ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by your date with destiny,

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the worst blind date of all time.

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Yeah, it happened.

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All right, there's the painting.

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There's the gal in the white dress. John Gast. Yeah. American progress.

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All right, which of the following groups

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would be most likely to support the idea of Manifest Destiny?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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All right. Well, there were two big components to Manifest Destiny.

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The first was that Americans were uniquely virtuous

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or special.

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The second was that it was God's will that they

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spread these virtues across the American continent and abroad.

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So let's see which of these groups would mostly likely have supported that idea.

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Well, what about B - recently freed slaves?

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Mm...

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Well, the racist undertones of white superiority

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would probably make Manifest Destiny

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less appealing to recently freed slaves

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who'd heard their masters justify merciless

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abuse with similar language.

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Thank you very much. It's not B.

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Could C - merchants in New England have supported Manifest Destiny?

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Well, much of the American frontier was better suited for agriculture

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than a brisk exchange of goods.

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So merchants in New England had little incentive to move west.

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What about D - southern plantation owners? Hmm?

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Well, actually, southern plantation owners

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didn't really have a desire to pull up stakes and move to a place

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where society was continually shifting and changing.

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Which means the group that would have most likely

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supported Manifest Destiny was

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A - settlers migrating west.

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Even though many settlers moving west were motivated by economic or social hardship,

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a great deal believed it was their righteous duty to do so.

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That aligns perfectly with Manifest Destiny.

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And unfortunately, the idea that the U.S.

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was destined to make the journey west

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helped justify atrocities against Native Americans

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already living on the land they believed

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was rightfully theirs.

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Sort of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "ego trip."

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[ aww ]

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