Causes Of Westward Expansion

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The United States wants to expand their land west to the Pacific Ocean. Their goal of westward expansion was to expand slavery into the western territories. First of all, westward expansion would allow for more slave owners to get land. They would use the land to get more plantations and would need more slaves. Source 2 by Benjamin Lundy states that the “immediate cause and the leading object of this contest originated in a settled design, among the slaveholders of this country... to wrest (take away) the large and valuable territory of Texas from the Mexican Republic, in order to re-establish the SYSTEM OF SLAVERY; to open a vast and profitable SLAVEMARKET therein.” This explains that he U.S. wanted to gain land to profit more from their …show more content…
David Wilmot writes in Source 3 that, "fundamental (essential) condition to the acquisition (addition) of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States... neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory." David Wilmot stated this in his effort to pass his bill for raising money for the Mexican American war. He meant that a treaty would allow the Americans to expand west. Because the treaty said that no slavery would transfer into the western territories, the U.S. Senate never passed the bill. This shows how they believed that having no slavery in the new lands wouldn't help them, therefore they didn't pass the law. Additionally, people may say that the goal of expanding west was not to expand slavery because president Thomas Jefferson stated in Source 1, This “depended on an independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival, and that independence and virtue (moral excellence) went hand in hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms…. In order to provide enough land to sustain this ideal population of virtuous yeomen…, the United States would have to continue to expand.” This would mean that by expanding west, people would have new opportunities. Small farmers would be helped because they are the chosen people of God and they would follow their manifest destiny. Benjamin Lundy makes everything clear when he states, “They have been induced (tempted) to believe that the inhabitants of Texas were engaged in a legitimate contest for the maintenance of the sacred principles of Liberty, and the natural, inalienable (protected)Rights of Man:--- whereas, the motives of its instigators, and their chief incentives to action, have been from the commencement, of a directly opposite character and tendency.” This means that many people are tricked into thinking the goal was something
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