Summary

By the 1830s, the United States was a society on the move and under pressure. People from throughout Europe were flooding American shores and settlers continued their westward movement. Social change contributed to social ills and many citizens became involved in reform movements ranging from abolitionism to education reform. At the same time, America's foreign policy became increasingly aggressive. Many believed that it was our "manifest destiny" to spread from "sea to shining sea." Expansion, however, was not without its costs and as occurs so often in US history, those costs exposed racial and ethnic tensions.