The 1840s were years of large territorial growth in the United States. During only four years, the amount of land that the US owned increased by 1.2 million square miles, which was a gain of more than sixty percent. The process of expansion was so rapid that many Americans stubbornly believed that the nation had a "Manifest Destiny" to dominate the continent from coast to coast. This Manifest Destiny effected all Americans regardless of regional or …
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…influenced Manifest Destiny, and caused many thoughts to shift to a military sense of the expansion. In the 1850s, having created a transcontinental empire, the United States stopped regarding British activities in the western hemisphere with importance. America was more concerned with the increasing sectional conflict over slavery, and many Americans began to reject Manifest Destiny. The expansionist movement, Manifest Destiny, faded from the national agenda in the years leading up to the Civil War.