Ernest Lee Tuveson

Manifest destiny was the expansionist belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). The belief is rooted in American exceptionalism, romantic nationalism, and nascent ideas of white chauvinism, implying the inevitable spread of republicanism and the American way. It is one of the earliest expressions of American imperialism. According to historian W…