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Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was a purchase made by Thomas Jefferson. The purchase doubled the size of the United States of America. This supports the answer that the America's westward was inevitable because it was Jefferson's belief that a nation needed to have a citizen base of majority land owners to thrive and thus it he would find any way necessary in order to make that happen. -
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8.2 | Was expansion inevitable?
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British Cession
The British Cession of 1818 was an agreement between brittan and the US that the 49th parallel would be the boundary between the US and brittish North America(present day Canada. Westward expansion was inevitable as shown here, the government of the US wanted to expand westward but they realized that would be hard to achieve if the still had tensions with the british so they would made a deal to lesson that tension. -
Spanish Cession 1819
The spanish cession was applied at the ratification of the Adams-Onis Treaty which ceded East Florida to the US. Eventually the US took East Florida as well. Westward Expansion was inevitable the cession of Florida only proved the want of the government to expand and with Florida now taken their only option was to expand westward -
Texas Annexation
This was taking of Texas as part of the United States in order to greatly increase the territory of the United States. The westward expansion of the US was inevitable, by this time the idea of manifest destiny had set in among the people and "from sea to shining sea' looked like it could eventually become a reality. With this vision in sight more people began to support the idea than those who opposed it making it increasingly harder to stop westward expansion. -
Oregon Territory
The Oregon Territory was the first time the dream of "sea to shining sea' was realized. It was ceded from britan to the US at the singing of the Oregon Treaty which gave the US the territory to the US in exchange the brittish would still be allowed to navigate the water ways. With the dream of ""sea to shining sea" many people though their was no reason to take more and there was no stopping them. -
Mexican Cession
This was the result of the Mexican-American war which resulted in an american victory. At this point the expansion really was inevitable as the delusion of Manifest Destiny lead the US to a full out war. With so many for the an idea, it eventually becomes impossible to stop a movement. This is shown here. -
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase was a compromise to solve an error in a map that previous boundaries has been decided upon. This was the end of westward expansion in the lower forty-eight but it shows just how much the US government would go through just to get what they wanted showing that westward expansion was truly inevitable because the US government just would not stop.