For many years in an order for an economy to prosper politically, socially or economically it must expand. Expansionism has been an enormously beneficial factor to the United States. A United States that started as colonies soon to become newly formed states. With these states came divided ideals and a soon to follow unification. The newly "United States" now had a mission this mission was Manifest Destiny, to eventually cover an area soon to span from one great ocean to another and Americans believed it was their God given right. The great expansion was to happen slowly adding territory time and time again, until needs or at least ideals were fulfilled. Expansionism showed many similarities to that of the earlier expansionism. Although differences still remained in the conquest for expansionism during this time period. In the early 19th century expansionism was somewhat due to Manifest Destiny but later to better the Nation's stand point.
Early expansion occurred to establish the very growing United States. Marveled be newly discovered wonders we set west to undiscovered lands. Once settled for years internal improvements were made. Improvements such as railways, canals, and roads were made to better the acquired land. However during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries the process was to take place all over again. As Josiah Strong states in Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, "The unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken Then the world will enter upon a new stage of its history- simply put this means once established, as the United States was, one must reach further to gain more ground. If you are not the one to gain that ground then someone or something else will. This follows the same principles as Manifest Destiny. We as a nation believed that the land west was to be ours, if not it was to belong to someone else.
