Review of David Burge

A Failed Vision of Empire: The Collapse of Manifest Destiny, 1848-1872

By Madelon Proctor

Rather than “the theory that supported…expansion from sea to shining sea,” David Burge proposes that “manifest destiny” promised a far greater incorporation of land to the United States in his book, A Failed Vision of Empire: The Collapse of Manifest Destiny, 1848-1872.^[1] Through his exploration of periodicals, satirical comics, political writings, and private documents, the author determines and explores the concept of manifest destiny. The ideation originally professed that the United States would encompass the whole of the North American continent – for some, that of South America as well. An interesting and thought-provoking book, Burge relates the term’s etymology for his readers while also showing the impact of its use.

Opponents of expansion emphasized the peaceful nature of their side, rather than being “lovers of conquest.”^[2] Supporters of the Manifest Destiny practiced a “robber’s doctrine,” were being tempted by “the form of the Spirit of evil,” or advocated and patronized the “slave power” which was attempting to spread that practice further.^[3] When President James K. Polk instigated war with Mexico through the annexation of Texas and occupation of disputed borderlands, expansionists sought the absorption of the entirety of Mexico. They suggested that it was the destiny of the United States, ordained by God, that the republic should acquire the whole of North America.

With the seizure of half of Mexico’s territory through the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the United States reached from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The opportunity to take the whole country slipped through expansionists’ hands, however, as racially charged sentiments discouraged the incorporation of Mexico’s citizenry. The US did not gain the continent, and her manifest destiny remained unfulfilled. Burge shows the reader that “the U.S.-Mexican War should not be seen as the end of the era of manifest destiny, but rather as the first in a series of conflicts over the ideology.”^[4]

Conservative Whigs knew the fight against manifest destiny was not over and encouraged its debate as one of the defining issues of the 1848 presidential election between Lewis Cass and Zachary Taylor. They compared expansionist Cass to their own peaceful Taylor, alluding to the latter as “Cincinnatus [returning] to the plough.”^[5] Whigs said the Democrats would pursue the annexation of “Canada, or Cuba, or the West Indies, or Yucatan, or the projected republic of Sierra Madre.”^[6] As the envoy of peacetime and reconciliation, Taylor’s supporters predicted his presidency would be one without war or conflict. In fact, the Clayton-Bulwar Treaty, signed four days before his death in 1850, “directly contradicted manifest destiny” in its renunciation of the “annexation and colonization of Central America.”^[7] Zachary Taylor followed through with the promises of his campaign by keeping the country out of war and further expansion.

The ascension of Millard Filmore to the presidency, after Taylor’s unexpected death, opened the country up for more conflict. The Compromise of 1850 temporarily addressed the issue of slavery in the territories, but he also had to dispatch several filibustering attempts to liberate, and perhaps attain, Cuba from Spain. The idea of the “robber doctrine,” a popular argument of colonization’s foes from the Mexican War, gained traction again through these the concerns over Cuba. The 1852 election of Franklin Pierce dredged up new fears for Whigs as an expansionist. However, he declared “that [expansion] would not be through a ‘grasping spirit,’…[and] his foreign policy would ‘leave not a blot upon’ the country’s ‘fair record.’”

The second half of the nineteenth century brought an increasing consideration of the role and impact of slavery on the nation and its founding principles of liberty and equality, and Burge interprets those ideals through the lens of empire and expansion. The new Republican Party came together in opposition of what many saw as a “Slave Power” from the Democrats and the South. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and its violation of the Missouri Compromise, appeared to Republicans to be another of Slave Power’s schemes for growth. William Walker’s filibustering attempt on Nicaragua in 1855 also showed a penchant for spreading the seed of slavery across the continent in pursuit of that still-elusive manifest destiny. The 1860 campaigns of Stephen Douglas, the “candidate of manifest destiny,” and Abraham Lincoln, its critic, illustrate another high point of that tenacious idea.

Many thought the termination of the scheme, at least for a time, might come with Lincoln’s election. That occurrence, quickly followed by the secession of South Carolina and the other ten states of the Confederacy, only revealed new opportunities for slavery and land acquisition. Confederate expansionists dreamed of the extension of the South into Central and South America. Union supporters of expansion, on the other hand, put their aspirations aside until they won back the South. Ministers preached that the U.S. had wronged Mexico, and this was its price to pay; the “Confederacy had shattered” dreams and “‘manifest destiny’ [was] played out.”^[8] The French invasion and occupation of Mexico presented an obstacle to be dealt with after the war, but also offered the opportunity to take the country in the name of aiding it when that time came.

The Union won the war. President Lincoln was assassinated and his Vice President, Andrew Johnson took his post. Because slavery was no longer legal in the United States, when new proposals for land acquisition arose challengers could no longer use its extension as their argument. The old notion of “robber doctrine” became unfounded, too, because politicians supported the notion of obtaining land through purchase or trade rather than through conquest. Racism, however, remained a strong deterrent to the incorporation of new territories as areas with rights equal to white citizens. Indigenous tribes inhabited Alaska and the population of many Caribbean Islands are of African descent. Inviting representatives from those ethnic backgrounds to Washington D.C did not appeal to many politicians.

Nineteenth century Americans held many opposing views about what the future of the country should look like. The United States eventually grew to include contiguous states reaching “sea to shining sea,” as well as various island holdings and disconnected pieces like Alaska. Factions skillfully pursued and fought the measures of expansionists, building the country into what it is today. In A Failed Vision of Empire, David Burge establishes that the original idea of the country’s manifest destiny foretold more, however, and that complete objective remained unrealized.

^[1] Daniel J. Burge, A Failed Vision of Empire (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022), 171.

^[2] Burge, A Failed Vision of Empire, 28.

^[3] Burge, A Failed Vision of Empire, 23, 25, 87.

^[4] Burge, A Failed Vision of Empire, 44.

^[5] Burge, A Failed Vision of Empire, 49.

^[6] Burge, A Failed Vision of Empire, 52.

^[7] Burge, A Failed Vision of Empire, 59-60.

^[8] Burge, A Failed Vision of Empire, 119.