John L. O’Sullivan – 1813-1895

In May 1845, New York Post editor O’Sullivan wrote an article in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review proposing annexation of the Republic of Texas. He declared: “It is our manifest destiny to overspread and possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated selfgovernment entrusted to us.” The phrase “manifest destiny” electrified the nation and was instantly seized upon as a justification for United States’ possession of territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific—even if acquiring the land meant war. Most immediately, “manifest destiny” became a justification for the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846– 1848.