Bursts of florid rhetoric accompanied territorial growth, and Americans used the slogan Manifest Destiny to justify and account for its belief that we dwell with God, or be cast out.  The phrase, coined in 1845 by John L. O’Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review, referred to the conviction that the country’s superior institution and culture have Americans a God-given right, even an obligation, to spread their civilization across the entire continent. Lewis Cass, Henry Judah, the Gibsons, Lansford Hastings, and most other Americans agreed. This sense of uniqueness and mission was a legacy of early Puritan utopianism and the republicanism of the revolutionary era. By the 1840s, however, an argument for territorial expansion merged with the belief that the United States possessed a unique civilization. The successful absorption of the Louisiana Territory, rapid population growth, and advances in transportation, communication, and industry bolstered the idea of national superiority and the notion that the United States could successfully absorb new territories. Publicists of Manifest Destiny proclaimed that the nation must. Manifest Destiny justified the expansion but did not cause it. “We can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness does bless and prosper those who put their trust in him. Yea, and we may see at the very time when he does prosper his people, yea, in their increase of their fields, their flocks and their heards, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies,” reports Helaman 12.1-2. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

The temperance crusade reveals the many practical motivations for Americans to join reform societies. It provided an opportunity for the Protestant middle classes to exert some control over laborers, immigrants, and Catholics. For perfectionists, abstinence was a way of practicing self-control and reaching moral perfect. For many women, the temperance effort was a respectable way to control the behavior of their husbands. For many young men, the temperance society provided entertainment, fellowship, and contacts to help their careers. In temperance societies as in political parties, Americans found jobs, purpose, support, spouses, and relief from the loneliness and uncertainty of a changing World. Reformers were quick to attack excessive eating, use of stimulants of any kind, and, above all, the evils of too much sexual activity. Many endorsed a variety of special diets and exercise programs for maintaining good health. Some promoted panaceas for all ailments. One of these was hydropathy: clients sojourned at one of 70 special resorts for bathing and water purges of the body. Other panaceas included hypnotism, and various spiritualist seances, sought to cure worries of the mind. “In that day, the Lord shall manifest himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks—and harden not their hearts,” reports 1 Nephi 14.1-2. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

Another movement concerned sexual purity. In 1834, Sylvester Graham, a promoter of proper diet and hygiene, delivered a series of lectures on chastity, later published as a manual of advice. To those troubled by sexual desire, the inventor of the Graham cracker recommended taking more exercise in open air and using the cold bath under proper circumstances. Women especially not as passionless as the Victorian stereotype suggested, were advised to remain pure and to have intercourse only for procreation. Although females learned to control sexuality for their own purposes, as we shall see, male sexual purity advocates urged sexual restraint to protect various male interests. The authors of antebellum health manuals advocated abstinence from sexual activity as vehemently as they recommended abstinence from alcohol. “The Lord delights in chastity,” reports Jacob 2.28. The body, they argued, was a closed energy system in which each organ had particular and limited functions to perform. Semen was to be saved for reproductive purposes and should not be used for pleasure in either masturbation or intercourse. Some argued further than the expenditure of sperm meant a loss of needed energy from the economy. To drain energy away from business to see was both wasteful and contributory to Jacksonian social disorder. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

In their efforts to restore order to American society, some reformers preferred to work not for private influence over individuals, but toward public changes in institutions. They wanted to transform such social institutions as asylums, almshouses, prisons, schools, and even factories. In many ways, Horace Mann, who led the struggle for common schools in Massachusetts was a typical antebellum reformer. He blended dedicated idealism with a canny, practical sense of how to institutionalize educational improvements in one state: teacher training, schools, higher teachers’ salaries, and compulsory attendance laws. In the colonial era, the family of the local community cared for orphans, paupers, those with special needs, and even those who did not understand how to comply with the laws. Beginning early in the nineteenth century, various states built asylums, houses of refuge, reform schools, jails, and other institutions to uplift and house social victims. In 1843, Dorothea Dix, a delicate New Englander, believed that people could be reformed. However, she was also convinced that bad institutions corrupted basically good human beings. The proper way to help people is through effective education and self-help. Dorothea Dix, Charles Loring Brace, Samuel Gridely How and Thomas Gallaudet started a Children’s Aid Society in New York City that achieved remarkable results. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

Some reformers believed the best way to correct behavior and bring hardened lost souls back to virtue was to place them in a star-shaped system, where each individual was in solitary confinement, though in a fairly modern room. It was assumed that is people were put into isolated rooms to study the Bible and reflect on their incorrect behavior, they would eventually decide to become good citizens. For working-class Americans, the social institution most needed of transformation was the factory. Workers, many of whom were involved in others issues such as temperance, peace, and abolitionism, took it on themselves to improve their own lives. These improvements took form as shorter work hours, wages that would keep pace with rising prices, and ways (such as the closed shop) of warding off the competitive threat currency manipulation, and cheap labor. However, identifying with the “Blood of our Fathers” shed on the battlefields of the American Revolution, Boston tradesmen stuck in 1835 for a ten-hour work day. Eventually, ten hour work days become popular again. When we believe, God will see to it that it is take care of. When we believe, we have the Creator of the Universe fighting our battles, arranging things in our favor, going before us, moving the wrong people out of the way. We could not have made it happen in our own strength, but because we are believers, the surpassing greatness of God’s power is at work in our lives. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

The 1872 painting by John Gast with its large goddesslike figure tailing telegraph lines, its parade of settlers, it depiction of technological progress captures the confidence of Americas that the acquisition of the West was beneficial and inevitable event. It also presents the conventional picture of the settlement of the frontier as a process generated by the movement of people from east to west. In fact, the West was also settled by emigrants moving from Mexico northward and by Indian tribes moving south. “And as they looked to behold they cast their eyes towards Heaven, and they saw the Heavens open, and they saw Angels descending out of the Heavens as it were in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled with fire; and Angels did minister unto them. And the multitude did see and hear and bear record; and they know that their record is true for they all of them did see and hear, every person for oneself; and they were in number about two thousand and five hundred souls; and they did consist of men, women, and children,” reports 3 Nephi 17.24-25. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6