t
he end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 represented only a momen-
tary pause in the United States’ territorial and economic expansion in the
nineteenth century. Between the 1850s and the 1870s, American policy
makers and citizens framed expansion as the country’s destiny. During
these thirty years (even in the midst of the Civil War), the republic’s
expansion—through trade, conquest, and settlement and to the eastern reaches
of the Pacific Ocean, the Great Plains of the American continent, the western
forest of the Oregon Territory in the Northwest, the shores of Caribbean islands,
and the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico—appeared boundless.
But this growth fostered conflicts that raised questions about the elasticity of
American ideology. Could Irish Catholic immigrants integrate into a republic
that claimed universal rights but separated church from state in the First Amend-
ment? Could subjects of the Japanese emperor embrace the concept of free trade
and open borders without fear of conquest and loss of cultural integrity? Would
a mass resettlement of Americans to new farmland west of the Mississippi fulfill
the ideals of the Declaration of Independence? After a war to end racial involun-
tary servitude of African Americans, would American Indians enjoy the equal
rights guaranteed by the new Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments?Seeking the Main Point
As you read the documents that follow, keep these broad questions in mind.
These questions will help you understand the relationship between the doc-
uments in this chapter and the historical changes that they represent. As you
reflect on these questions, determine which themes and which documents best
address them.•
In what ways did the concept of Manifest Destiny shape Americans’ racial
and ethnic identities during this period?•
How did changes in production and transportation shape government poli-
cies between 1844 and 1877?•
Analyze the ways in which the environment and the search for resources
shaped regional, economic, and political identities and also political devel-
opments during this period.•
How did internal and international migration affect US politics and society
during this period?•
How did expansionist policies during this period contribute to political and
constitutional debates?236 ChapTer 10 | expansionism: part 2 | period Five 184 4 –1877 TopIC I | Conquest West^23711_STA_2012_ch10_235-250.indd 236 23/03/15 5:32 PM