JadeZ

In order to make yourself feel okay about all of that manifest destiny, you had to build a fake moral framework up around it. And that's what Americans did, and their ideas were pretty rich.

First of all, they declared that America was virtuous, its people were extra-super virtuous, and its laws and institutions were especially virtuous, and therefore it was America's obligation to remake the rest of the world in its own image, starting with the people who were here first. According to the Blackhawk Museum, Americans wanted to redeem the sins of the Old World — you know, the tyranny of kings, the brutal wars, the invention of Marmite — by building a better world in the New World. They did it by massacring Indigenous people, but no matter, the sins of the Old World weren't against Indigenous people so that was all irrelevant.

But the major driving force behind manifest destiny was the destiny part, the belief that no one could change the trajectory of white occupation of the New World because it was destiny. It was a duty assigned to America by God. Therefore if you weren't doing your part to take over the lands of the New World and subjugate the Indigenous population, well, that was an affront to God. Does that guilt-stricken half a brain cell feel better now? Also, here's some free land.

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