VUS.6a
Economic and strategic interests, supported by popular beliefs, led to territorial expansion to the Pacific Ocean.
The
belief
that it was America's "Manifest Destiny" to stretch from Atlantic to
Pacific
provided political support for territorial expansion.
(Manifest
Destiny refers to the belief that the U.S. was ordained to expand
across
the continent to the Pacific Ocean)
The new American republic prior to the Civil War experienced dramatic territorial expansion, immigration, economic growth, and industrialization. Americans, stirred by their hunger for land and the ideology of "Manifest Destiny," flocked to new frontiers.
