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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?

Language:
English Language

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.

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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