John L. O'Sullivan

John Louis O'Sullivan (November 15, 1813 – March 24, 1895) was an American columnist and editor who used the term "manifest destiny" in 1845 to promote the annexation of Texas and the Oregon Country to the United States. O'Sullivan was an influential political writer and advocate for the Democratic Party at that time and served as US Minister to Portugal during the administration of President Franklin Pierce (1853–1857), but he largely faded from prominence soon thereafter.

John L. O'Sullivan in 1874

Quotes

The Great Nation of Futurity (1839)

John L. O'Sullivan on Manifest Destiny, 1839, Excerpted from "The Great Nation of Futurity," The United States Democratic Review, Volume 6, Issue 23, pp. 426-430. [1]

• What friend of human liberty, civilization, and refinement, can cast his view over the past history of the monarchies and aristocracies of antiquity, and not deplore that they ever existed? What philanthropist can contemplate the oppressions, the cruelties, and injustice inflicted by them on the masses of mankind, and not turn with moral horror from the retrospect?

• America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defence of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes. We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy.

• The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High -- the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere -- its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling, owning no man master, but governed by God's natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood -- of "peace and good will amongst men."

Quotes about O'Sullivan

• Supporters of the All-Mexico movement stated that Mexicans "would learn to love her ravishers," while columnist and editor John O'Sullivan argued that the influx of white Americans into recently conquered territory would lead to both uplift and absorption. In his 1845 declaration of "manifest destiny," O'Sullivan described an "irresistible of Anglo-Saxon[s]" bringing with them "the plough and the rifle... schools and colleges, courts and representative halls, mills and meeting-houses," that would ultimately lead Mexicans to "simply melt into American society as they experienced the benefits of American civilization." Describing the "Mexican race" as "perfectly accustomed to being conquered," an 1847 New York Sun editorial echoed O'Sullivan by asserting that "the only new lesson we shall teach is that our victories will give liberty, safety, and prosperity to the vanquished.... To liberate and ennoble... not to enslave and debase-is our mission."
  • Cristina Beltrán Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy (2020) p 77