John L. O'Sullivan

John Louis O'Sullivan (November 15, 1813 – March 24, 1895) was an American columnist, editor, and diplomat who is known for coining the iconic phrase "manifest destiny" in 1845, in order to promote the annexation of Texas and the Oregon Country into the United States. O'Sullivan was an influential political writer and advocate for the Democratic Party at the time, who also served as U.S. minister to Portugal during the administration of President Franklin Pierce (1853–1857) and President James Buchanan (1857-1861). <ref>Johannsen, Robert W. "The Meaning of Manifest Destiny", in Sam W. Hayes and Christopher Morris, eds., Manifest Destiny and Empire: American Antebellum Expansionism. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. Template:ISBN.</ref>

Early life and education

John Louis O'Sullivan, born on November 15, 1813, was the son of Irishman John Thomas O'Sullivan, an American diplomat and sea captain, and Mary Rowly, a genteel Englishwoman. According to legend, he was born at sea on a British warship off the coast of Gibraltar.<ref name="Widmer" /> O'Sullivan's father was a naturalized US citizen and had served as US Consul to the Barbary States.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

O'Sullivan enrolled at Columbia College in New York city at the age of 14. He graduated in 1831. In 1834, he received a Masters of Arts and became a lawyer.<ref name="Widmer">Template:Cite news</ref>

Career

In 1837, he founded and edited The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, based in Washington. It espoused the more radical forms of Jacksonian Democracy and the cause of a democratic, American literature. It published some of the most prominent American writers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Greenleaf Whittier, William Cullen Bryant, and Walt Whitman. O'Sullivan was an aggressive reformer in the New York State Legislature, where he led the unsuccessful movement to abolish capital punishment. By 1846, investors were dissatisfied with his poor management, and he lost control of his magazine.<ref>Robert D. Sampson. "O'Sullivan, John Louis" American National Biography Online Feb. 2000</ref>

O'Sullivan opposed the coming of the American Civil War, hoping that a peaceful solution, or a peaceful separation of North and South, could be resolved. In Europe when the war began, O'Sullivan became an active supporter of the Confederate States of America; he may have been on the Confederate payroll at some point. O'Sullivan wrote a number of pamphlets promoting the Confederate cause, arguing that the presidency had become too powerful and that states' rights needed to be protected against encroachment by the central government. Although he had earlier supported the "free soil" movement, he now defended the institution of slavery, writing that blacks and whites could not live together in harmony. His activities greatly disappointed some of his old friends, including Hawthorne. Towards the end of the Civil War, O'Sullivan appealed to his southern "comrades in arms" to burn Richmond, stating "let every man set fire to his own house".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

• Young America Movement

References

<references/>

Further reading

• Sampson, Robert D. "O'Sullivan, John Louis" American National Biography Online Feb. 2000. Access Oct 12 2015
• Sampson, Robert D. John L. O'Sullivan and His Times. (Kent State University Press, 2003) online
• Scholnick, Robert J, "Extermination and Democracy: O'Sullivan, the Democratic Review, and Empire, 1837—1840." American Periodicals (2005) 15#2: 123–141.online
• Widmer, Edward L. Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. (excerpt)
• Letters and Literary Memorials of Samuel J. Tilden – Volume 1 – Edited by John Bigelow

External links

• "The Democratic Principle" Template:Webarchive, mission statement from the first issue (1837) of the Democratic Review, called by Robert D. Sampson "a classic statement of romantic Jacksonian Democracy"
• "The Great Nation of Futurity": The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, November 1839, Volume VI, No. XXIII, pp. 426–430, editorial in which O'Sullivan touched upon many themes of manifest destiny.
• "Annexation" Template:Webarchive: The July–August 1845 editorial in which the phrase "Manifest Destiny" first appeared
• Template:Find a Grave