Was the westward expansion of the United States justified?
Really depends on your point of view. From the United States government point of view, Westward Expansion created more land for farmers and settlers, more natural resources for the United States, and built the United States into a major world power.From the viewpoint of many Native Americans, westward expansion was the continuation of American genocide of the Native American. This includes the thousands of broken treaties and the moving of Indians west of the Mississippi River during the 1830s (Indian Removal Act) during the Trail of Tears. This also includes the massacre of Indians at Sand Creek in 1864, Wounded Knee in 1890, and many other places.From an environment point of view, the settling of the Great Plains was a ecological disaster with the erosion of land resulting in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.If the USA hadn’t expanded west, then we might have remained a small country with less major natural resources than we have today. Would this have changed history? Would slavery have remained in the South thus no conflict regarding the expansion of slavery? Would we have not become an imperialist country in 1898? Would we have avoided World Wars One and Two? Many new questions. Who knows the answers?
Why did the United States want California?
One word: Gold.Gold was discovered in California in 1848, leading to the gold rush of 1849 (that’s why they’re called the Forty-Niners, people). California petitioned for statehood in 1849, and was admitted in 1850.Prior to 1848, California was a territorial possession of no real worth other than its natural harbors (San Francisco and San Diego), acquired from Mexico as part of the settlement of the Mexican-American War in 1846. The population at the time of the cession was perhaps 10,000 people (not counting Native Americans, of which there were probably between 25,000 and 100,000), mostly hardscrabble cattle ranchers. Most local governments still conducted business in Spanish.The main reason the US wanted California, prior to the discovery of gold in 1848, was to keep it out of the hands of Mexico and of Russia, and as a fulfillment of the Monrovian doctrine of “manifest destiny”: one country spanning the whole continent, sea to sea.
In what areas did the U.S expand its territory in the 1830s and 1840s? wat events + factors drove the expansio?
The Louisiana Purchase. In 1803 Thomas Jefferson bought for 15 million dollars land from Napoleon. Jefferson knew this would kill him politically. Jefferson was a anti-federalist. He believed government should do as little as possible and only what the constitution allowed. Buying the Louisiana Territory was the most federal thing he could have done. He purchased rel estate from a foreign country with money we didn't have. Federalist called him a hypocrite and anti-federalist disowned him. What Jefferson did was very constitutionally improper. After the purchase 2 groups were formed to explore. (1) Louis and Clark: traveled to the Pacific and back. (2) Zebulon Pike: went to colorado to Pikes Peak, traveled south and hit northern mexico. Not by accident but on specific orders. Countries are most likely to go to war with countries that share a border with them. After the Louisiana Purchase, we now shared a border with mexico but we knew nothing about it so Pike was told to go look around. We were interested in mexico for both reasons of warfare and reasons of trade. If we would ever want to go trade and do business with mexico we wouldn't know where to send anything...we knew no towns or anything. Thats pretty much the beginning of westward expansion that im familiar with...Hope this helps!!
Do you believe the British Empire or United States of America, between the 1860s-1890s, would win in a war with each other?
Wars are not football matches. played on neutral ground to a known set of rules with points to decide the winner.Wars are fought in particular places and times for particular reasons. Each side will start with particular war aims - which may be significantly different - and their success can only be judged against those aims.Thus many Americans seem to see the 1812 war as an American “victory”, despite their war aims being the conquest of parts of Canada and Britain’s mainly being their expulsion from Canada. By any stretch of the imagination Britain achieved all of its aims in 1812, and the USA failed to achieve any of theirs. So who do you think won?So asking who would win a putative war between the same two sides in 1860–90 requires you to say where the war was to be fought and why.For instance - a war over, say, Hawaii. assuming for some reason Britain wanted to colonise it or offered it protection of something? Well, a clear overwhelming British win as it would be a largely naval engagement and the Royal Navy would have dwafed anything the USA could have put out.However British involvement in Texas, maybe on Mexico’s side, would not have gone well. Little the navy could do, and the British Army did not fair well in a similar war in South Africa just a little later.Oregon OTOH, much more to Britain’s advantage. Very hard for the USA to resupply at all while Britain could resupply easily by land and sea.The more coastline there is the greater the advantage to Britain. The more limited the aims the greater advantage to Britain. The more isolated the greater advantage to Britain. The more land battles the more advantage to the USA. The more open-ended the more to the USA’s advantage.
Explain Manifest Destiny?What factors were most important in drawing americans to west...,?
Manifest Destiny was the idea coined by John O'Sullivan which stated that the United States was destined to cover the land from the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean. There are many differing starting point of westward expansion dating back to the time of the colonies. The United States has always expanded westward because of immigration. Immigrants would come from Europe and the land closest to the Atlantic was more expensive and land further west was essentially free. Immigrants would travel west and settle in farmland deemed undesirable by the people already settled. There was a constant stream of people moving westward throughout the history of the United States. People were constantly moving west to escape any problems they might have had in the east whether it is economic, political or social reasons. Example of economic reasons are the stream of prospectors moving into California in 1849. Political reasons are the move of people to Kansas and Nebraska to prevent the spread of slavery into those territories after the Kansas-Nebraska Act. An example of social pressure is the migration of the Mormons to Utah after religious persecutions in the east. In terms of the grand narrative of history, here are the sections of the US gained: Louisiana Territory (1803) Florida (1818) Texas (1845) Oregon (1846) Mexican Cession (1848) Gadsden Purchase (1853) Alaska (1867) Hawaii (1898) The heyday of Manifest Destiny was in the 1830s and 1840s, but it continued on into the 20th century. Some historians have declared that Manifest Destiny did not end with the Mexican War, but with the Spanish War. After the United States accomplished the dream of a coast-to-coast nation, the government continued by starting a war with Spain in order to acquire other territories.
Describe what Douglas meant by popular sovereignty?
Popular sovereignty was the method to be used to either legalize or abolish slavery in a state. However, popular sovereignty itself is vague. It does not state how the vote is done, who is eligible to vote, or when the vote was taken. All in all, the decision was left to the state, and not the federal government, which was the most important idea behind popular sovereignty.
History questions?
1) I am not sure but I believe it was East Indies 2) Totalitarianism 3) Study French!! "Laissez-faire" means let do basically it's a hands off policy. It occurs when a country's interest is in nonintervention. 4) Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of Prussia then later on of the German Empire. He was the mastermind of the unification of all the German states and later created a diplomatic system in Europe ("Bismarck system") that was favorable to Germany and aimed to avoid a Franco-Russian alliance. He had the idea of the Franco prussian war of 1870-1871 won by Germany. After Wilhem I emperor, died, his son Wilhem II, an arrogant idiot, fired Bismarck. The German hero died a few lyears later. 5) I would argue that it is France. However, if you are in the UK, your teachers will probably tell you it's Britain. Why France? Republic was created for the first time in 1792. It was also the first country to use universal suffrage in 1848. The UK was a monarchy that was not quite constitutionnal until the early 1900s and the US was not a real democracy since poor people couldn't vote. 6)Several thousand dead immediately, hundreds of thousands with the radiations. It forced Japan to consider surrending immediately (another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki 3 days later to convince them better). Humanity then understood the powerful tool of destruction that it had itself created which had an important impact on modern philosophy. 7)Britain the IR started around 1780 and then accelerated dramatically after 1815