John O'Sullivan

Social philosopher, essayist, publisher, and the originator of the term 'Manifest Destiny.'

          As the co-founder and editor of the Democratic Review and the New York Morning News, John O'Sullivan was described by his friend Julian Hawthorne as "one of the most charming companions in the world...always full of grand and world-embracing schemes." 

          In the final days of 1845, O'Sullivan introduced one of these schemes to a society anxiously awaiting the revelation of a galvanizing force.  In his essay entitled "The True Title," O'Sullivan captured the unsettled impulse and aspirations of the young American republic by repeating an electrifying phrase he had already used in other essays published in the Democratic Review. "To state the truth at once in its neglected simplicity, our claim [to Oregon] is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us."  For more on Manifest Destiny, click here

          O'Sullivan's phrase was immediately adopted by the expansionist politicians in Congress and the White House.  "A free, confederated, self-governed republic on a continental scale -- this is Manifest Destiny!" declared Senator Daniel Dickinson of New York.  Within days, President Polk was using the phrase with his cabinet, and before long, the press was lauding Manifest Destiny as the new big thing.  Overnight, Americans began claiming that expansion to the Pacific Ocean was prearranged by heavenly authority, and many of America's best and brightest personalities were eager to affix their names to this manifesto.  Among them were Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Cullen Bryant, Alexander Everett, and James Bennett, to name just a few. 

          Certainly, O'Sullivan could never have imagined how a simple turn of phrase could so decisively redirect the course of history.