Here are the sources, first, the rise of "One Nation Under God" . . .
The phrases "One Nation Under God" (added to the Pledge) and "In God We Trust" (added to coins in 1864, one year before the Civil War ended) --both can be attributed to Abraham Lincoln's administration.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND "MANIFEST DESTINY"
"...[Lincoln's] beliefs and speeches took on ... a deeply Old Testament tone."
"... this nation under God ... "
"...Such are the basic outlines of the idea of America’s “chosenness” and providential destiny and mission that not only underlay the invocation of the nation’s “Manifest Destiny” as the rationale for the United States to extend its boundaries to the Pacific Ocean. It is also the constellation of ideas that has informed American nationalism and its actions at home and abroad to this day. As noted, it was explicitly used it to justify the Spanish American War and its accompanying imperialist goals. President Woodrow Wilson invoked it to call Americans to fight to make the world “safe for democracy,” as did President Franklin Roosevelt, when in World War II he rallied the American public behind the war against Fascist and Nazi Europeans and imperial Japan. It was also a mainstay of the Cold War: in fact, the phrase “under God” was only added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 at the height of the Cold War. The sense of American uniqueness and mission also underlay John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. And President George W. Bush, considering himself to be an agent of divine will, has defended his policies in Iraq by invoking the idea that it is America’s duty and destiny to conquer terrorism and to secure democracy for Iraq and help spread it to other nations of the Middle East.
Not surprisingly, however, it remained for Abraham Lincoln to provide the most complex but nonetheless clear statement of the idea that America has a sacred duty to itself and to the world to preserve and protect liberty and democracy. In 1837, as a young man of 28, Lincoln gave an address to the Springfield, Illinois Lyceum. It was a time of great social and political turmoil. Illinois was riven with violence over the question of the abolition of slavery. In Alton, Illinois an anti-abolitionist mob recently had murdered the abolitionist editor, Elijah Lovejoy, destroyed his printing press and burned his office and house. In this atmosphere of intense political strife, Lincoln used his Lyceum address to call his fellow Illinoisans (and Americans) to turn to the basic democratic and liberal tenets the American national creed—the American Civil Religion—and embrace them and hold them as deeply as they held their private religious beliefs. Only such a common national faith, he argued, could provide the real and lasting foundation that would hold the sprawling, diverse, and conflict-ridden nation together.
During the Civil War Lincoln found these beliefs sharply challenged and at the same time gave them their most eloquent and powerful expression. Lincoln had always kept his questing and often skeptical spirituality closely guarded, but as the war ground relentlessly on, his beliefs and speeches took on not a sectarian but a deeply Old Testament tone. The cadence and words of his Gettysburg Address accentuate his message: the Union, “the last best hope of earth,” was fighting for the sacred cause of liberty. “It is for the living,” he declared, “to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last true measure of devotion . . . that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom . . . and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
(Source, National Humanities Center)
(Second) "In God We Trust" on Coins and Paper Money. The Civil War ended in 1865. The Phrase was added in 1864.
In God We Trust
"...From Treasury Department records it appears that the first suggestion that God be recognized on U.S. coinage can be traced to a letter addressed to the Secretary of Treasury from a minister in 1861. An Act of Congress, approved on April 11, 1864, authorized the coinage of two-cent coins upon which the motto first appeared.
The motto was omitted from the new gold coins issued in 1907, causing a storm of public criticism. As a result, legislation passed in May 1908 made "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins on which it had previously appeared.
Legislation approved July 11, 1955, made the appearance of "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins and paper currency of the United States. By Act of July 30, 1956, "In God We Trust" became the national motto of the United States.
Several years ago, the appearance of "In God We Trust" on our money was challenged in the federal courts. The challenge was rejected by the lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case."
(Source, U.S. Mint)
This is not "chalking the idea of Manifest Destiny up to Lincoln".
This
"...the quasi-religious doctrine of Manifest Destiny which asserted divine blessing for U.S. conquest of all lands west of the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific..."
was around long before Abraham Lincoln, and he ... wholeheartedly believed in it. Lincoln believed in American superiority to kill Indians and seize territory. Lincoln believed in expansion and removing Indians. Lincoln believed in his racial superiority, and he felt that "God" divinely willed it so.
The idea was part of the American "one nation under God" civil religious belief and God's divine will for America to seize territory -- and bloat its boarders far and wide, Lincoln simply took "Manifest Destiny" to whole new levels. When the South seceded, he used military action to bring that territory back under control... and when the Indians got in the way of Manifest Destiny out West, he simply removed them or had them killed (The Indian Removal Act, 1830 was passed into law, long before Lincoln, so he was merely acting on "Good Political Law") -- and "Manifest Destiny" as a term well known to politicians like Lincoln, because "Manifest Destiny" was coined in 1840 into popular usage-- Lincoln obliterated Indians because they were sub-human in his eyes and must be removed so that America could receive her "Divine Inheritance" . . .
"...."merciless Indian savages" (as described in the United States Declaration of Independence) and the quasi-religious doctrine of Manifest Destiny which asserted divine blessing for U.S. conquest of all lands west of the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific...."
Racism, Justice and the American Indian
Racism against Native Americans
Forgotten Story of Indian Slavery
"...Hundreds of native peoples made up of millions of individuals occupied the lands that would become the United States of America. During the colonial and independent periods, a long series of Indian Wars were fought with the primary objective of obtaining much of North America as territory of the U.S. Through wars, massacre, forced displacement (such as in the Trail of Tears), restriction of food rights, and the imposition of treaties, land was taken and numerous hardships imposed. Ideologies justifying the context included stereotypes of Native Americans as "merciless Indian savages" (as described in the United States Declaration of Independence) and the quasi-religious doctrine of Manifest Destiny which asserted divine blessing for U.S. conquest of all lands west of the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific. The most rapid invasion occurred in the California gold rush, the first two years of which saw the deaths of tens of thousands of Indians. Following the 1848 American invasion, Native Californians were enslaved in the new state from statehood in 1850 to 1867."
"...Once their territories were incorporated into the United States, surviving Native Americans were denied equality before the law and often treated as wards of the state. Many Native Americans were relegated to reservations--constituting just 4% of U.S. territory--and the treaties signed with them violated. Tens of thousands of American Indians and Alaska Natives were forced to attend a residential school system which sought to reeducate them in white settler American values, culture and economy--to "kill the Indian, saving the man."
"...Americans often wish the past would just go away, save for those symbols we celebrate."
(Source)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, RACIST BIGOT AND INDIAN KILLER
“...I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”
(Source)
To those who may still have lingering doubt as to Lincoln's true sentiments regarding the black race,
Lincoln and the North, to the bitter end,
Abraham Lincoln's Last Public Address
"...It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."
-Abraham Lincoln, Last Public Address, Washington, D.C., April 11, 1865
(Source)
"Intelligent"? What an interesting choice of words. Women likewise were not considered "Intelligent" enough to cast a vote. Some like Neil deGrasse Tyson would likely take issue with Lincoln's uninformed, particularly bigoted biased opinions, but nonetheless,
What is "ELECTIVE FRANCHISE"?
"...The right of voting at public elections; the privilege of qualified voters to cast their ballots for the candidates they favor at elections authorized by law.
Parks v. State, 100 Ala. 031. 13 South. 750; People v. Barber. 48 Ilun (X. V.) 198; State v. Staten, 0 Cold. (Tenn.) 255.
(Source, Law Dictionary)
"...Information below tells how President Lincoln and Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey set out to exterminate Indians from their home land.
Authorities in Minnesota asked President Lincoln to order the immediate execution of all 303 Indian males found guilty. [...] He offered the following compromise to the politicians of Minnesota: They would pare the list of those to be hung down to 39. In return, Lincoln promised to kill or remove every Indian from the state and provide Minnesota with 2 million dollars in federal funds. Remember, he only owed the Sioux 1.4 million for the land.
So, on December 26, 1862, the Great Emancipator ordered the largest mass execution in American History, where the guilt of those to be executed was entirely in doubt. Regardless of how Lincoln defenders seek to play this, it was nothing more than murder to obtain the land of the Santee Sioux and to appease his political cronies in Minnesota."
(Source, United Native America)
If you "doubt" that the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny" influenced the way Lincoln behaved in office?
"...by divine right..."
"...justified by plenty of anti-Catholic discourse, gendered and racialized depictions of Mexicans themselves, and the notion that Mexico was a weak, worthless, and useless country in comparison to the U.S. and that it would be better off if it was taken over by the U.S. ..."
Implications
"...At its worst, Manifest Destiny provided a rationalization for violence, manipulation, greed, and selfishness. In his 1850 novel White Jacket, Herman Melville captured Manifest Destiny's sense of American infallibility by writing that the country bore "the ark of Liberties" for all humans, therefore actions taken in national self-interest were actually for the benefit of people everywhere. When the term "Manifest Destiny" was coined in the 1840s, hundreds of thousands of white settlers were just beginning to journey into the "Far West". There they encountered some 325,000 Indians who inhabited the Great Plains, California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southwest; Indian populations had already declined significantly in much of the West following contact with Spanish colonizers and exposure to the diseases they carried. Notions of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority justified the displacement of not only these Indians, but also of the Mexicans. Racist ideologies led many if not most Americans to believe that Mexicans, like Indians, were cowardly and lazy, and could therefore easily be beaten. Furthermore, such ideologies reasoned, inferior races' failure to develop their lands in a productive manner—along the lines of the Protestant work ethic—meant that they deserved to lose those lands to the Americans, who would make better use of it.
Popular writers, journalists, authors, and playwrights depicted Mexicans and especially Indians as an inferior, rapidly "disappearing" people who naturally vanished before the impending takeover of their lands by white Americans. Such characterizations sought to obscure the process of bloody warfare and, sometimes, outright genocide that many whites practiced against to Mexicans and Indians. These cultural stereotypes remained intact well into the twentieth century, long after most American Indians had been confined to poor-quality land on reservations.
After the entire American mainland had been settled from coast to coast, Manifest Destiny would take on a new guise with the rise of late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American imperialism in Latin and South America, the Pacific, and beyond. Similar racial stereotypes and ideologies would be resurrected, albeit in somewhat altered forms, in regard to the people of the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, Panama, and elsewhere.
The Act
The period of territorial expansion under President Polk, the most dramatic in the nation's history since the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, coincided with the
flourishing of a virulently racist sensibility among white American Protestants from both North and South. During this period, the concept of race consisted of a vague and fluctuating blend of pseudo-scientific, religious, cultural, and national elements. Though there was considerable confusion and variation among different racial theories, one matter remained paramount above all others: that no matter how one might rank the "yellow race" (Asians and Asian immigrants), the "red race" (Native Americans), the "Celtic race" (the Irish), the "brown race" (Mexicans and Latin Americans), and the black race (Africans and African Americans), whites were deemed vastly superior to all others.
Democrats argued for the Mexican-American war by utilizing racialized and gendered rhetoric to motivate and convince their constituencies that belligerent conflict was the necessary means for gaining the territory that should be American by divine right. "Inferior" races were often associated with the traits of women—the "inferior" gender—so that Mexicans, Indians, and others were portrayed as vulnerable, emasculated, and feminine as well as backwards, ignorant, and savage. Some went so far as to argue that America ought to annex all of Mexico, on the basis that Manifest Destiny would carry the national expansion across the entire hemisphere sooner or later. To instigate the conflict with Mexico, war hawks emphasized differences in religion, nationality, and race. American lust for war with Mexico was justified by plenty of anti-Catholic discourse, gendered and racialized depictions of Mexicans themselves, and the notion that Mexico was a weak, worthless, and useless country in comparison to the U.S. and that it would be better off if it was taken over by the U.S."
(Source)
ORIGINS OF MANIFEST DESTINY AS OFFICIAL DOCTRINE
"...Many Western European-descended "White" Americans supported anti-Native American policies. The theme of conquest over the Indian was seen as early as John Filson's story of Daniel Boone in 1784. In the Nineteenth Century this was joined to the conviction that the United States was destined to take over the whole continent of North America, the process of Manifest Destiny articulated by John O' Sullivan in 1845. America carried the Bible, civilization, and democracy: the Indian had none of these. Many European descendants believed other ethnic groups, including those people imported as slaves from Africa and their descendants, were childlike, stupid, and feckless. It was the duty of so-called superior groups to meet these inferior groups and to dominate them. So-called inferior ethnic groups could not advance technologically or spiritually. The idea of Manifest Destiny resulted in the murders and dislocation of millions of people. The Cherokee had been converted to Christianity, they were by-and-large peaceful, and they were using a self-invented alphabet to print newspapers. But their deportation, the "Trail of Tears," was justified by Manifest Destiny. The conviction was behind the Louisiana Purchase, the final shaking of French colonialism in what would become the Continental United States. It was behind the defeat of Spanish and Mexicans in a succession of skirmishes and wars. It helped send out pro- and anti-slavery factions across new areas, and still later brought about legislation such as the Homestead Act."
(Source)
And even much, much farther back in the past... which would become known and cointed as "Manifest Destiny" in 1840...
The Destruction of Indians by Christianized Colonial Bigots
"...This was a great sign of “the marvelous goodness and providence of God” to the Christians of course, e.g., the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as “for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess.”
The puritan commander-in-charge, John Mason, wrote after one massacre: “And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished...God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven...Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies.” So “the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance.” Because of his readers’ assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow: “Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them...” (Deut. 20) Mason’s comrade Underhill recalled how “great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers” yet reassured his readers that “sometimes the Scripture declares women and children must perish with their parents.” Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists’ own words: “blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastiffs to seize them.” In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. The surviving handful of Indians “were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for ‘a share’ of the captives, specifically ‘a young woman or girl and a boy if you think good.’”
Other tribes were to follow the same path. Comment the Christian exterminators: “God’s Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!” “Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!” Moreover, “Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians ‘grow secure upon (sic) the treaty’, advised the Council of State in Virginia, ‘we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cut down their Corn.’”
(Source)
If its finally sinking in, "Manifest Destiny" was around in U.S. Politics LONG BEFORE Lincoln came into office. It was "divinely willed" to slaughter Indians and declared non-Anglo-Saxon folks like the Black, Irish (Roman Catholic), Native American tribe, Mexican peoples, weren't as superior as Lincoln's race. And, like they said about his tendency to avoid discussing religious beliefs openly... it must've taken something excessively upsetting for Lincoln to start preaching from the Presidential Powers,
However, predictably, when it came to dividing the Nation, Lincoln takes on an almost "Old Testament" tone in his speech, Abraham Lincoln's divine mission from God, MUST . . . HOLD . . . TERRITORY . . . TOGETHER . . . ONE . . . NATION . . . UNDER . . . GOD . . .
Lincoln's administration slapped the motto on coins ("In God We Trust") in 1864 and the phrase "One Nation Under God" got its roots in Lincoln's speech, the Gettysburg address:
ARTICLE: "The Religious Origins of Manifest Destiny"
"....During the Civil War Lincoln found these beliefs sharply challenged and at the same time gave them their most eloquent and powerful expression. Lincoln had always kept his questing and often skeptical spirituality closely guarded, but as the war ground relentlessly on, his beliefs and speeches took on not a sectarian but a deeply Old Testament tone. The cadence and words of his Gettysburg Address accentuate his message: the Union, “the last best hope of earth,” was fighting for the sacred cause of liberty. “It is for the living,” he declared, “to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last true measure of devotion . . . that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom . . . and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
From: The Religious Origins of Manifest Destiny
Donald M. Scott, Professor of History, Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
©National Humanities Center
Sadly, many Atheists, mislead about U.S. History by their own disciples who have attempted to re-write history in favor of being "An Atheist Nation," actually believed these GENOCIDAL INDIAN-KILLERS who believed it was God's "Divine Will" to send out armies and slaughter Native American peoples, and any who would oppose their "Divinely inspired goal" to bloat the boarders of the United States, "One Nation Under God" (as Lincoln would have it) ... was "non-religious"? Lincoln... an Atheist?!
THE MYTH:
"...Was Abraham Lincoln an atheist? Lincoln was labelled an atheist by his political opponents, and he is never known to have attended any church. Although he alludes to religious beliefs respectfully in some speeches, he seems not to have ever embraced them personally."
THE REALITY:
"...Lincoln had always kept his questing and often skeptical spirituality closely guarded, but as the war ground relentlessly on, his beliefs and speeches took on not a sectarian but a deeply Old Testament tone. The cadence and words of his Gettysburg Address accentuate his message: the Union, “the last best hope of earth,” was fighting for the sacred cause of liberty. “It is for the living,” he declared, “to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last true measure of devotion . . . that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom . . . and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
From: The Religious Origins of Manifest Destiny
WHEN THE INDIANS GOT IN THE WAY OUT WEST : Kill 'em.
WHEN THE SOUTH SECEDED: Smash and raze it to the ground... including Sherman's gleeful willingness to stand by and observe as his troops raped and murdered unyielding slaves... and reclaim that territory at all costs!
THEN SHERMAN TURNS WESTWARD TO KILL OFF THE BUFFALO and starve the Indians into submission... and ENSLAVE...SLAVERY, BY ANY OTHER NAME IS SLAVERY, enslaving of Native American peoples, on tiny reservations like SLAVES -- indoctrinate them in Anglo-Saxon religion and society. "Kill the Indian. Save the Man."
WHEN THE ZEALOTS WANTED MEXICAN TERRITORY -- Well, "Didn't God intend us to have ALL the territory? Naturally! It is our Manifest Destiny!" Some suggest to take the Army and invade and overthrow all of Mexico too!"
Then came the conquest of Hawaii and Alaska... what remnants survived among the native population and not genocided by the U.S. Military, were ENSLAVED -- SLAVERY ...
It was the "Will of God" and Lincoln believed it... wholeheartedly.
People speak of the myth of Lincoln, as a "moral man".
The "Northern Virtue" lived on beyond the Civil War. (what was the "Noble Case" for Northern aggression against the Native Americans... and the Buffalo?!)
Genocide by Other Means: U.S. Army Slaughtered Buffalo in Plains Indian Wars
"....As the U.S. government and its restless people looked to expand westward after ---> [AFTER]<--- the Civil War, they started to infringe upon Indian lands. During the Plains Indian Wars, as the U.S. Army attempted to drive Indians off the Plains and into reservations, the Army had little success because the warriors could live off the land and elude them—wherever the buffalo flourished, the Indians flourished. But pressure on the Army to contain the Indians increased in the 1860s when gold was discovered in the Montana Territory, and part of what is now eastern Wyoming became the route of the Bozeman Trail, the quickest way to get to the mines in Montana. This trail cut through sacred ground for the Sioux, as well as their prime hunting grounds—the “best game country in the world,” according to one veteran trapper. The Sioux regularly attacked travelers on the Bozeman Trail, and Army forts were set up to protect travelers through the Powder River Basin. During the Indians’ clashes with settlers, prospectors and U.S. Cavalry to protect a last bastion of their food supply in what became known as Red Cloud’s War, U.S. Army Captain Fetterman bragged, “With 80 men I could ride through the whole Sioux Nation.” He soon got the chance to back up that boast: Captain Fetterman and his men met with some representatives of the Sioux Nation and their allies, led by Crazy Horse, on December 21, 1866, in the Powder River Basin, and the result of that battle is remembered in history books as the Fetterman Massacre—all 81 men in his party were slain. It was the Army’s worst defeat on the Plains until the Battle of Little Bighorn, 10 years later, and forced it to pull out of the area after the Fort Laramie Treaty was signed in April 1868.
General William Tecumseh Sherman, who had broken the back of the South during the Civil War with his ruthless March to the Sea, helped negotiate the Fort Laramie and 1867 Medicine Lodge treaties that were supposed to end U.S. hostilities with northern and southern tribes. But that’s when officers started thinking about a new strategy. Sherman knew that during the Civil War the Confederates’ means and will to fight were extinguished by his brutal—and brutally effective—”scorched earth” policy that decimated the infrastructure of the South. Why couldn’t the same strategy be applied to Indians and their buffalo? Greymorning said, “The government realized that as long as this food source was there, as long as this key cultural element was there, it would have difficulty getting Indians onto reservations.”
Isenberg said, “Some Army officers in the Great Plains in the late 1860s and 1870s, including William Sherman and Richard Dodge, as well as the Secretary of the Interior in the 1870s, Columbus Delano, foresaw that if the bison were extinct, the Indians in the Great Plains would have to surrender to the reservation system.” Colonel Dodge said in 1867, “Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone,” and Delano wrote in his 1872 annual report, “The rapid disappearance of game from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs.”
“As a policy statement, I think that’s pretty clear,” Isenberg said. The Army had already used a similar strategy—In its 1863-1864 campaign against the Navajos, led by Colonel Kit Carson, the Army destroyed tens of thousands of sheep in a successful effort to subdue the Navajos.
1863-1864 is during Abraham Lincoln's Presidency, correct?
There was one tactical flaw with this strategy: too many buffalo. But while it wasn’t feasible for the U.S. Army to kill tens of millions of bison, it was feasible for the Army to let hunters use their forts as bases of operation and stand by as they slaughtered the animals in staggering numbers. Another key strategy here was that the Army made no effort to enforce all those treaty obligations forbidding whites to hunt on Indian lands. Whites could needlessly kill a bison for “sport” but when an Indian killed cattle for food for his family because of the growing scarcity of bison, he was severely reprimanded."
(Source, Indian Country Today Media Network)
Here's another small excerpt:
The excerpt states, "Manifest Destiny" ... did not explicitly state how much territory the US deserved to have... Well, the Democrats settled that issue! with this sentiment (see excerpt above) :
"..Democrats argued for the Mexican-American war by utilizing racialized and gendered rhetoric to motivate and convince their constituencies that belligerent conflict was the necessary means for gaining the territory that should be American BY DIVINE RIGHT. "Inferior" races were often associated with the traits of women—the "inferior" gender—so that Mexicans, Indians, and others were portrayed as vulnerable, emasculated, and feminine as well as backwards, ignorant, and savage. Some went so far as to argue that AMERICA OUGHT TO ANNEX ALL OF MEXICO, on the basis that Manifest Destiny would carry the NATIONAL EXPANSION ACROSS THE ENTIRE HEMISPHERE SOONER OR LATER. To instigate the conflict with Mexico, war hawks emphasized differences in religion, nationality, and race. AMERICAN LUST FOR WAR with Mexico was justified by plenty of anti-Catholic discourse, gendered and racialized depictions of Mexicans themselves, and the notion that Mexico was a weak, worthless, and useless country in comparison to the U.S. and that it would be better off if it was TAKEN OVER BY THE U.S."
-(See above)
"--> Manifest Destiny was the idea that the United States was destined by God to enlarge its territory to a significant degree. The idea did not explicitly state how much territory the US deserved to have. However, it did state that the country deserved to be larger because it was superior to other countries. It was superior in its religion because it was a Protestant country. It was superior in its politics because it was a democracy. It was superior racially to any country not made up of “Anglo-Saxons.”
This idea in itself did not really divide the nation. The vast majority of people believed in it. It did cause problems, however, when combined with the issue of slavery. The belief in Manifest Destiny caused the US to expand. For example, it brought about the war with Mexico that got the entire Southwest for the US. This caused problems because it led North and South to disagree over whether the new territory should be free or slave. This disagreement is what really helped bring about the division of the nation and the Civil War.
Thus, the idea of Manifest Destiny facilitated the division of the nation but did not cause it. <--"
http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/define-discuss-phrase-manifest-destiny-explain-how-453011
Of course Manifest Destiny could not directly cause the Civil War itself. Manifest Destiny dictated it was God's will, to be "One Nation" (One Federal Union)... and to bloat the borders whilst seizing territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific and beyond if possible... North, South, East, Westward!!! The greatest land-grab in the history of the world.
As territory was expanded, the division over whether newly acquired states should be "free states" or "slave states" arose and divided the "United" States into North vs. South.
Over a number of issues, as had been threatened to do even during the 1830's, the Southern states seceded... and would've probably been content to remain as the "Confederate States of America"... not unlike the wife, dominated by an overpowering husband. She too "Secedes" into an independent nation -- and then the husband comes to collect his "property"... that too, is "The Will of God" -- "Till death do us part, Sweetheart."
Lincoln and the religious zealots in the north, have a "divine conniption fit" the Union has divided... against the "Will of Divine Providence," "Nation as One Nation under God" . . . in this quasi-religious climate, war is provoked.
Abraham Lincoln no true, significant or meaningful concern for the lives of slaves! Neither did Sherman.
War crimes against unyielding black slaves... by Sherman and the Union Troops:
"...Sherman personally saw his men rape and murder unyielding slaves throughout the march and gave no order to stop this. Those slaves who accepted the offer to enlist were given unarmed porter duties and treated comparatively well, but could only rely on food and water provisions when they were in surplus after the army was satisfied. Sherman also ordered the execution by firing squad of a 50-year-old man accused of espionage. He was most likely not guilty but was given no trial. All crops were either consumed or burned, as were all livestock slaughtered. It is surmised that 50,000 civilians were killed during the war, and possibly 1,000 of them died during the Savannah Campaign at the hands of soldiers unlawfully entering their houses to pillage. The 3rd and 4th Amendments to the Constitution prohibit this."
(Source, 10 War Crimes of the US Civil War, Listverse.)
General Sherman taught future dictators such as Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, et al, a thing or two about "Genocide by Starvation".
Lincoln's refusal to free the slaves:
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
"...The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory."
(Source, Archives.Gov, Emancipation Proclamation)
With the South crushed by Sherman's war crimes... Sherman turned Westward to open slaughter (and slavery) on the Native American Indians...
The North and the U.S. Army cared nothing about "Equality" when Lincoln himself affirmed, emphatically he had no such agenda!
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BIGOT, DEVOTED BELIEVER ESPOUSING THE RACIST CREEDS OF "MANIFEST DESTINY"
“...I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”
- Abraham Lincoln
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, INDIAN-KILLER & ADVANCING THE "MANIFEST DESTINY" DOCTRINE OF WESTWARD EXPANSION AND SEIZURE OF INDIAN'S TERRITORY FOR THE UNION :
"...Information below tells how President Lincoln and Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey set out to exterminate Indians from their home land.
Authorities in Minnesota asked President Lincoln to order the immediate execution of all 303 Indian males found guilty. [...] He offered the following compromise to the politicians of Minnesota: They would pare the list of those to be hung down to 39. In return, Lincoln promised to kill or remove every Indian from the state and provide Minnesota with 2 million dollars in federal funds. Remember, he only owed the Sioux 1.4 million for the land.
So, on December 26, 1862, the Great Emancipator ordered the largest mass execution in American History, where the guilt of those to be executed was entirely in doubt. Regardless of how Lincoln defenders seek to play this, it was nothing more than murder to obtain the land of the Santee Sioux and to appease his political cronies in Minnesota."
(Source, United Native America)
Lincoln, was a devoted disciple of the "Will of God".
Devoted disciples to Northern War propaganda will still try to argue, "But Lincoln was a closet Atheist and Humanist!"
Lincoln's administration was the first to put the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins and described as "Old Testament," in tone when speaking at Gettysburg to hold the nation together as "Manifest Destiny" declares must be done...
Lincoln's administration slaughtered the Indians, before, during and after the Civil War. Some may still try to argue, "Lincoln was Mr. Free the Slaves!" but Lincoln freed no slaves, and freed none in union territories.
Any in doubt need to re-read the craftily-worded Emancipation Proclamation with clarity. Abraham Lincoln was a shrewd and crafty man of legal ability, a statesman, and skilled in Legaleese.
The mind, indoctrinated on Northern War Propaganda will argue against all the facts presented above (Cognitive Dissonance) because to were LIED to from kindergarten on, -- "Lincoln started the War to free the slaves,"
NO. Lincoln started the war to bring Manifest Destiny to fruition and hold the union together. His own words in 1862 clarify his priority was "To Save The Union."
His so called efforts to free slaves, was merely a token act to pacify Abolitionist fever and Abraham Lincoln was not an Abolitionist.
In Lincoln's mind, it was the will of "Divine Providence" and his own duty and mission to hold the Union together by any means necessary, then move westward, expand the boundaries and steal Native land from the Indians and enslave them on reservations (those which Lincoln's troops didn't either starve to death or kill).
Atheists and modern "Secular thinkers" especially atheists seeking to spread their convictions and convert the masses will not want to believe the facts that have been set forth above, because Atheists (who have dismally failed to realize the fullness of U.S. History and how deeply ingrained religious thought was in early U.S.) hoped to turn Lincoln into an "enlightened" Atheist and a Freethinker... but the facts are,
VERY LITTLE FORMAL EDUCATION
"...Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809. His family moved to Indiana when he was seven and he grew up on the edge of the frontier. He had very little formal education, but read voraciously when not working on his father's farm."
(Source, Civil War Online)
Northern War Propaganda have tried to turn Lincoln into something he was not, and rewrite history, instead of accepting him as the relatively simple-minded religious man who did not free slaves. In consideration of the political climate and strife over the issue of slavery, saw it necessary to do some thing to appease the dissenters on both sides of the controversy... some political maneuvering to appease the abolitionists and hold the Union together, by any means necessary. And while doing so, remained an INDIAN KILLER who stole land from the Natives.
Lincoln was far less deluded than Atheists, with a publicly unapologetic confession of his racist bigotry -- of which, a devoted disciple to "Manifest Destiny" as most of the country believed to be Gospel Truth, RACIST IDEOLOGY, must adhere to.
"It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before."
- A A Milne.
A bit of further insight into the dark side of Abraham Lincoln's true political character :
Broken treaties, Broken treaties, Broken treaties, Broken treaties, Broken treaties... and anyone would be so credulous to believe, Lincoln had any real intent to "free the slaves" -- when history clearly shows, he and the U.S. Army refused to free slaves. Did he free slaves in territories of loyal border states? No.
Actions speak louder than words.
U.S Government broken treaties, by the score!
Take a look at the carefully crafted Legaleeze and Lincoln's REFUSAL to free the slaves:
"...The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory."
(Source< U.S. Archives)
This is called double speak -- two-tongued. Those broken treaties built on deception are precisely why many Indians revolted... i.e., treaties to deliver food to the reservation but only rotten corn and rancid meat delivered, if any was delivered at all... the Indians became filled up only with this "two tongued deception".
During the Civil War ... Lincoln didn't use his executive power to actually free any slaves. Interesting. In other words, more of the same double-tongue treaty-breaking that was par for the course...
What makes the black people so sure that Lincoln had any true intention to use his executive power to "free slaves" following the civil war, when he didn't use it to free slaves in territories under Union control? Fooled once, shame on you. Fooled twice, shame on me.
Moreover, “Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians ‘grow secure upon (sic) the treaty’, advised the Council of State in Virginia, ‘we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cut down their Corn.’”
"Cut down their corn"... Genocide by starvation.
That was the "American Way," known to the Native American.
"...Once their territories were incorporated into the United States, surviving Native Americans were denied equality before the law and often treated as wards of the state. Many Native Americans were relegated to reservations--constituting just 4% of U.S. territory--and the treaties signed with them violated."
-Racism, Justice and the American Indian, Forgotten Story of Indian Slavery
"...Another key strategy here was that the Army made no effort to enforce all those treaty obligations forbidding whites to hunt on Indian lands."
- Genocide by Other Means: U.S. Army Slaughtered Buffalo in Plains Indian Wars
Lincoln has no intent to end "Slavery" because the Indians were already enslaved, and continued to be killed and enslaved as Sherman turned Westward.
God's Inheritance endowed upon Lincoln, a swelling national border from the shore of the Atlantic to the Pacific coastline -- swallowing up the continent in the Army's path.
Lincoln's "Inheritance" bestowed upon the Indians: "... just 4% of U.S. territory...Native Americans were denied equality before the law and often treated as wards of the state."
Ask those Indians what they were. "Slaves" -- "Prisoners" -- "Wards of the State" ... forced to learn the white man's way, "Kill the Indian. Save the Man."
Lincoln's crafty ability to "achieve the desired legal and political end" :
Abraham Lincoln and the insanity plea.
J Community Health. 1994 Jun;19(3):201-20.
"...A confederate civilian physician shot and killed a white Union officer who was drilling Negro troops in Norfolk, Virginia. With no question as to guilt, President Abraham Lincoln decided to have a medical expert conduct a professional sanity/insanity examination. Documentation indicates that legal and political factors may have influenced Lincoln's decision. As a lawyer, Lincoln prosecuted a case where the insanity plea was used as a defense. Two influential Cabinet members, William H. Seward and Edwin M. Stanton, also had legal experience involving the insanity plea. Politically, Lincoln faced serious issues such as the draft riots, the military necessity to recruit slaves into the army, the impact of Union Negro soldiers upon the border states, the morale and discipline of the army and the upcoming presidential election. Upon Seward's recommendation, Lincoln chose a physician who had a reputation for finding the accused sane and who did so in this case. As the southern physician was hanged, Lincoln's means achieved the desired legal and political ends."
(Source, National Institute for Health PMID: 8089270 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE])
Lincoln was dead and the war ended, and slaves were so-called "free" after the Civil War... or were they?
The Peonage system of "Debt Slavery" picked right back up, where slavery left off.
What long range strategy had Lincoln worked out to see to it that freed slaves could fend for themselves... nothing.
What measures did the very crafty, legally-savvy Lincoln take to prevent the Peonage system exploiting the poor?
None, of course.
Absolutely nothing. That's because Lincoln was never truly dedicated to the abolition of slavery, as much as preserving the Union and killing Indians.
“...my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery, If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
- Abraham Lincoln
(Source)
Indians out west were enslaved on Reservations and down south, blacks continued in Peonage "Debt slavery," after the Civil War.
Let them try to argue otherwise than what the man himself stated in 1862 about his true motives. He should know his own mind.
Manifest Destiny was a superstitious, quasi-religious doctrine which shaped federal policy in powerful ways -- directly associated with God's presumed will for the Anglo-Saxon destiny on the North American continent. Lincoln amply did his part to serve the cause of what he believed to be "God" -- where only the white folk get into heaven.
Lincoln wasn’t an abolitionist.
"...Lincoln did believe that slavery was morally wrong, but there was one big problem: It was sanctioned by the highest law in the land, the Constitution. Leading abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called the Constitution “a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell,” and went so far as to burn a copy at a Massachusetts rally in 1854.
LINCOLN'S ONLY DESIRED SOLUTION:
Lincoln thought colonization could resolve the issue of slavery.
For much of his career, Lincoln believed that colonization—or the idea that a majority of the African-American population should leave the United States and settle in Africa or Central America—was the best way to confront the problem of slavery. His two great political heroes, Henry Clay and Thomas Jefferson, had both favored colonization; both were slave owners who took issue with aspects of slavery but saw no way that blacks and whites could live together peaceably. Lincoln first publicly advocated for colonization in 1852, and in 1854 said that his first instinct would be “to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia” (the African state founded by the American Colonization Society in 1821).
Nearly a decade later, even as he edited the draft of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in August of 1862, Lincoln hosted a delegation of freed slaves at the White House in the hopes of getting their support on a plan for colonization in Central America. Given the “differences” between the two races and the hostile attitudes of whites towards blacks, Lincoln argued, it would be “better for us both, therefore, to be separated.” Lincoln’s support of colonization provoked great anger among black leaders and abolitionists, who argued that African-Americans were as much natives of the country as whites, and thus deserved the same rights. After he issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln never again publicly mentioned colonization, and a mention of it in an earlier draft was deleted by the time the final proclamation was issued in January 1863.
(Source, History.com, 5 Things You May Not Know about Lincoln, Slavery and Emancipation)
Lincoln was never thinking of "freeing the slaves" and allowing them equal privilege in the United States ... nor giving consideration to their long-range welfare and ability to fend for themselves in a white-dominated society.
Hence, many of the black race, ended right back up in Slavery.
Did Lincoln lack the foresight? Probably not, however Indifference seems to be Lincoln's prevailing sentiment regarding slavery and prevented him from investing either time or energy to promote goals to achieve true freedom and equal rights.
Slavery v. Peonage
"...Peonage, also called debt slavery or debt servitude, is a system where an employer compels a worker to pay off a debt with work. Legally, peonage was outlawed by Congress in 1867. However, after Reconstruction, many Southern black men were swept into peonage though different methods, and the system was not completely eradicated until the 1940s.
In some cases, employers advanced workers some pay or initial transportation costs, and workers willingly agreed to work without pay in order to pay it off. Sometimes those debts were quickly paid off, and a fair wage worker/employer relationship established.
In many more cases, however, workers became indebted to planters (through sharecropping loans), merchants (through credit), or company stores (through living expenses). Workers were often unable to re-pay the debt, and found themselves in a continuous work-without-pay cycle.
But the most corrupt and abusive peonage occurred in concert with southern state and county government. In the south, many black men were picked up for minor crimes or on trumped-up charges, and, when faced with staggering fines and court fees, forced to work for a local employer would who pay their fines for them. Southern states also leased their convicts en mass to local industrialists. The paperwork and debt record of individual prisoners was often lost, and these men found themselves trapped in inescapable situations."
(Source, PBS, "Peonage: Slavery by Another Name")
Manifest Destiny BEFORE the Lincoln Presidency.
Slavery was the issue that divided the North against the South.
But it was NOT Lincoln's motivation for war.
The south seceded, dividing the Union in contradiction with the "Will of Divine Providence".
Manifest Destiny mandated the need for there to be (Lincoln) "A Nation Under God" ... with "common faith", "One Federal Union" under God.
Continentalism
"...The 19th-century belief that the United States would eventually encompass all of North America is known as "continentalism".[42] An early proponent of this idea was John Quincy Adams, a leading figure in U.S. expansion between the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the Polk administration in the 1840s. In 1811, Adams wrote to his father:
---> The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs. For the common happiness of them all, for their peace and prosperity, I believe it is indispensable that they should be associated in one federal Union." <---
(Source, Wikipedia, "Manifest Destiny")
"...destined by Divine Providence... people by one nation, one language, one general system of religious and political principles... for their peace and prosperity, I believe it is indispensable that they should be associated in one federal Union."
THAT was Lincoln's main objective. To save the Union...
“...my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery, If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
- Abraham Lincoln
There are a variety of articles on the subject, which may attempt to obscure the role which "Manifest Destiny" (quasi-religious fanaticism) played into the behavior and abuse of federal power, and desperately try to deny Lincoln's belief in Manifest Destiny, or the cause of the Civil War :
list dates of genocide of Native American Indians and squeamishly omit the name of the ruling President who was in power at the time, after all, it is "politically incorrect" to associate Mr. "Free the Slaves" Lincoln with bloody genocidal conquest. But if the shoe fits?
or, list dates, that would imply the expansion was somehow discontinued or even ended, prior to Lincoln's presidency, but in fact, Lincoln continued to send U.S. Army troops westward and slaughter Native Americans, and the age of Manifest Destiny never ceased and continued until,
"...1890 when the federal government declared that a "frontier of settlement" no longer existed; the North American continent had been settled and was officially civilized."
"...Manifest Destiny - The belief that Americans had the God-given right to expand westward, to spread democracy, and to conquer anything and anyone as they marched across the North American continent."
(Source, "Manifest Destiny" Humboldt.edu)
Here is an article which affirms, Lincoln indeed believed in it and supported it.
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent.
---> "....The concept of American expansionism is much older, but John L. O'Sullivan coined the exact term "Manifest Destiny" in the July/August 1845 issue of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review in an article titled "Annexation. " It was primarily used by Democrats to support the expansion plans of the Polk Administration, and the idea of expansion was also supported by the Whigs like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln, who wanted to deepen the economy. John C. Calhoun was a notable Democrat who generally opposed his party on the issue, which fell out of favor by 1860.
Manifest Destiny was always a general notion rather than a specific policy. The term combined a belief in expansionism with other popular ideas of the era, including American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism. While many writers focus primarily upon American expansionism when discussing Manifest Destiny, others see in the term a broader expression of a belief in America's "mission" in the world, which has meant different things to different people over the years. For example, the belief in an American mission to promote and defend democracy throughout the world, as expounded by Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, continues to have an influence on American political ideology. <---
(Source, U.S. History, the Westward Movement and Manifest Destiny)
The internet is filled with contradictions and misinformation.
I go on not just the words, but the actions.
Millions of dead buffalo slaughtered by Sherman, tells me he was "not a nice guy."
Lincoln promising to remove or KILL all the Indians in Minnesota, tells me he was "not a nice guy."
Everything else, falls into place.
All that is missing, is "what insane ideology" was driving these monsters and their murderous rampage across the continent.
Well, "God" (TM) seems a pretty good explanation.
And the worn out Civil War Propaganda to clean up the Indian Killer's reputation... make him into "Mr. Free the Slaves" (although the Emancipation Proclamation is craftily worded in double-speak to AVOID actually having to free any slaves on Union territory -- while his own words boldly profess his racist ideology. Lincoln states in 1862 his purpose in the war, is not at all about slavery... but emphatically "To Save the Union."
Why the historical denials of what is so plain and self-evident? Is it due to the national shame that awaits when the disgraceful truth is brought into the light?
Just as equally erroneous are those who claim,
"Our Founding Fathers Were NOT Christians" or, "Was President Abraham Lincoln an atheist?"
Yet, Lincoln's administration was the one who places "In God We Trust" on U.S. Coins, and upon who's speech is derived, "One Nation under God."
No Christian? Indeed... when he spoke in the "Old Testament tone" at Gettysburg to hold the Union together... the evidence is simply "overwhelming" Lincoln was a true Atheist at heart.
Many it seems, are attempting to re-write history!
Everyone's got an agenda to push. Not seeking the truth, but an ulterior motivation. I seek the true explanation and understanding -- not taking the crimes of Lincoln and Sherman and brushing under the rug of U.S. History's war propaganda.
If ending slavery were truly Lincoln's main objective, he did a miserable job of achieving that. Ironic, since according to PubMed's observation:
"As a lawyer," Lincoln was noted as being quite competent in the field of Law, and "...Lincoln's means achieved the desired legal and political ends."
yet, made no better use of his executive power and legal experts in preparations for former slaves, post-freedom?
Lincoln failed to draw up a single strategy during his entire lifetime, in how to go about securing freedom for the slaves once liberated, other than "Colonization" -- when that didn't go over with black representatives, his long-range strategy just sort of "sat there" for the next two years til his death, because the very crafty, very racist,very legally-savvy and indifferent Lincoln's first priority was never about "freeing the slaves."
But some will try to rewrite history, in spite of the overwhelming evidence... including the evidence that Lincoln didn't free a single slave during his Presidency and his military genocidal conquest of Indians in the West --placing them in slavery, as wards of state, confined on Reservations after butchering the buffalo herds.
If that's not slavery, then what is! And for those who want to claim otherwise, that he was dedicated to Abolition (he was no abolitionist) -- Lincoln's "anti-slavery" policies weren't thought out very well, because history shows they failed miserably.
An insightful article, for those articles which were attempts to claim Lincoln opposed the expansionism in Manifest Destiny -- Lincoln was by no means opposed to expanding the territory of the United States... -- apparently not even slavery itself, that necessarily "deeply troubled Lincoln" -- no, it only troubled Lincoln in as much as the controversy was a threat to divide the Union, (and after all, since the Constitution protected the institution of Slavery). Only the issue of slavery dividing the Union -- as the nation expanded, troubled Lincoln.
Facing facts about Lincoln and his views on slavery
"...At this point in history, after the huge conquest of formerly Mexican territory in the Southwest, the United States had become enormous. But there were only six states west of the Mississippi River (three slave and three free). There would be many new states to organize and admit into the Union. The Republican principle – and to Lincoln it was a central principle around which the new party was to be organized -- was to oppose any expansion of slavery, to choke the institution off economically and, perhaps, to eventually alter the balance of free states to slave states to the point that the Constitution could be amended.
But under Taney’s new doctrine in the Dred Scott case of 1857, the containment of slavery was impractical. If the federal government couldn’t prohibit slavery in the new territories, they could be organized as slave territories and future slave states. Even worse, if slaveowners could bring their slaves into free states, and free states couldn’t make the slaves free, what did it even mean to be a free state?
Lincoln Douglas debates
In January of 1858, as he accepted the Republican nomination to run for the U.S. Senate to oppose the Democratic incumbent Stephen Douglas, Lincoln cited the Dred Scott ruling by name as he warned that if the slave states could not be put on a path to freedom, then the free states would find themselves on a path to slavery. You know this passage, rather famously, as the “House Divided” speech, but read it now with the Dred Scott ruling in mind:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall. But I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South."
(Source, Facing Facts About Lincoln's Views on Slavery)
The impact Manifest Destiny had on the actions of Lincoln's murder and relocation of Indians and compelled to reclaim the Southern states at all costs, can not be overstated. Abraham Lincoln was steadfast in his determination to hold the Union together and, could not bear the thought of the Union divided. His own words clarify it was his driving need to keep the Union intact, irregardless of slavery.
The wretched origins of "Manifest Destiny" are a topic unto their self. Religious zealots in New England witnessed Indians dying from Smallpox and chalked it up to "God" miraculously "clearing passage" --and how does one explain a "god smiting your enemies" except that perhaps you or your race of people, perhaps your religion! -- are "Superior" over other races and religions?
Superstition founded upon the Old Testament, "smiting the Canaanites", to "clear passage" for Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the new "Promised Land" from sea to shining sea . . . Lincoln described as having an "Old Testament" tone in his Gettysburg address... the "Chosenness" and their destiny by divine providence. This sickness, this quasi-religious superstition grew from the time of the earliest colonies, and continued to evolve and shaped national policies til at last, in 1890:
"...1890 when the federal government declared that a "frontier of settlement" no longer existed; the North American continent had been settled and was officially civilized."
"...Manifest Destiny - The belief that Americans had the God-given right to expand westward, to spread democracy, and to conquer anything and anyone as they marched across the North American continent."
(Source "Manifest Destiny," Humboldt.edu)
Although other source note the doctrine was resurrected to yet again justify American expansionist goals abroad and beyond the borders of the U.S., all the way to the Neoconservatives evoking it to promote their war-maddened aggression in the Middle East.
What became of the Jeffersonian "Wall of Separation" between Church and State?
I will never look at the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. Coins and paper bills, the same. All I will be able to think about, is the Indians who were slaughtered "in the name of God".
I can not believe "God" would find anything remotely akin to honor from the motto placed on coins under the sad, twisted, sickening circumstances. But Abraham Lincoln did believe, wholeheartedly.
