To what extent did natinalisimplay a role in the formulattion and application of U.S. foreign policy?

After America had finally started to take off it was time to expand the borders of the United States. During this time Territorial expansion became a major theme in America. This is due to economic, political and cultural reasons.This also brought Ideologies that supported territorial expansion, which also Produced the War Hawks. One of the expansions having to do with British Canada worsened relations between the two which ended with the beginning of the war of 1812.After the war ended the Monroe Doctrine was created to keep the European powers from claiming any territory in the western hemisphere.Expansions also force native Americans out of there homes and threaten the Mexicans which started the Mexican War. Nationalism played a role in the formulation and application of U.S. Foreign Policy to the extent it formed ideologies and created hostilities between other countries.This is due Territorial expansion , Manifest destiny and War Hawks , and the wars between the British and Mexicans

Territorial acquisitions, began with American independence. After the Revolutionary war the U.S. Border to Mississippi. Over the course of the next 134 years, the United States gradually added territory, through purchase, treaties, and as the result of wars, until in 1917 it reached the size it is today. In 1803 Jefferson Purchased Louisiana from France. The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819 with Spain resulted in Spain's cession of East Florida.In 1842 the Webster-Ashburton treaty when the U.S. and Britain settled the Canada boundary. President John Tyler signed a treaty of annexation with Texas in April 1844. After James Polk, a strong supporter of territorial expansion, won the presidency, but before he took office, Congress approved the annexation of Texas on February 28, 1845. On December 29, 1845, Texas became the 28th state. Mexican Cession lands were a product of the Mexican-American War and the subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed February 2, 1848. In this treaty, Mexico gave the U.S. parts of what is Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming, and the whole of California, Nevada and Utah and recognized the Rio Grande as Texas' Southern border.


Manifest Destiny was a phrase that expressed the idea that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean" Sea from shining sea". It has also been used to justify other territorial acquisitions. Though this was great for the Americans manifest destiny had serious consequences for Native American. It was bad because territorial expansion usually meant the inhabiting of Native American land. Further more it also was opening for Americans to convert the "Savages" in to Christians.

War Hawk is a term originally used to describe a member of the government House of Representatives of the Twelfth Congress of the United States who promoted waging war against Great Britain in the War of 1812. The War Hawks in the Twelfth Congress were mostly Democratic-Republicans who were primarily from southern and western states.War Hawks from the western states also believed that the British were instigating American Indians on the frontier to attack American settlements.War Hawks called for an invasion of British Canada to punish Britain and end this threat. Their opponents were the new England federalist who were Anglophiles. they believed a war would hurt commercial interest.


The War of 1812 was fought between the United States of America and Britain.America declared war on Britain for a number of reasons , one was outrage at the impressment of thousands of American sailors. Another reason is because the Americans though that the British was the cause of Indian uprisings.The British had many more ships then the united stated but had no effect because the had most of their ships fighting the french.Though the Americans could not capture Canada they still had success in the great lakes. During the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key, accompanied by the American Prisoner Exchange Agent Colonel John Stuart Skinner, dined aboard the British ship HMS Tonnant, as the guests of three British officers As a result of this, Key was unable to do anything but watch the bombarding of the American forces at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore. Key was inspired to write a poem describing his experience. Entitled "The Defense of Fort McHenry", it has become better known as "The Star Spangled Banner".On December 24, 1814, diplomats from the two countries, meeting in Ghent, signed the Treaty of Ghent. Unfortunately because of the long endeavor to notify both armies about the treaty.Unaware of the peace, Jackson's forces moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, in late 1814 to defend against a large-scale British invasion. Jackson decisively defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8.


The Monroe Doctrine is a U.S. doctrine which, on December 2, 1823, proclaimed that European powers would no longer colonize or interfere with the affairs of the newly independent nations of the Americas. The Monroe Doctrine states three major ideas, with one more added by President Theodore Roosevelt. First, it conveys that European countries cannot colonize in any of the Americas North, Central, or South as well as islands of the Caribbean which were considered to be a part of the Americas. Second, it enforces Washington's rule of foreign policy, in which the U.S. will only be involved in European affairs if America's rights are disturbed. Third, the U.S. will consider any attempt at colonization a threat to its national security. At first historians believed it was a defensive strategy . They also say that it was a expression of Manifest Destiny.


The Mexican-American War was an armed military conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas. In 1845, President Polk sent diplomat John Slidell to Mexico City in an attempt to purchase Mexico's Alta California and Santa Fé de Nuevo México territories. unfourtunetly it didnt go polks way. His message to Congress on May 11, 1846 stated that Mexico had "invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil." A joint session of Congress approved the declaration of war, with southern Democrats in strong support because they saw the annexation of Mexico as an opportunity to increase the number of slave states. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848 by American diplomat Nicholas Trist, ended the war and gave the U.S. undisputed control of Texas, established the U.S.-Mexican border of the Rio Grande River, and ceded to the United States the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. In return, Mexico received US $15,000,000, . The U.S. also agreed to assume $3.25 million in debts that the Mexican government owed to U.S. citizens.


Ultimately Nationalism ran the United States till the Civil War. It created Manifest Destiny and helped territorial expansion succeed. More over it helped make the united states what it is today. Lastly it even gave our country its own national anthem. Which recognizes the state of the new country during this the early nineteenth century. Nationalism is still a way of life for our country and it is still " from sea to shining sea".