John Belohlavek

It happens that men, nations, races, may, must, will perish
before us. That is inevitable. There can be no change
for the better save at the expense of that which is.
Out of decay springs fresh life.

Caleb Cushing

Newburyport, April 23, 1857

This harsh, even brutal, vision of American expansion is not the view of a
turn-of-the-century social Darwinian, but that of an antebellum Massachu-
setts politician, diplomat, reformer, and intellectual, Caleb Cushing. In a
nation that prides itself on its domestic social liberalism-including pro-
gressive attitudes toward race, class, and gender--and its international dem-
ocratic mission, Cushing's words rub raw our historical consciences. We
have long exulted and agonized over the impact of "manifest destiny," the
divinely ordained imprimatur that empowered the United States to expand
across the continent. More recently, scholars such as Thomas Hietala and
Reginald Horsman have sought to redefine America's destiny. Hietala con-

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