Many Americans believed that God blessed the growth of American nation and even demanded of them to actively work on it. Since they were sure of their cultural and racial superiority, they felt that their destiny was to spread their rule around and enlighten the nations that were not so lucky. The settlers firmly believed in the virtue of American people and the mission to impose their virtuous mainly Puritan way of life on everybody else. This rhetorical background served to explain the acquisition of territories or reasons to go to war, such as the war with Mexico in 1840s.
Outside the United States, the effects of manifest destiny were being seen in U.S. intervention in the Spanish-American war when United States ceded the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam to the U.S. This was an expansion of U.S. territory as colonies rather than states and was another demonstration of growing U.S. imperialism. Imperialism is the policy in which stronger nations extend their economic, political, or military control over weaker territories. Americans had sought to expand the size of their nation and the 19th century they extended their control toward the Pacific Ocean. Imperialism in America at the time was a good thing. America was indeed overproducing. So in order to improve the economy Government believed that if the country expanded this would create a better market and improve the economy all around. It