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AP U.S. History 1.2 Period 5: 1848-1877 239 Views
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AP U.S. History 1.2 Period 5: 1848-1877. Before the Civil War, the idea of Manifest Destiny was most complicated by which of the following issues?
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:03
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by your date with destiny,
- 00:07
the worst blind date of all time.
- 00:09
Yeah, it happened.
- 00:11
All right, there's the painting.
Full Transcript
- 00:12
There's the gal in the white dress. John Gast. Yeah. American progress.
- 00:15
All right, which of the following groups
- 00:16
would be most likely to support the idea of Manifest Destiny?
- 00:21
And here are your potential answers.
- 00:22
[ mumbles ]
- 00:24
[ mumbling continues ]
- 00:26
All right. Well, there were two big components to Manifest Destiny.
- 00:30
The first was that Americans were uniquely virtuous
- 00:33
or special.
- 00:34
The second was that it was God's will that they
- 00:37
spread these virtues across the American continent and abroad.
- 00:40
So let's see which of these groups would mostly likely have supported that idea.
- 00:44
Well, what about B - recently freed slaves?
- 00:47
Mm...
- 00:48
Well, the racist undertones of white superiority
- 00:51
would probably make Manifest Destiny
- 00:52
less appealing to recently freed slaves
- 00:55
who'd heard their masters justify merciless
- 00:58
abuse with similar language.
- 01:00
Thank you very much. It's not B.
- 01:02
Could C - merchants in New England have supported Manifest Destiny?
- 01:06
Well, much of the American frontier was better suited for agriculture
- 01:09
than a brisk exchange of goods.
- 01:11
So merchants in New England had little incentive to move west.
- 01:15
What about D - southern plantation owners? Hmm?
- 01:19
Well, actually, southern plantation owners
- 01:20
didn't really have a desire to pull up stakes and move to a place
- 01:23
where society was continually shifting and changing.
- 01:26
Which means the group that would have most likely
- 01:28
supported Manifest Destiny was
- 01:30
A - settlers migrating west.
- 01:33
Even though many settlers moving west were motivated by economic or social hardship,
- 01:37
a great deal believed it was their righteous duty to do so.
- 01:40
That aligns perfectly with Manifest Destiny.
- 01:43
And unfortunately, the idea that the U.S.
- 01:44
was destined to make the journey west
- 01:46
helped justify atrocities against Native Americans
- 01:49
already living on the land they believed
- 01:51
was rightfully theirs.
- 01:53
Sort of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "ego trip."
- 01:57
[ aww ]
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