Manifest Destiny wasn’t just a theme or a movement sweeping the country. It wasn't the Hot New Thing of the 1860s, like extra-wide hoop skirts, waltzing, or bloody civil war.

It was why the dang Homestead Act was passed it the first place…and it was directly responsible for its terms and conditions. It's more than a symbol; it's a motif.

It may not be obvious, because the Homestead Act is, after all, a legal text and not the Great American Novel. There really isn’t anything to be parsed from the text. What you see is what you get.

That being said, it’s definitely clear that the passing of the Homestead Act required pretty specific circumstances, given the number of times it had failed before. While Manifest Destiny was building up in the 1840s when the Homestead Act first appeared, it took a moment (or six) to build to a head.

The government needed to shift people out of the cities. It needed to have the open frontier settled. It needed to prevent the Confederacy from spreading.

Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion coming to a head just provided the means to do so, through the Homestead Act. There’s a reason the actual title is "An Act to secure Homesteads to actual Settlers on the Public Domain."

Not imaginary settlers, or the scattered miners already there. Nope, the government was going to put actual living, breathing people out there on the plains. (Go check out What’s Up With the Title? and Themes for more on that.)

Hold your horses, western territories. Manifest Destiny is heading your way.