Was Manifest Destiny wrong, or was it our right as Americans to go from sea to shining sea?

There are two ways to look at the concept of Manifest Destiny. One way was very supportive of this policy while the other view felt it was wrong for us to follow this policy.

Manifest Destiny is a term that describes the growth and expansion of our country. There were people who believed it was our duty or destiny to spread from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and to control and develop this land. These people argued that it was part of G-d’s plan for this to happen. They believed our way of life was better than anybody else’s way of life. They argued that G-d put us here to spread our way of living.

Other people believed no group of people ever had a right to any area of land, especially if that land belonged to somebody else. They argued that is was wrong for us to take away the land on which the Native Americans lived. They believed we had no right to impose our way of living or our way of doing things on another group of people. They felt that it was wrong for the United States to expand at the expense of other countries or other groups of people.