Did Americans who supported the idea of Manifest Destiny during the 1800's name the idea "Manifest Destiny"? Or is the term an invention of later historians to organize American political thought?
The term "Manifest Destiny" was first used by John O'Sullivan first in an 1844 pamphlet titled "annexation" and then in the New York Democratic Review in February 1845. Whig opponents of Manifest Destiny locked onto it as a catchphrase (similar to how the term Obamacare is currently used) The use of the catchphrase by opponents actually spread it and the concept of Manifest Destiny (the US expansion to the Pacific) and the term Manifest Destiny became well entwined by late 1846.