Can the United States Justify the Civil War The definition of Manifest Destiny reads as: "The belief in the 1840's in the inevitable territorial expansion of the United States, especially as advocated by southern slaveholders who wished to extend slavery into new territories." This explanation was transcribed from the World Book Encyclopedia's dictionary. It is directly evident that from this unbiased statement we can trace the first uprising of a separate group of people yearning to break the newly formed bond of the great United States. Before and during the Mexican War, the people