:58.349 --> 00:04:01.050 on the House floor. Oh, wow. He was mocking the 00:04:01.050 --> 00:04:03.889 idea that America had some new revelation of 00:04:03.889 --> 00:04:06.189 right to just take whatever territory it wanted 00:04:06.189 --> 00:04:08.050 from other nations. So they were basically saying, 00:04:08.090 --> 00:04:10.550 oh, sure, it's your manifest destiny. How convenient. 00:04:10.810 --> 00:04:13.250 Exactly. They weaponized the mockery. But instead 00:04:13.250 --> 00:04:15.819 of being shamed, The expansionists loved it. 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:17.879 Of course they did. They embraced the insult, 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:20.680 adopted the slogan, and it just caught on like 00:04:20.680 --> 00:04:23.180 wildfire. So it worked beautifully as a political 00:04:23.180 --> 00:04:27.180 slogan. But how did this theoretical divine right 00:04:27.180 --> 00:04:29.860 actually hold up when it collided with the physical 00:04:29.860 --> 00:04:32.740 armies of other global empires? Because negotiating 00:04:32.740 --> 00:04:35.779 a map requires a lot more than writing a newspaper 00:04:35.779 --> 00:04:38.079 editorial. Right. And this is where the theory 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:41.959 violently clashed with harsh reality. Let's look 00:04:41.959 --> 00:04:44.639 at the Oregon boundary dispute. OK. You had American 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:48.100 expansionists screaming for all Oregon, demanding 00:04:48.100 --> 00:04:50.060 the border be drawn all the way up into what 00:04:50.060 --> 00:04:53.199 is now British Columbia, literally touching Russian 00:04:53.199 --> 00:04:55.759 Alaska. Yeah, I saw the slogan for that in the 00:04:55.759 --> 00:04:58.939 sources, 5440 or fight. What did those numbers 00:04:58.939 --> 00:05:01.860 actually refer to? 5440 refers to the latitude 00:05:01.860 --> 00:05:05.939 line, 54 degrees, 40 minutes north. The expansionists 00:05:05.939 --> 00:05:07.980 were publicly declaring they were ready to go 00:05:07.980 --> 00:05:10.779 to war with the British Empire over the entire 00:05:10.779 --> 00:05:13.180 Pacific Northwest. Ready to fight the British 00:05:13.180 --> 00:05:15.899 Empire? That seems incredibly risky for a young 00:05:15.899 --> 00:05:19.439 country. It was. And President Polk knew a two 00:05:19.439 --> 00:05:21.660 -front war would be disastrous because he was 00:05:21.660 --> 00:05:24.980 already looking south toward Mexico. So despite 00:05:24.980 --> 00:05:28.420 all the public manifest destiny bluster, he quietly 00:05:28.420 --> 00:05:31.930 compromised with Britain. They just split the 00:05:31.930 --> 00:05:34.069 territory at the 49th parallel, which is the 00:05:34.069 --> 00:05:36.490 border between the US and Canada today exactly 00:05:36.490 --> 00:05:39.449 So the destiny was surprisingly negotiable when 00:05:39.449 --> 00:05:42.009 it came to fighting the British But I'm guessing 00:05:42.009 --> 00:05:43.850 it was a very different story down south completely 00:05:43.850 --> 00:05:48.009 different the annexation of Texas in 1845 paved 00:05:48.009 --> 00:05:50.449 the way for the Mexican -American War in 1846. 00:05:51.350 --> 00:05:54.430 Expansionists used the rhetoric of manifest destiny 00:05:54.430 --> 00:05:58.069 to justify taking massive amounts of land from 00:05:58.069 --> 00:06:00.589 Mexico territory that eventually became California, 00:06:01.250 --> 00:06:05.279 Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Reading 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:07.459 through the sources, I saw there was an all -Mexico 00:06:07.459 --> 00:06:09.899 movement. Like, after the US military achieved 00:06:09.899 --> 00:06:11.879 massive successes, a lot of politicians wanted 00:06:11.879 --> 00:06:14.259 to just annex the entire country of Mexico. Yes, 00:06:14.259 --> 00:06:16.560 they did. But it failed. And this is where I 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:19.100 have to push back on the logic of the time. Wait, 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:21.540 if the whole point was this noble mission to 00:06:21.540 --> 00:06:23.980 spread the American way and democracy to everyone, 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:26.079 why did they suddenly pump the brakes when it 00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:28.399 came to absorbing all of Mexico? Well, this raises 00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:30.660 a really important question. And the answer reveals 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:33.759 the absolute darkest contradiction of manifest 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:36.139 destiny. Which is what? The high -minded ideals 00:06:36.139 --> 00:06:38.879 of spreading democracy were heavily, heavily 00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:41.819 tangled up with extending slavery and maintaining 00:06:41.819 --> 00:06:44.740 white racial supremacy. Wow. When it came time 00:06:44.740 --> 00:06:47.860 to potentially annex all of Mexico, Southern 00:06:47.860 --> 00:06:51.339 politicians suddenly balked. Let me guess, because 00:06:51.339 --> 00:06:54.160 annexing all of Mexico would mean granting US 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:57.300 citizenship to millions of Mexican people. That 00:06:57.300 --> 00:06:59.980 was their exact fear. To understand the mechanics 00:06:59.980 --> 00:07:01.800 of this, we have to look at a shocking quote 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:04.259 from Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:07.199 What did he say? He stood up in Congress in 1848 00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:10.439 and explicitly protested annexing Mexico. He 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:13.120 said, and I quote, we have never dreamt of incorporating 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:16.040 into our union any but the Caucasian race, the 00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:19.279 free white race. Oh my God. Yeah. He went on 00:07:19.279 --> 00:07:21.639 to argue that incorporating an Indian race or 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:24.379 a mixed race was a great mistake. That is just 00:07:24.379 --> 00:07:26.600 blatant white nationalism. I mean, it completely 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:29.160 shatters the illusion of a universal democratic 00:07:29.160 --> 00:07:32.040 mission. It does. Identitarianism was fundamentally 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:34.819 baked into the politics of the era. Let's define 00:07:34.819 --> 00:07:37.420 identitarianism here, meaning they were defining 00:07:37.420 --> 00:07:40.300 American political identity strictly by race. 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:43.300 Yes, the belief that the nation's identity is 00:07:43.300 --> 00:07:47.079 inextricably linked to a specific racial or ethnic 00:07:47.079 --> 00:07:49.939 group. in this case, white Americans of European 00:07:49.939 --> 00:07:52.000 descent. Right. What's incredible is how this 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.199 framework was used on both sides of the expansion 00:07:54.199 --> 00:07:57.439 debate. How so? Well, proponents used racial 00:07:57.439 --> 00:08:00.000 superiority to justify taking the land, arguing 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.459 that Mexicans or Native Americans weren't using 00:08:02.459 --> 00:08:06.050 it properly. But opponents, like Calhoun, use 00:08:06.050 --> 00:08:09.230 that exact same racial prejudice to stop the 00:08:09.230 --> 00:08:11.089 annexation of the people living on that land. 00:08:11.329 --> 00:08:13.410 So the destiny was only meant for a very specific 00:08:13.410 --> 00:08:15.709 demographic. Exactly. So because the government 00:08:15.709 --> 00:08:18.589 was paralyzed by this racism and by the fierce 00:08:18.589 --> 00:08:20.949 domestic division over whether new territories 00:08:20.949 --> 00:08:23.569 would be free states or slave states, official 00:08:23.569 --> 00:08:25.649 expansion southward just kind of stalled out. 00:08:25.769 --> 00:08:27.569 It stalled officially at the federal level, yeah. 00:08:27.949 --> 00:08:30.689 But the deep -seated desire for land and the 00:08:30.689 --> 00:08:32.669 belief in this destiny didn't just evaporate 00:08:32.669 --> 00:08:35.210 because Washington gridlocked. Here's where it 00:08:35.210 --> 00:08:37.690 gets really interesting. Because the government 00:08:37.690 --> 00:08:41.029 stopped expanding, private citizens decided to 00:08:41.029 --> 00:08:43.370 take matters into their own hands. They sure 00:08:43.370 --> 00:08:45.950 did. The sources talk about the filibusters. 00:08:46.149 --> 00:08:48.309 And obviously we aren't talking about politicians 00:08:48.309 --> 00:08:51.029 talking for 20 hours to delay a Senate vote. 00:08:51.210 --> 00:08:53.230 No, no. This is actually the original use of 00:08:53.230 --> 00:08:55.610 the word. The etymology comes from the Dutch 00:08:55.610 --> 00:08:58.970 word fraybooter, which referred to buccaneers 00:08:58.970 --> 00:09:01.750 or pirates in the West Indies. So these filibusters 00:09:01.750 --> 00:09:04.679 were basically heavily armed. freelance nation 00:09:04.679 --> 00:09:07.100 builders going rogue. That's a great way to put 00:09:07.100 --> 00:09:10.460 it. They were private military expeditions. In 00:09:10.460 --> 00:09:13.419 the 1850s, without any official government backing, 00:09:14.019 --> 00:09:16.860 wealthy American expansionists began financing 00:09:16.860 --> 00:09:19.919 illegal private armies to conquer parts of Latin 00:09:19.919 --> 00:09:22.220 America. That is insane. They were trying to 00:09:22.220 --> 00:09:24.980 bypass the political gridlock in Washington by 00:09:24.980 --> 00:09:27.620 stealing countries outright. often with the specific 00:09:27.620 --> 00:09:30.600 goal of creating new slave states. That is wild. 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:32.379 The sources mention guys like William Walker. 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:34.940 Can you explain what he actually did? So William 00:09:34.940 --> 00:09:37.740 Walker is the prime example. He launched private 00:09:37.740 --> 00:09:40.940 military expeditions into Mexico and he actually 00:09:40.940 --> 00:09:44.120 managed to take over and rule Nicaragua for a 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:47.460 brief time. He ruled Nicaragua. Yeah. He literally 00:09:47.460 --> 00:09:49.700 installed himself as president, legalized slavery 00:09:49.700 --> 00:09:52.220 there, and tried to conquer neighboring Central 00:09:52.220 --> 00:09:54.980 American states before a coalition army finally 00:09:54.980 --> 00:09:57.659 captured and executed him in Honduras. And he 00:09:57.659 --> 00:10:00.460 wasn't the only one. There was also Narciso Lopez, 00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:03.620 who repeatedly tried to seize Cuba from the Spanish 00:10:03.620 --> 00:10:05.539 Empire. Right, because Cuba was the ultimate 00:10:05.539 --> 00:10:08.220 prize for Southern expansionists. They desperately 00:10:08.220 --> 00:10:11.460 wanted to annex it as a new slave state to balance 00:10:11.460 --> 00:10:14.200 the political power in Congress against the northern 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:17.909 free states. OK, I see. campaign culminated in 00:10:17.909 --> 00:10:21.649 a massive scandal in 1854 called the Austin Manifesto. 00:10:21.830 --> 00:10:23.570 I want to make sure I understand this. The Austin 00:10:23.570 --> 00:10:26.090 Manifesto was a secret diplomatic dispatch, right? 00:10:26.090 --> 00:10:28.970 Yes. But it got leaked to the public and it basically 00:10:28.970 --> 00:10:31.590 revealed that the US government was seriously 00:10:31.590 --> 00:10:34.909 considering seizing Cuba by force if Spain refused 00:10:34.909 --> 00:10:37.929 to sell it. Exactly. And when the northern public 00:10:37.929 --> 00:10:40.830 read the details of the Ostend Manifesto in the 00:10:40.830 --> 00:10:43.870 newspapers, the illusion of manifest destiny 00:10:43.870 --> 00:10:46.950 as the benevolent cause was permanently shattered. 00:10:47.149 --> 00:10:50.009 It pulled the mask off. Completely. The public 00:10:50.009 --> 00:10:52.549 instantly linked to the concept with the expansion 00:10:52.549 --> 00:10:55.710 of the slave power. It was no longer seen as 00:10:55.710 --> 00:10:58.590 this divine unifying mission for the entire country. 00:10:59.029 --> 00:11:02.370 It was exposed as a brutal partisan land grab 00:11:02.370 --> 00:11:04.789 designed to protect the institution of slavery. 00:11:05.149 --> 00:11:08.549 So we've been talking a lot about borders, foreign 00:11:08.549 --> 00:11:11.129 wars, treaties with Britain, and these rogue 00:11:11.129 --> 00:11:13.950 mercenaries in the Caribbean. But Manifest Destiny 00:11:13.950 --> 00:11:16.350 wasn't just an international policy. No, not 00:11:16.350 --> 00:11:18.690 at all. It was a domestic machine that fundamentally 00:11:18.690 --> 00:11:20.889 and permanently altered the North American landscape 00:11:20.889 --> 00:11:22.889 and devastated the people who already live there. 00:11:23.210 --> 00:11:25.450 If we connect this to the bigger picture, we 00:11:25.450 --> 00:11:28.529 have to look at how the ideology literally terraformed 00:11:28.529 --> 00:11:31.870 the continent. In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead 00:11:31.870 --> 00:11:35.279 Act. This act encouraged massive westward migration 00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:38.080 by giving families 160 acres of land almost for 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:40.139 free, provided they lived on it and proved it 00:11:40.139 --> 00:11:42.700 for five years. The scale of this is staggering 00:11:42.700 --> 00:11:45.519 to think about. Over its lifespan, there were 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:49.039 200 million claims made. That accounts for 10 00:11:49.039 --> 00:11:51.240 percent of all the land in the United States. 00:11:51.399 --> 00:11:54.759 Massive. But that level of rapid aggressive settlement 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:57.820 came with catastrophic costs. The environmental 00:11:57.820 --> 00:12:01.159 impact alone was devastating. The grape plains 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:03.720 were covered in native grasses with root systems 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:06.120 that went 10 -sheet deep, which allowed them 00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:09.299 to survive harsh droughts. But the homesteaders 00:12:09.299 --> 00:12:11.820 plowed all of it up to plant shallow -rooted 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:14.419 crops like wheat. So when the droughts eventually 00:12:14.419 --> 00:12:17.100 came, there was nothing holding the earth down, 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:20.399 which directly led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.279 Furthermore, the native bison population was 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:25.500 intentionally hunted down from tens of millions 00:12:25.500 --> 00:12:28.700 to just a few hundred animals. And the environmental 00:12:28.700 --> 00:12:31.200 cost was intrinsically tied to the human cost, 00:12:31.700 --> 00:12:34.000 because you cannot give away 270 million acres 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:36.080 of land without taking it from someone else first. 00:12:36.269 --> 00:12:39.450 The Homestead Act and the broader push of Manifest 00:12:39.450 --> 00:12:42.570 Destiny required the forced removal and sometimes 00:12:42.570 --> 00:12:46.370 extermination of indigenous peoples. I saw a 00:12:46.370 --> 00:12:49.509 reference to Thomas Jefferson's 1803 letter to 00:12:49.509 --> 00:12:51.850 William Henry Harrison in our sources. Yes, that 00:12:51.850 --> 00:12:54.429 letter is really revealing. This is decades before 00:12:54.429 --> 00:12:56.590 the phrase Manifest Destiny was even coined. 00:12:56.750 --> 00:13:00.000 What was Jefferson proposing? Jefferson outlined 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:02.980 a very calculated economic trap. He proposed 00:13:02.980 --> 00:13:04.899 that the government should draw the Native Americans 00:13:04.899 --> 00:13:07.879 to agriculture and establish trading houses where 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:10.379 they would purchase goods on credit. Okay. And 00:13:10.379 --> 00:13:12.379 when the debts got too high, they would be forced 00:13:12.379 --> 00:13:15.059 to pay by selling off their ancestral lands. 00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:17.460 Jefferson explicitly wrote that the goal was 00:13:17.460 --> 00:13:20.019 to surround them. So they would either incorporate 00:13:20.019 --> 00:13:22.799 with us as citizens of the U .S. or remove beyond 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:25.120 the Mississippi. It's essentially predatory lending 00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:27.360 at a state level. Yes, like trapping workers 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:29.460 in a company town where they owe their soul to 00:13:29.460 --> 00:13:32.059 the company store. But the currency is their 00:13:32.059 --> 00:13:34.539 physical homeland. That's a very apt comparison. 00:13:35.019 --> 00:13:37.659 And the legal justification for all this actually 00:13:37.659 --> 00:13:40.460 predates the United States by centuries. It goes 00:13:40.460 --> 00:13:42.720 back to the 15th century doctrine of Christian 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:45.519 discovery, which was what it was a Catholic decree. 00:13:45.679 --> 00:13:47.899 distinguishing Christians from non -Christians 00:13:47.899 --> 00:13:51.159 to justify European colonization globally. Wait, 00:13:51.399 --> 00:13:54.419 an American court was using a 15th century Catholic 00:13:54.419 --> 00:13:58.860 decree? Yes. In the famous 1823 Supreme Court 00:13:58.860 --> 00:14:02.059 case, Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John 00:14:02.059 --> 00:14:05.360 Marshall explicitly used this doctrine to rule 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:08.600 that indigenous peoples only had occupancy rights 00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:11.179 to the land. So they didn't own it? Right. This 00:14:11.179 --> 00:14:13.320 meant their lands could legally be claimed and 00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:15.799 taken by the powers of discovery. With all of 00:14:15.799 --> 00:14:18.320 this calculated policy, from predatory debt traps 00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:21.240 to legal loopholes, did anyone at the time realize 00:14:21.240 --> 00:14:24.019 the sheer devastation this was causing? Some 00:14:24.019 --> 00:14:26.360 certainly did. Because I know figures like Abraham 00:14:26.360 --> 00:14:28.639 Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant oppose these actions. 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:30.960 Grant even served in the Mexican -American War 00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:33.700 and later wrote that it was one of the most unjust 00:14:33.700 --> 00:14:36.279 ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. 00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:38.860 He was very vocal about it later in life. So 00:14:38.860 --> 00:14:42.259 with major figures speaking out, Was the destiny 00:14:42.259 --> 00:14:45.179 narrative just too blinding for the general public? 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:48.350 That is the tragic power of the ideology. For 00:14:48.350 --> 00:14:51.210 many, the narrative of a divine, inevitable mission 00:14:51.210 --> 00:14:53.809 completely blinded them to the reality of the 00:14:53.809 --> 00:14:56.809 violence. It was framed as bringing light to 00:14:56.809 --> 00:14:59.710 the darkness. Right. Think of that famous 1872 00:14:59.710 --> 00:15:03.210 painting, American Progress, with a giant angelic 00:15:03.210 --> 00:15:05.909 woman stringing telegraph wire across the plains 00:15:05.909 --> 00:15:08.809 while indigenous people and wildlife are pushed 00:15:08.809 --> 00:15:10.929 into the shadows. I know exactly the painting 00:15:10.929 --> 00:15:12.929 you're talking about. When a society believes 00:15:12.929 --> 00:15:16.070 God has ordained its actions, it becomes terrifyingly 00:15:16.070 --> 00:15:19.799 easy to excuse a atrocities as unfortunate necessities. 00:15:20.519 --> 00:15:23.000 But as the descent from Lincoln and Grant shows 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:25.679 us, it wasn't a blind spot for everyone. So the 00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:27.700 continent is eventually conquered. The frontier 00:15:27.700 --> 00:15:30.220 officially reaches the Pacific Ocean. But an 00:15:30.220 --> 00:15:32.360 ideology this powerful doesn't just pack up and 00:15:32.360 --> 00:15:35.600 go home, does it? No, it mutates. By the 1890s, 00:15:35.659 --> 00:15:37.639 the North American continent was fully claimed, 00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:39.700 so the United States looked overseas. Right, 00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:43.159 the oceans. This is the shift into global imperialism, 00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:46.080 highlighted by the Spanish -American War in 1898. 00:15:46.299 --> 00:15:49.700 Suddenly, the US is annexing the Republic of 00:15:49.700 --> 00:15:54.000 Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.409 American Samoa. But how do they justify that 00:15:56.409 --> 00:15:58.850 legally? Because taking a piece of land connected 00:15:58.850 --> 00:16:01.110 to your border is one thing, but taking islands 00:16:01.110 --> 00:16:04.190 halfway across the ocean feels entirely different. 00:16:04.350 --> 00:16:06.769 The legal mechanics shifted dramatically. When 00:16:06.769 --> 00:16:09.450 Texas or California were annexed, the assumption 00:16:09.450 --> 00:16:11.730 was that they would eventually become equal states 00:16:11.730 --> 00:16:14.190 in the union. Right. But with these new island 00:16:14.190 --> 00:16:17.029 territories, the Supreme Court ruled in a series 00:16:17.029 --> 00:16:19.809 of decisions known as the insular cases that 00:16:19.809 --> 00:16:22.230 these were essentially colonies. Really? Yes. 00:16:22.470 --> 00:16:25.259 The ruling established a new category of unincorporated 00:16:25.259 --> 00:16:27.759 territories, meaning the Constitution did not 00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:29.740 automatically and fully apply to the people living 00:16:29.740 --> 00:16:32.440 there. So the core mission changed from spreading 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:34.980 democratic republics to just straight up empire 00:16:34.980 --> 00:16:37.600 building. Exactly. And it mutates again 20 years 00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:41.840 later. In 1920, President Woodrow Wilson pivoted 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:45.000 the phrase entirely. He moved it away from physical 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:48.159 territorial expansion and redefined America's 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:52.000 destiny as a global moral mission. He led the 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:54.600 U .S. into World War I, arguing that it was the 00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:57.460 manifest destiny of the United States to lead 00:16:57.460 --> 00:17:00.279 the attempt to make the world safe for democracy. 00:17:00.539 --> 00:17:03.480 No, looking at the sources from 2025, it's fascinating 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:07.460 to see how the exact same 19th century vocabulary 00:17:07.460 --> 00:17:10.079 is being deployed in modern geopolitics. It really 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:11.960 is. And before we get into this, I want to be 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:14.730 crystal clear to you listening. We are completely 00:17:14.730 --> 00:17:17.329 impartial here. We take absolutely no sides on 00:17:17.329 --> 00:17:19.509 the politics of this. Right. We are simply reporting 00:17:19.509 --> 00:17:22.390 the facts exactly as they are presented in the 00:17:22.390 --> 00:17:24.769 Wikipedia source material. Exactly. We are purely 00:17:24.769 --> 00:17:27.029 observing how this historical phrase is being 00:17:27.029 --> 00:17:29.630 utilized today. So the Wikipedia article notes 00:17:29.630 --> 00:17:31.390 that Donald Trump became the first president 00:17:31.390 --> 00:17:34.650 to actually use the phrase manifest destiny during 00:17:34.650 --> 00:17:37.250 an inaugural address. Yes, the 2025 address. 00:17:37.430 --> 00:17:39.750 The text states that he declared an extension 00:17:39.750 --> 00:17:42.549 of American influence into the stars with ambitions 00:17:42.549 --> 00:17:45.049 to plant the U .S. flag on Mars. And the source 00:17:45.049 --> 00:17:47.849 also states that at various points he has suggested 00:17:47.849 --> 00:17:51.430 annex in Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal 00:17:51.430 --> 00:17:54.609 and taking over the Gaza Strip. Applying a framework 00:17:54.609 --> 00:17:58.009 coined in an 1845 newspaper essay about Texas 00:17:58.009 --> 00:18:00.849 to the literal planet Mars is a massive leap. 00:18:01.390 --> 00:18:04.210 How does the rhetoric still function? It demonstrates 00:18:04.210 --> 00:18:07.170 the incredible resilience of the underlying psychological 00:18:07.170 --> 00:18:09.809 mechanism, the core tenets that William Earl 00:18:09.809 --> 00:18:13.109 Weeks identified American exceptionalism, a unique 00:18:13.109 --> 00:18:16.089 mission, and a sense of inevitability. They remain 00:18:16.089 --> 00:18:18.069 deeply embedded in the political vocabulary. 00:18:18.529 --> 00:18:20.970 So the mechanics haven't changed? Not at all. 00:18:21.349 --> 00:18:23.250 The mechanics of the rhetoric function the exact 00:18:23.250 --> 00:18:25.289 same way today as they did for John O'Sullivan. 00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:28.440 The exceptionalism justifies the expansion, whether 00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:30.920 the target is a neighboring country, an overseas 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:33.859 colony, or another planet entirely. So what does 00:18:33.859 --> 00:18:35.579 this all mean? To bring this all together for 00:18:35.579 --> 00:18:37.799 you listening, we've been on quite a journey 00:18:37.799 --> 00:18:40.380 today. We really have. We started with John O'Sullivan's 00:18:40.380 --> 00:18:43.279 theory of peacefully absorbing Texas. We watched 00:18:43.279 --> 00:18:46.000 that idea collide with reality leading to the 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:49.059 Mexican -American War and the massive contradictions 00:18:49.059 --> 00:18:51.589 of the All -Mexico movement. The filibuster is 00:18:51.589 --> 00:18:54.650 going rogue. All right. Private filibusters bypassing 00:18:54.650 --> 00:18:57.269 political gridlock in the Caribbean. We trace 00:18:57.269 --> 00:18:59.609 the catastrophic domestic toll of the Homestead 00:18:59.609 --> 00:19:02.609 Act from predatory debt traps to the Dust Bowl. 00:19:03.230 --> 00:19:05.990 And finally, we followed the ideology overseas 00:19:05.990 --> 00:19:08.990 to island colonies, global democracy crusades 00:19:08.990 --> 00:19:12.829 and now outer space. It really proves that history 00:19:12.829 --> 00:19:15.630 is rarely just in the past. It is a vocabulary 00:19:15.630 --> 00:19:18.049 we are still using today. And that leaves us 00:19:18.049 --> 00:19:20.410 with something critical to consider. Throughout 00:19:20.410 --> 00:19:23.130 this deep dive, Manifest Destiny has almost always 00:19:23.130 --> 00:19:26.150 been tied to physical space, a continent, an 00:19:26.150 --> 00:19:28.650 island, a planet. Right. But consider the modern 00:19:28.650 --> 00:19:31.410 world of the 21st century. As tech giants and 00:19:31.410 --> 00:19:33.670 billionaires raise to claim absolute dominance 00:19:33.670 --> 00:19:36.029 over the internet, over artificial intelligence, 00:19:36.069 --> 00:19:38.190 and over digital metaverses, is the fundamental 00:19:38.190 --> 00:19:40.589 impulse of Manifest Destiny still alive right 00:19:40.589 --> 00:19:43.029 now? Have we simply traded the physical frontier 00:19:43.029 --> 00:19:45.470 for a digital one, still believing it is our 00:19:45.470 --> 00:19:47.680 destiny to conquer it? That is a fascinating 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:50.079 question to leave on. Are we still drawing maps 00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:53.140 just with code instead of covered wagons? Keep 00:19:53.140 --> 00:19:55.420 questioning the destinies you are sold, everyone. 00:19:55.599 --> 00:19:56.380 We'll see you next time.