gress first heard the doctrine of Manifest Destiny expressed in those exact words. Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts spoke of this ‘“‘new revelation of right” justifying expansion over the whole continent. He apparently referred to an editorial which had recently appeared in the New York Morning News. The editor pushed aside all the time-honored rights to territorial possession and based our claim to Oregon on a manifest destiny originating in a divine purpose and command that we should extend far and wide the blessings of liberty and self- government.[1] This concise and convenient formula met with ready acceptance. We may well imagine with what gratitude it was seized upon by some of those advocates of expansion who had been troubled by secret misgivings that national aggrandizement was not a wholly altruistic ambition.
Oregon was not the only Pacific project during the forties to which this formula or a similar viewpoint might be applied. Caleb Cushing’s mission to China in 1843 was undertaken, according to his own words, “in behalf of civilization.” The amazing letter from President Tyler, attributed to Webster, which he bore to the Emperor of China, breathed condescension and cited “the will of Heaven” that a treaty should be the outcome of the mission.[2]
During this decade also the pioneer promoters of a railroad to the Pacific, like John Plumbe and Asa Whitney, were painting alluring pictures of the great development of commerce with the orient that would follow the fruition of their plans. They did not neglect to call attention to the attendant opportunities for the dissemination of the light of American civilization. Benton became a convert to the plan and made his famous speech in which he suggested that the completed line should “be adorned with its crowning honor, the colossal statue of the great Columbus, whose design it accomplishes, hewn from the granite mass of a peak of the Rocky Mountains, overlooking the road, the mountain itself the pedestal, and the statue a part
- ↑ Julius W. Pratt, “The Origin of Manifest Destiny” in American Historical Review, XXXII, 795-6.
- ↑ Fuess, The Life of Caleb Cushing, I, 414-415, 419-420.
