Manifest Destiny: the Onward March of Human History

The Western lands of America in those days were a wild abode of darkness and savagery, occupied by a filthy collection of what some nowadays call "indigenous peoples" - a term which has become euphemistic for the ignorant brutes Thomas Hobbes described so artfully in his epic Leviathan. True to form, these savage peoples, left to their own devices, were in a rapid cycle of degeneration and reversion to dust.

Hovering over this frontier, like the angel Columbia, was the might and potential of the great peoples of the United States. A multiplying multitude of millions, this new and unprecedented settlement of exceptional men and women could not be contained, and thus began the great Western expansion which eventually led to the annexation of Texas, the seizure of Oregon from withered England, and the fierce repudiation of our sickly southern neighbors, Santa Ana's Whelps: the Mexicans. In the end, those pioneers had achieved the ideal of which we sing today: "From the redwood forest to the Gulf stream waters / This land was made for you and me."

In this, the Great Expansion, and not in any other event, was the United States founded. Those who claim otherwise must argue with the historical record: by 1840, American waterways were thoroughfares for steamboats; by 1844 the telegraph was ushering in a new era of telecommunications; by 1850, having established itself as a transcontinental power, the United States ceased to regard the United Kingdom as a legitimate threat; by 1865 the savage practice of raising and maintaining domestic Negro slave populations had come to a forceful end; in 1869, Chinese laborers under the direction of the great Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads drove the last spike in the Transcontinental Railroad which unified the American nation. Who can deny that these achievements are the hallmarks of modern American Civilization? This period was the magnum opus of American development, and what we are living today is the direct culmination of those events.

Life, Liberty, and Something-or-other: Blessing or Curse?

So, how can we account for the forging of this puissant new kingdom of Men? The laughable ideals of Jefferson and Madison? I think not. The principles of those irrelevant characters had been almost universally rejected by the time Lincoln seized the reigns of Federal power to subjugate his rebellious and wayward Southern neighbors. There is hardly a man today who will boast of the righteousness of the Southern cause without being laughed into the shadows to sulk in frustrated defeat. It is pointless to argue that Lincoln was "heavy-handed" or "un-Constitutional" when in fact it is nearly universally agreed that Lincoln did what must have been done.

What of the "native peoples", the American Indians pushed out into the southwest by American territorial expansion and driven into reservations? Was Andrew Jackson a scoundrel to have sent them on their fabled "trail of tears"? Utter bullshit. There was no other place for a backward people within the emergent American civilization of (dare I pronounce it?) übermenschen. Doubtless it will seem crude and boorish to some, but it cannot be denied that the American Indians were an insidious and insurgent threat to civilized life. See for yourself by reading accounts of the Wolstenholme Massacre.

It would be similarly pointless to argue that Federal land grants and subsidies to railroad companies were contrary to doctrines of liberty. What of the doctrines of destiny? The doctrines of growth, expansion, and victory? Those who argue against Federal encouragement of the railroad industry have forgotten their place, indeed! Apparently, they would wish we had been overpowered and overshadowed by the English, or the Mexicans, or (Heaven forfend!) the Canadians. In light of historical fact, it is practically treasonous to claim that America could or should have done otherwise than it did; only the enemies of America do as much.

Not Merely Survival, But Greatness

"For the laws of nature (as justice, equity, modesty, mercy, and, in sum, doing to others as we would be done to) of themselves, without the terror of some power, to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge and the like." -- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

There are many among us who have long sought to persuade us of the bliss inherent to the classic trinity of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". These individualistic notions can offer only the promise of comfort, of complacency, and of eventual reversion to the savage state in which the American Indians found themselves.

For too long the goldbricks have talked us into submissive silence while there were opportunities to be exploited, great gains to be seized, and a moral obligation to supremacy to be obeyed. The worst thing in this world is not want or injustice; no, the worst thing in the world is complacency, the rotting degeneracy of will which allows great men to stand by and do nothing when there is so much to be done. It is the fearful stalling and moping about which characterize weak-minded fools who, either by inferior breeding or from frequent recrimination for the sake of some Puritanical moral code, find themselves incapable of seizing the Manifest Destiny which continues to run its course long after the term has been removed from common parlance.

Not since decades long past have Americans been given such an opportunity to rally, unite, and support the inevitable, irresistible force of their common, future greatness. Those who see in September 11th a great loss and sorrow are missing the entire point of history. Now is the time to surpass mean circumstance and the bitter remonstrance of laughable neighbors. We are the United States of America. Let us not forget our past when we look to the horizon of our future.