causes of american imperialism essay

American Imperialism Essay

Introduction, criticism of imperialism, outcome of the policy in the twentieth century, reference list.

Imperialism is the establishment of political and economic dominance over other nations. Many nations took part in colonial empires including the U.S. during the nineteenth century. America, on its own, is not supposed to be an empire. It was a rebel colony initially being the first system to dispose British rule.

Imperialism was first practiced in Samoa which motivated the rest of the America. The United States had positive motives when they got involved in the task. Their reason for participation was to control economy and compete with other industrialized nations as well as to maintain their reputation in other countries. Another motive was to obtain a constant market for gainful investments. There was also the religious motivation with the desire to introduce Christianity to foreign and traditional cultures (Streich, 2009, p.1).

Americans viewed imperialism as a way of uplifting the uncivilized people in the world in a moral way. Production was very high and America needed to protect its expanding foreign markets. Hawaii had been dominated by Americans way before the war. America had already started investing in Cuba’s natural resources while Hawaii’s best ports, already under America’s control, was used to access China for efficient trading. The state’s secretary pressured Europeans to stop blocking America’s participation in China’s trade.

America had a war with Spain in 1898 which after its conclusion, America was given the ownership of Cuba, Philippines and Puerto Rico which were previous possessions of Spain. America wanted an efficient and easier access of its navy to the Pacific and the Caribbean oceans.

A negotiation between American officials and Britain confirmed the America’s domination and regulation over the canal. A French canal company official gave Americans a central section of Panama to build the canal. He also gave America rights to take more land or use troops on Panama when necessary.

The Panamanians were to be given their independence only if they accepted the treaty, but they refused to sign it so the Americans took ownership of the canal region (Bella, 2003, p.1). The United States therefore destroyed all European empires after taking over Cuba and Philippines from Spain.

They built a navy ready for European in case they became troublesome or destabilized. In 1939 to 1945, the then American president, Roosevelt, extracted British colonies including the Caribbean and West Africa and in exchange He offered assistance to Britain during war. After years after the World War II, America was already exercising authority and power in Belgian Congo which was previously dominated by Britain, and French Indochina (Selfa, 1999, p.1).

Despite the fact that many Americans believed in overseas expansion, many other Americans opposed the move. They formed the American anti-imperialism league in 1899. However, their campaigns were not successful. The league argued that the imperialism policy was intimidating to personal liberty.

They argued that all human races no matter the color have the right to live and pursue happiness at all times. The group maintained that the government should obtain their rightful powers from the citizen’s consent. They insisted that forced control is criminal assault and lack of devotion to government principles.

The league firmly condemned the national administration in the Philippines and demanded an immediate stop to the discrimination against human liberty. They required Spain to initiate the process since it was one of the first countries to practice imperialism. They had the aim of forming a congress that would officially inform the Philippines of America’s intentions to grant them their rightful independence.

The group also disapproved strongly the American soldiers for being involved in an unjust war. Their arguments were based on the fact that the United States had always detested international laws which allowed forceful control o f the weak by the strong party. The obligation of nation’s citizens to support its government during hazardous moments did not fit applicably for this situation of imperialism (Halsall, 1997, p.1).

An obvious outcome is America now stretches from Atlanta the Pacific. With this entire region where there are no import and export tax barriers, it has been quite easy for America to increase its per capita. However, America was left with the heritage of oppression which is no different from slavery.

However, some positive effects have been felt especially through the Panama Canal that was constructed then which has helped improve the region’s economy. Transportation and communication services were extensively improved. Uncivilized areas got the opportunity of adopting higher livelihood values. The countries that were colonized were affected negatively as well especially in the economic sector where most of the key and productive elements are up to date owned or controlled by foreign economic agencies.

Imperialism can never be a good practice no matter the circumstances. It does not matter whether the imperialistic country has good intentions or not. If any nation at all feels the need to offer help to another country, it should do so in a better way and certainly not by controlling the other depriving them of their freedom and rights. Assistance can be offered as ideas and policies that the country should implement on its own depending on what suits the situation it is faced with.

Bella, R. (2003). Imperialism, American style . Web.

Halsall, P. (1997). American Anti-Imperialist League . Web.

Selfa, L. (1999). U.S. Imperialism: A Century of Slaughter . Web.

Streich, M. (2009). American Imperialism in the 1890s. Web.

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The origins of american imperialism: primary sources, 1. foreign policy during reconstruction.

In 1877, the United States lacked the tools—and the desire—to establish a strong position in international affairs. During Reconstruction, the federal government focused on reincorporating the former Confederacy into the Union and consolidating control over the Western territories (and their native inhabitants). As a result, it did not take any significant initiative in foreign affairs.

did you know The U.S. Navy introduced its first all-steel, triple-hulled steamship in 1883, but only 13 of these ships had been launched by 1890.

The foreign policy objectives of the United States following the Civil War were modest and sporadically pursued. Secretary of State William Seward , who held that position from 1861 through 1869, sought to extend political and commercial influence in two key regions:

people to know William Seward Secretary of state from 1861 to 1869, who sought to extend American political and commercial influence abroad and was responsible for the acquisition of Alaska, also known as “ Seward’s folly ,” in 1867.

Although many in the press mocked the acquisition of Alaska as “Seward’s folly,” the purchase furthered America’s strategic ambitions in the Pacific.

term to know Seward’s Folly The pejorative name given by the press to Secretary of State Seward’s acquisition of Alaska in 1867.

Seward was particularly interested in the Aleutian Islands, the long chain of islands that extends southwest from the Alaskan mainland, believing that they could host valuable fueling stations for American merchant shipping in the Pacific. Unbeknownst to Seward, the purchase also gave the United States access to Alaska’s rich mineral resources, including the gold that triggered the Klondike Gold Rush at the end of the 19th century.

2. Reasons for Imperial Expansion

The late 19th century, particularly the 1890s, was a turning point in the development of American imperialism , because of the actions of two key groups.

term to know Imperialism The policy of one nation acquiring the territory and resources of another through diplomacy, economic influence, or military force.

The most important of these groups was the American business community. As the United States began to industrialize in the 1870s, commercial interests called for the country to implement an imperial foreign policy. Businessmen argued that the United States would gain access to international markets for export, and receive better prices on raw materials, by forging new and stronger ties overseas.

As a result of industrialization, American exports to other nations skyrocketed between the Civil War and 1900.

brainstorm Recall what you have learned about American consumerism during the Gilded Age. How might one use the image above to argue that consumerism fueled American imperialism and globalization?

Imports also increased substantially during this period.

By the 1890s, a number of American entrepreneurs owned businesses or plantations in Latin America and the Pacific. For example, American businessmen owned fruit plantations in Hawaii and sugar plantations in Cuba. Others invested in mining and railroad construction ventures in Mexico and other Latin American nations. Increased investment in these countries also increased U.S. interest in foreign affairs. The other major group—besides the business community—that promoted American Imperialism consisted of Protestant leaders and missionaries. They sought to spread the democratic and Christian influence of the United States abroad.

Many American missionaries were motivated by a combination of ideologies and reform impulses associated with the Gilded Age. These included social Darwinism and the social gospel .

terms to know Social Darwinism The theory that human societies evolved much like a natural organism, wherein some individuals succeeded because of inherent racial and ethnic traits or through their ability to adapt. Social Gospel The belief that churches should be as concerned about the conditions of people in the secular world as they are with their afterlife.

Works like Reverend Josiah Strong’s Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (1885) encouraged Protestant missionaries to spread the gospel throughout the world, as in the following excerpt:

Reverend Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis “. . . It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is training the Anglo-Saxon race for an hour sure to come in the world’s future. Heretofore there has always been in the history of the world a comparatively unoccupied land westward, into which the crowded countries of the East have poured their surplus populations. But the widening waves of migration, which millenniums ago rolled east and west from the valley of the Euphrates, meet today on our Pacific coast. There are no more new worlds . . . . The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history—the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. Long before the thousand millions are here, the might centrifugal tendency, inherent in this stock and strengthened in the United States, will assert itself. Then this race of unequaled energy, with all the majesty of numbers and the might of wealth behind it—the representative, let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization—having developed peculiarly aggressive traits calculated to impress its institutions upon mankind, will spread itself over the earth.”

think about it Why does Strong encourage American Protestant missionaries to spread the gospel throughout the world?

A number of religious leaders and reformers joined Strong in his cause, believing that the expansion of missionary work would not only benefit people around the world but also invigorate American democracy.

Many Protestant sects formed missionary societies that extended their reach into Latin America and Asia. Led by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and similar organizations, American missionaries conflated Christian ethics with American virtues. They spent as much of their time advocating American civilization as they did teaching the Bible.

did you know The expansion of missionary work abroad provided opportunities to American women. By 1890, over 60% of the nation’s foreign missionaries were women.

In keeping with the social gospel, American missionaries wanted to help people in less industrialized nations to achieve a higher standard of living. However, the influence of social Darwinism led them to assume that, without their guidance and assistance, people of non-White races were doomed to a life of poverty and ignorance. Most American missionaries believed that White Americans, and the Anglo-Saxon race they represented, were mentally superior to all others. As Christians, they were required to uplift the inferior races. This view was referred to by British writer Rudyard Kipling as “ the White man’s burden .”

term to know The White Man’s Burden The belief that Anglo-Saxons owed a debt of stewardship and assistance to people of other, inferior races to help them raise their standard of living.

3. The Plan for Empire

The efforts of businesses, missionaries, and reformers supported an expanded American foreign policy in the early 1890s.

American intellectuals, most notably historian Frederick Jackson Turner and naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan , justified the goals of American imperialism and suggested the ways in which they could be accomplished. Turner’s frontier thesis , which he presented at the 1893 meeting of the American Historical Association, reflected the concern felt by many American intellectuals that the lack of a frontier in the West could mean the end of American democracy.

people to know Frederick Jackson Turner Late-19th-century historian whose “frontier thesis” argued for the significance of the frontier and expansion to the development of democracy and American identity. Alfred Thayer Mahan American naval strategist whose 1890 book The Influence of Seapower Upon History articulated a guide through which the United States could achieve an overseas empire and was influential in American foreign policy at the turn of the 20th century.

term to know Frontier Thesis A theory, developed by Frederick Jackson Turner, that proposed that the growth of American democracy depended on an expanding frontier.

Turner concluded that “the demands for a vigorous foreign policy, for an interoceanic canal, for a revival of our power upon our seas, and for the extension of American influence to outlying islands and adjoining countries are indications that the forces (of expansion) will continue.” A foreign policy based on this theory would enable American businesses to find new markets. Turner also encouraged the United States to develop outlets for domestic population growth—for American settlement or to accommodate immigrants.

In 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s guide to how the United States could successfully build an empire, The Influence of Seapower Upon History , was published.

term to know The Influence of Seapower Upon History A book written by naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, which outlines the ways in which a strong navy would help the United States acquire an empire.

Mahan’s book provided three strategies for the United States to pursue in constructing and maintaining an empire:

1. The construction of a larger, stronger, and more powerful navy 2. The acquisition of territory in Latin America and the Pacific for naval bases and refueling stations did you know Mahan and naval officials referred to these bases as “coaling stations” because steamships were powered by coal.

3. The construction of a canal across the isthmus of Central America, which would decrease the time and expense necessary to move ships between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans

Shortly after Mahan’s book was published, the federal government passed the Naval Act of 1890, which set production levels for the creation of a modern naval fleet.

did you know By 1898, the U.S. Navy had reached an active fleet level of 160 vessels, 114 of which were built of steel.

At the same time, the United States consolidated its influence over strategic areas in the Pacific, particularly Hawaii. Although Hawaii was an independent nation, American businessmen exerted significant control over its sugar industry.

When Hawaii’s leader, Queen Liliuokalani, challenged the power of the American sugar companies, businessmen worked with the U.S. minister to Hawaii, John Stevens, to stage a revolt against her in 1893. Hawaii became an American protectorate, and Queen Liliuokalani could do little besides protest that her kingdom had been taken away from her.

did you know The United States annexed Hawaii in 1898.

The events in Hawaii made it clear that the United States was committed to an imperialist foreign policy and that it was willing to use force to achieve its goals.

summary During the late 19th century, the United States sought to expand its power and influence overseas, especially in pursuing strategic and economic opportunities in Latin America and the Pacific. Continued industrialization, which required raw materials and markets, helped fuel an imperialist foreign policy. The beliefs and efforts of Protestant missionaries, reformers, and intellectuals supported this policy. By the early 1890s, after the United States had expanded its naval power and acquired Hawaii as a protectorate, the framework for an American empire was in place.

Source: This tutorial curated and/or authored by Matthew Pearce, Ph.D with content adapted from Openstax “U.S. History”. access for free at openstax.org/details/books/us-history LICENSE: CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL

REFERENCES Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (1885) pp. 174-75 bit.ly/3Gj9am9

• The Greatest Department Store on Earth--And Every Day a Bargain Day | Author: J.S. Pughe | License: Public Domain

A theory, developed by Frederick Jackson Turner, that proposed that the growth of American democracy depended on an expanding frontier.

The policy of one nation acquiring the territory and resources of another through diplomacy, economic influence, or military force.

The pejorative name given by the press to Secretary of State Seward’s acquisition of Alaska in 1867.

The theory that human societies evolved much like a natural organism, wherein some individuals succeeded because of inherent racial and ethnic traits or through their ability to adapt.

The belief that churches should be as concerned about the conditions of people in the secular world as they are with their afterlife.

A book written by naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, which outlines the ways in which a strong navy would help the United States acquire an empire.

The belief that Anglo-Saxons owed a debt of stewardship and assistance to people of other, inferior races to help them raise their standard of living.

American naval strategist whose 1890 book The Influence of Seapower Upon History articulated a guide through which the United States could achieve an overseas empire and was influential in American foreign policy at the turn of the 20th century.

Late-19th-century historian whose “frontier thesis” argued for the significance of the frontier and expansion to the development of democracy and American identity.

Secretary of state from 1861 to 1869, who sought to extend American political and commercial influence abroad and was responsible for the acquisition of Alaska, also known as “Seward’s folly,” in 1867.

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19.4: Theodore Roosevelt and American Imperialism

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Under the leadership of President Theodore Roosevelt, the United States emerged from the nineteenth century with ambitious designs on global power through military might, territorial expansion, and economic influence. Though the Spanish-American War had begun under the administration of William McKinley, Roosevelt—the hero of San Juan Hill, assistant secretary of the navy, vice president, and president—was arguably the most visible and influential proponent of American imperialism at the turn of the century. Roosevelt’s emphasis on developing the American navy, and on Latin America as a key strategic area of U.S. foreign policy, would have long-term consequences.

In return for Roosevelt’s support of the Republican nominee, William McKinley, in the 1896 presidential election, McKinley appointed Roosevelt as assistant secretary of the navy. The head of the department, John Long, had a competent but lackadaisical managerial style that allowed Roosevelt a great deal of freedom that Roosevelt used to network with such luminaries as military theorists Alfred Thayer Mahan and naval officer George Dewey and politicians such as Henry Cabot Lodge and William Howard Taft. During his tenure he oversaw the construction of new battleships and the implementation of new technology and laid the groundwork for new shipyards, all with the goal of projecting America’s power across the oceans. Roosevelt wanted to expand American influence. For instance, he advocated for the annexation of Hawaii for several reasons: it was within the American sphere of influence, it would deny Japanese expansion and limit potential threats to the West Coast, it had an excellent port for battleships at Pearl Harbor, and it would act as a fueling station on the way to pivotal markets in Asia. 16

Roosevelt, after winning headlines in the war, ran as vice president under McKinley and rose to the presidency after McKinley’s assassination by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901. Among his many interventions in American life, Roosevelt acted with vigor to expand the military, bolstering naval power especially, to protect and promote American interests abroad. This included the construction of eleven battleships between 1904 and 1907. Alfred Thayer Mahan’s naval theories, described in his The Influence of Sea Power upon History , influenced Roosevelt a great deal. In contrast to theories that advocated for commerce raiding, coastal defense, and small “brown water” ships, the imperative to control the sea required battleships and a “blue water” navy that could engage and win decisive battles with rival fleets. As president, Roosevelt continued the policies he established as assistant secretary of the navy and expanded the U.S. fleet. The mission of the Great White Fleet, sixteen all-white battleships that sailed around the world between 1907 and 1909, exemplified America’s new power. 17

Roosevelt insisted that the “big stick” and the persuasive power of the U.S. military could ensure U.S. hegemony over strategically important regions in the Western Hemisphere. The United States used military intervention in various circumstances to further its objectives, but it did not have the ability or the inclination to militarily impose its will on the entirety of South and Central America. The United States therefore more often used informal methods of empire, such as so-called dollar diplomacy, to assert dominance over the hemisphere.

The United States actively intervened again and again in Latin America. Throughout his time in office, Roosevelt exerted U.S. control over Cuba (even after it gained formal independence in 1902) and Puerto Rico, and he deployed naval forces to ensure Panama’s independence from Colombia in 1901 in order to acquire a U.S. Canal Zone. Furthermore, Roosevelt pronounced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, proclaiming U.S. police power in the Caribbean. As articulated by President James Monroe in his annual address to Congress in 1823, the United States would treat any military intervention in Latin America by a European power as a threat to American security. Roosevelt reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine and expanded it by declaring that the United States had the right to preemptive action through intervention in any Latin American nation in order to correct administrative and fiscal deficiencies. 18

Roosevelt’s policy justified numerous and repeated police actions in “dysfunctional” Caribbean and Latin American countries by U.S. Marines and naval forces and enabled the founding of the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This approach is sometimes referred to as gunboat diplomacy, wherein naval forces and Marines land in a national capital to protect American and Western personnel, temporarily seize control of the government, and dictate policies friendly to American business, such as the repayment of foreign loans. For example, in 1905 Roosevelt sent the Marines to occupy the Dominican Republic and established financial supervision over the Dominican government. Imperialists often framed such actions as almost humanitarian. They celebrated white Anglo-Saxon societies such as those found in the United States and the British Empire as advanced practitioners of nation-building and civilization, helping to uplift debtor nations in Latin America that lacked the manly qualities of discipline and self-control. Roosevelt, for instance, preached that it was the “manly duty” of the United States to exercise an international police power in the Caribbean and to spread the benefits of Anglo-Saxon civilization to inferior states populated by inferior peoples. The president’s language, for instance, contrasted debtor nations’ “impotence” with the United States’ civilizing influence, belying new ideas that associated self-restraint and social stability with Anglo-Saxon manliness. 19

Dollar diplomacy offered a less costly method of empire and avoided the troubles of military occupation. Washington worked with bankers to provide loans to Latin American nations in exchange for some level of control over their national fiscal affairs. Roosevelt first implemented dollar diplomacy on a vast scale, while Presidents Taft and Wilson continued the practice in various forms during their own administrations. All confronted instability in Latin America. Rising debts to European and American bankers allowed for the inroads of modern life but destabilized much of the region. Bankers, beginning with financial houses in London and New York, saw Latin America as an opportunity for investment. Lenders took advantage of the region’s newly formed governments’ need for cash and exacted punishing interest rates on massive loans, which were then sold off in pieces on the secondary bond market. American economic interests were now closely aligned with the region but also further undermined by the chronic instability of the region’s newly formed governments, which were often plagued by mismanagement, civil wars, and military coups in the decades following their independence. Turnover in regimes interfered with the repayment of loans, as new governments often repudiated the national debt or forced a renegotiation with suddenly powerless lenders. 20

Creditors could not force settlements of loans until they successfully lobbied their own governments to get involved and forcibly collect debts. The Roosevelt administration did not want to deny the Europeans’ rightful demands of repayment of debt, but it also did not want to encourage European policies of conquest in the hemisphere as part of that debt collection. U.S. policy makers and military strategists within the Roosevelt administration determined that this European practice of military intervention posed a serious threat to American interests in the region. Roosevelt reasoned that the United States must create and maintain fiscal and political stability within strategically important nations in Latin America, particularly those affecting routes to and from the proposed Panama Canal. As a result, U.S. policy makers considered intervention in places like Cuba and the Dominican Republic a necessity to ensure security around the region. 21

The Monroe Doctrine provided the Roosevelt administration with a diplomatic and international legal tradition through which it could assert a U.S. right and obligation to intervene in the hemisphere. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine asserted that the United States wished to promote stable, prosperous states in Latin America that could live up to their political and financial obligations. Roosevelt declared that “wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may finally require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the United States cannot ignore this duty.” 22 President Monroe declared what Europeans could not do in the Western Hemisphere; Roosevelt inverted his doctrine to legitimize direct U.S. intervention in the region. 23

Though aggressive and bellicose, Roosevelt did not necessarily advocate expansion by military force. In fact, the president insisted that in dealings with the Latin American nations, he did not seek national glory or expansion of territory and believed that war or intervention should be a last resort when resolving conflicts with problematic governments. According to Roosevelt, such actions were necessary to maintain “order and civilization.” 24 Then again, Roosevelt certainly believed in using military power to protect national interests and spheres of influence when absolutely necessary. He also believed that the American sphere included not only Hawaii and the Caribbean but also much of the Pacific. When Japanese victories over Russia threatened the regional balance of power, he sponsored peace talks between Russian and Japanese leaders, earning him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.

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History Resources

Guided Readings: Imperialism and the Spanish-American War

By steven mintz.

Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. . . . The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. . . . The frontier promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people. . . . The legislation which most developed the powers of the national government, and played the largest part in its activity, was conditioned on the frontier. . . . The pioneer needed the goods of the coast, and so the grand series of internal improvement and railroad legislation began, with potent nationalizing effects. . . . But the most important effect of the frontier has been in the promotion of democracy here and in Europe. As has been pointed out, the frontier is productive of individualism. . . . It produces antipathy to control, and particularly to any direct control. . . . The frontier states that came into the Union in the first quarter of a century of its existence came in with democratic suffrage provisions, and had reactive effects of the highest importance upon the older states. . . .

To the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness, that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients. . . . What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.

—Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” 1893, Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin 41 (Madison, 1894): 79–112

The two great needs of mankind, that all men may be lifted up into the light of the highest Christian civilization, are, first, a pure, spiritual Christianity, and, second, civil liberty. . . . It follows, then, that the Anglo-Saxon, as the great representative of these two ideas, the depositary of these two greatest blessings, sustains peculiar relations to the world’s future, is divinely commissioned to be, in a peculiar sense, his brother’s keeper.

—Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (New York, 1885), pp. 161

God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! . . . He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. . . . He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world.

—Senator Albert J. Beveridge, January 9, 1900, 56 Congressional Record 704–12

The West Indies drift toward us, the Republic of Mexico hardly longer has an independent life. . . . With the completion of the Panama Canal all Central America will become a part of our system. We have expanded into Asia, we have attracted the fragments of the Spanish dominions, and reaching out into China we have checked the advance of Russia and Germany. . . . The United States will outweigh any single empire, if not all empires combined. The whole world will pay her tribute.

—Brooks Adams, The New Empire (New York, 1902), pp. 208–209

I transmit to the Senate . . . [an addition to the treaty for] the annexation of the Dominican Republic to the United States. . . . I feel an unusual anxiety for the ratification of this treaty, because I believe it will redound greatly to the glory of the two countries interested, to civilization, and to the extirpation of the institution of slavery. . . . The acquisition of San Domingo is desirable because of its geographical position. It commands the entrance to the Caribbean Sea and the Isthmus transit of commerce. It possesses the richest soil, best and most capacious harbors, most salubrious climate, and the most valuable products of the forests, mine, and soil of any of the West India Islands.

—Message from President Ulysses S. Grant to the US Senate, May 31, 1870, on a treaty of annexation of the Dominican Republic in James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897 , vol. 7 (1899), p. 61

The island of San Domingo, situated in tropical waters, and occupied by another race, of another color, never can become a permanent possession of the United States. You may seize it by force of arms or by diplomacy, where a naval squadron does more than the minister; but the enforced jurisdiction cannot endure. Already by a higher statute is that island set apart to the colored race. . . . I protest against this legislation as another stage in a drama of blood. I protest against it in the name of Justice outraged by violence, in the name of Humanity insulted, in the name of the weak trodden down, in the name of Peace imperilled, and in the name of the African race, whose first effort at Independence is rudely assailed.

—Senator Charles Sumner’s response to President Ulysses S. Grant, 1870, in The Works of Charles Sumner , vol. 15 (Boston, 1883), pp. 123–124

First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing [in Cuba], and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate. . . .

Second. We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection and indemnity for life and property. . . . Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island.

—President William McKinley’s call for war against Spain, April 11, 1898, in James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897 , vol. 10 (1899), p. 147

When next I realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. . . . I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance. . . . And one night late it came to me this way. . . . (1) That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.

—President William McKinley on the Philippines, published in the Christian Advocate , January 22, 1903, quoted in Charles S. Olcott, The Life of William McKinley , vol. 2 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 110–111

Thus . . . I have shown that duty and interest alike, duty of the highest kind and interest of the highest and best kind, impose upon us the retention of the Philippines, the development of the islands, and the expansion of our Eastern commerce.

—Henry Cabot Lodge, March 7, 1900, 33  Congressional Record  (1900), 2629

The Opposition tells us that we ought not to govern a people without their consent. I answer, The rule of liberty that all just government derives its authority from the consent of the governed, applies only to those who are capable of self-government. We govern the Indians without their consent, we govern our territories without their consent, we govern our children without their consent. . . . Would not the people of the Philippines prefer the just, humane, civilizing government of this Republic to the savage, bloody rule of pillage and extortion from which we have rescued them?

—Senator Albert J. Beveridge, “March of the Flag” Campaign Speech, September 16, 1898, in Albert J. Beveridge, The Meaning of the Times and Other Speeches (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1908), p. 49

A self-governing state cannot accept sovereignty over an unwilling people. The United States cannot act upon the ancient heresy that might makes right.

—Platform of the Anti-Imperialist League, October 7, 1899, in Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz , vol. 6, ed. Frederic Bancroft (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), p. 77n1

If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.

—Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life” Speech, April 10, 1899, in The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906), pp. 21–22

There is a homely old adage which runs: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” If the American Nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep at a pitch of the highest training, a thoroughly efficient Navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Address at Chicago, Illinois, April 2, 1903, Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division

It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. . . . Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention . . . [and] force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Annual Message to Congress, 1904, House Records HR 58A-K2; Records of the US House of Representatives; Record Group 233; Center for Legislative Archives; National Archives

Questions for Discussion

• What does Frederick Jackson Turner believe was the significance of the frontier in American history? What might be the implications of the closing of the frontier?
• What did proponents of American expansion argue? How did anti-imperialists respond to their arguments?
• What, in your view, were the relative importance of economic interest, ideology, and strategic interest in encouraging American imperialism?

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American Imperialism (1866-1913)

American Imperialism of the late 19th and early 20th century, an extension of the doctrine of Manifest Destany, saw the expansion of America’s sphere of influence and control into Central America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

The Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War would be the first war the United States would fight overseas, involving campaigns both in Cuba in the Caribbean and the Philippines in the Pacific.

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The origins of american imperialism: an interview with stephen kinzer.

Robin Lindley is a Seattle-based writer and attorney, and the features editor of the History News Network (hnn.us). His articles have appeared in HNN, Crosscut, Salon, Real Change, Documentary, Writer’s Chronicle, Billmoyers.com, Huffington Post, AlterNet, and others. He has a special interest in the history of conflict and human rights. His email: [email protected].

In 1898, the United States won a quick victory in the Spanish American War and liberated Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam from Spanish colonial rule. But the war sparked the greatest foreign policy debate in American history as best minds of the age considered whether the United States should grab, “civilize,” and dominate foreign lands or leave the people of those countries to rule themselves.

Expansionists led by Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge with the help of news baron William Randolph Hearst ultimately won the argument then, but a closely divided nation questioned the new imperialism as influential thinkers including Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, Jane Addams, Samuel Gompers, and Andrew Carnegie warned against foreign intervention and cited the terrible consequences of European empire, including the brutalizing of colonial subjects.

And it was a time when the United States forces evolved from liberators to occupiers who crushed the independence movement in the horrific Philippine American War (1899-1902), leaving over one hundred thousand Filipinos dead—mostly civilians—in a conflict fueled by a sense of American superiority and divine exceptionalism that presaged our future wars of intervention in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Award-winning foreign correspondent and expert on foreign policy Stephen Kinzer chronicles this overlooked history in his new book The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire (Henry Holt & Company). He covers the raging debate in detail over intervention based on extensive research of official documents, letters, diaries, and other resources. He stresses how this debate erupted on the role of the U.S. in the world and dominated news and discussions at the turn of the twentieth century.

Mr. Kinzer’s book appears at a time when America is again examining its role in the world, and the issues argued in this forgotten history are still relevant today—although these concerns likely will not garner anywhere near the wide attention they received almost 120 years ago.

The title of the book, The True Flag , comes from a speech by prominent anti-imperialist Carl Schurz, a German immigrant who served as a Union general, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of the Interior:

Let us raise the flag of our country—not as an emblem of reckless adventure and greedy conquest, of betrayed professions and broken pledges, of criminal aggressions and arbitrary rule over subject populations—but the old, the true flag, the flag of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the flag of government of, for, and by the people, the flag of national faith held sacred and of national honor unsullied, the flag of human rights and of good example to all nations, the flag of true civilization, peace, and good will to all men.

In his study of this period, Mr. Kinzer demonstrates the dangers and folly of a foreign policy of violent intervention and domination.

Mr. Kinzer, an award-winning journalist, worked as The   New York Times ’s bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua and as  The   Boston Globe ’s Latin America correspondent. His other books include The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War; Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future ; A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It ; Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua ; Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq ;  All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror ; Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds ; and Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala , with Stephen Schlesinger. Mr. Kinzer also serves as a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and writes a column on world affairs for  The Boston Globe .

Mr. Kinzer talked about The True Flag by telephone from his office in Boston.

Robin Lindley: You’ve written widely on American foreign policy and diplomatic history. Now, in The True Flag , you examine the period of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War. Your book could be entitled The Origins of American Imperialism , and you describe the tremendous debate over expansionist policies then. What sparked this book now?

Stephen Kinzer : All American foreign policy questions can be narrowed down to one sentence and, in fact you could narrow them down to one word, which is intervention. All of our major questions in the world now are about where we intervene and for what purposes and with what means.

We are the country that intervenes more frequently in more other countries that are farther away from our own borders than other countries. Why are we like this? How did we get this way? Where did it begin? I’ve always been intrigued by these questions. Often we look for the answers to these questions in the period after World War II when the U.S. truly became a global empire.

Actually, when I looked more deeply into the background of those questions, I saw that the crucial decision was made earlier, in the period around 1898 to 1900. Looking back at that time made it very clear to me how aware everybody involved was in the debate that would shape the future of the United States. Everybody debating the issue in 1899 in the U.S. Senate, for example, understood that he was not debating only one issue such as whether the U.S. could take the Philippines. Those senators and other opinion makers across the country, as one senator called it, were debating the greatest question that had ever been put before the American people.

In the history of American foreign policy, I realized this was the formative debate, the mother of all debates.

Robin Lindley: Didn’t the imperialist sentiment of this period, in a way, grow out of the westward continental expansion and the idea of Manifest Destiny?

Stephen Kinzer : Yes. I think you can see a continuity in the history of American expansionism. You could argue that the United States has been expanding since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

Perhaps the history could best be understood as coming in three phases. First, the United States created a continental empire in North America by clearing native people and seizing a large part of Mexico. Then, in the period after 1898, we became an overseas empire. And then finally, after World War II, a global empire.

When the Census Bureau in 1890 declared that the American frontier was closed, that posed a dilemma for the United States. We had been expanding for so long and, in the 1890’s. there was a sense that we needed foreign markets for our goods and foreign raw materials. We had to face this question: What do we do after reaching California? Once we conquer North America, do we turn inward and do we do something different and stop trying to conquer other lands? Or do we continue overseas? That was the essence of this debate.

Robin Lindley: Your book illuminates this basically overlooked period in history. Most of us in school probably learned little of the Spanish American War except for the sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine in Cuba and Teddy Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill. And I think most Americans probably learn nothing of the brutal war waged by the U.S. in the Philippines that followed the victory over the Spain there.

Stephen Kinzer : I think you’re right, and it’s another example of how not just Americans but all people like to remember things that they did or their country did that put them in a good light.

We tend to forget episodes that don’t show us in the way that we like to think that we are. The Philippine War falls in that category. We left hundreds of thousands of Filipinos dead in a horrifically brutal campaign. We had our first torture scandal. We had serious war crimes committed as a matter of official military policy. And yet very few Americans are even aware that this war ever happened. Actually, it’s been a huge scar on the minds of Filipinos and it’s well known in East Asia, but because it doesn’t fit into our narrative of what we do in the world, we’ve allowed it to fall out of our history books and our consciousness.

Robin Lindley: As I recall, this period was sanitized and glorious in our old schoolbooks. There was the Great White Fleet and a glorious new American Empire. We didn’t learn that there was an anti-imperialist movement. Your book is a corrective.

Stephen Kinzer : I recently photographed a monument in San Francisco to the veterans of the Spanish American War who were described in the plaque as having “extended the hand of friendship to alien people.” That is the narrative that Americans are told about this period. Our ignorance of what really happened feeds our puzzlement as to why we are not so beloved in the world. We are part of the view of our own history, and therefore people are surprised when people with more direct experience as victims of our foreign policy don’t look at us the way we look at ourselves.

Robin Lindley: And that seems to hold true for the general view of Theodore Roosevelt. He’s remembered as an energetic genius who wrote dozens of books and was devoted to the environment and progressive domestic policies. As you point out in your book, however, he was also a bloodthirsty militarist, a rabid imperialist and a racist when it came to non-white people in other lands. He was seen as insane by some detractors, including Mark Twain. I don’t think we usually get that view of Roosevelt.

Stephen Kinzer : I had a great deal of fun learning about the main characters in my book, Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt. I some ways, they’re very different. Theodore Roosevelt was a spoiled rich kid. He grew up looking at ships from his estate on Oyster Bay. He became fascinated with navies, as young boys sometimes do. He traveled to other countries as an aristocrat who got to know European capitals much more than he got to know anything about the way most Americans live. He liked to shoot animals. He had tremendous contempt for people in non-white countries and had no belief that they could rule themselves.

Mark Twain was very different. He also traveled widely but not to shoot animals. He really got to meet people. He had been in places like India and South Africa where the state of European imperialism was quite brutally clear. He had great sympathy for the native people that Roosevelt held in such contempt.

On the other hand, in some ways they were similar. Roosevelt and Twain were both prima donnas. They both created an image for themselves and invented themselves in a way. They were people that could never turn away from an interview or a mirror. In a sense they epitomized the vibe of the American soul during this period. Mark Twain believed that every human being was as good as every other human being and if the United States could produce people that could rule their country, then the Philippines and other countries could rule themselves too. Theodore Roosevelt thought this was nonsense: that people who were non-white had no way of ruling themselves and needed to be ruled by others.

We’re still debating that in our own minds. What do we want to do in the world? Americans want to guide the world, but we also want every country to guide itself. These are opposite impulses and we can’t do both of them. But we still hold them both in our minds and, in a way, Roosevelt and Twain represent that dichotomy.

Robin Lindley: They are two complex personalities. I believe that after his presidency, Roosevelt didn’t even mention the Philippine-American War in his memoirs. Do you think he was displaying some remorse?

Stephen Kinzer : Roosevelt had an interesting turn of mind in the period after he became president. As a vice president and as governor of New York, he was a forceful advocate of nation grabbing. He wanted the United States to annex possibly the entire world. When he became president, it was presumed that this impulse would guide him. There was speculation that he might take colonies in Africa or that he might try to join the race for slices of China. There was the possibility that he would try to take Mexico or Nicaragua or even Canada.

He didn’t do any of those things. I think the shock of what happened in the Philippines must have affected him. I never found an actual phrase where he and his friend Henry Cabot Lodge said that Americans would be greeted with flowers in the Philippines, but that was more or less the opinion that they transmitted to the American people—that the Philippine people would welcome us. Instead, we had to wage a horrifically brutal war to subjugate them.

This sobered Roosevelt. He began to understand the sorrows of empire. When he became president, he ordered one operation in which he seized land for the Panama Canal. After that, however, he turned his interest to other issues. He focused on controlling corporate power and protecting the natural environment.

I think he actually fit the pattern for an American president. They tend to start off with great enthusiasm for using American military and coercive power around the world. After that, they see the limitations, they see the blowback, they see the trouble it brings, so at the end of their terms they’re less likely to intervene than at the beginning. You see this in presidents from Roosevelt up to Bush and Obama.

Robin Lindley: You certainly see that pattern in recent administrations. And you look back at Roosevelt before the Spanish American war and he was eager to fight and wanted to see combat, which he did in Cuba. He was bloodthirsty. He said it was “a great day” when he killed a Spanish soldier who was apparently running away at San Juan Hill.

Stephen Kinzer : Roosevelt was a war lover. He had a fascination with war and believed that war was the only noble pursuit for a man or for a nation. I found a letter in which he speculated on the possibility that perhaps Germany could be baited into burning a few cities on the American East Coast because then we’d finally have an enemy that would rouse Americans to the necessity of creating a large military establishment. He wrote about wanting to participate in fighting against the Tatars in Russia or against the Aborigines in Australia. He was always looking for enemies and that certainly is a pattern in American history.

Robin Lindley: It seems that Roosevelt and his friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge were drivers of this imperialist sentiment. And newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst supported expansionism and promoted the war against Spain. That press role strikes a chord today too.

Stephen Kinzer : The imperialist triumvirate that drove the United States to succumb to the imperial temptation in 1898 was comprised of three interesting figures.

Teddy Roosevelt was the public face of the expansionist project. Henry Cabot Lodge was the Mephistopheles in Washington that organized the project politically. William Randolph Hearst was the megaphone who sold Americans a diet of super-patriotic bunkum that drove them crazy. He understood something that editors understand to this day: If you want to have people buying newspapers or clicking on your story, you need a running story that unfolds every day, not just on one day. War is the best running story of all.

Hearst set out quite consciously to set the United States off to war to sell more newspapers. That he did splendidly. Hearst also understood something that is still true today about how to get Americans to go to war. He understood that Americans are a very compassion people who hate the idea of anybody suffering anywhere. Our leaders, therefore, use our people’s sympathy for the suffering of others. Whenever they want to go to war for any reason, they start feeding us images of poor, suffering people being brutalized by some evil tyrant. That’s enough to move Americans into thinking we need to go to war in some country.

We don’t stop to think usually whether we’re going to be able to improve the situation or what the long-term plan might be, but we’re very impulsive. And Hearst understood this. He filled his paper with articles about the brutalization of womanhood and other evils perpetrated in Cuba, and that created a public climate that allowed us to go to war. That’s like stories about Khaddaffi and Saddam and Assad that were heavy news in later years.

Robin Lindley: How do you see the role of Republican President McKinley at this time? It seems he was ambivalent about aggressive expansionism in foreign lands, but he eventually embraced a policy he called “benevolent assimilation.”

Stephen Kinzer : McKinley was known as a person who followed public opinion rather than trying to lead it. The Speaker of the House, Thomas Reed, famously said that McKinley “kept his ear so close to the ground, it was full of grasshoppers.”

McKinley sensed that Americans were caught up in the fever of expansionism and that to try to put a stop to it or to try to stand in its way would hurt him and his party politically. He saw that the popular thing to do would be to latch onto this bandwagon, and he did so. His explanation was that he was guided by God in a visitation in the White House one night in October 1898, but that night sounded a lot like Henry Cabot Lodge and Teddy Roosevelt.

Robin Lindley: Was it mainly commercial interests that propelled this imperialist policy? It seems that greed, profit, and the desire of businesses for new markets played a large role.

Stephen Kinzer : A confluence of factors drove the United States to make this epochal decision at the end of the nineteenth century.

Economics played a large role. When you read newspapers of that period, as I did while researching this book, you see that there is much written about what was then called glut. The argument was that American farms and factories were becoming so productive that they were producing more than Americans could consume. This was producing social rifts with strikes and labor conflict. People began to sense that there was a need to export some of social problems, and the way to do this would be to find foreign markets. In those days, that meant you had to take over foreign territories. That’s the way Europeans did it. You then would prevent other countries from trading with those colonies.

The United States saw the Philippines partly as a source of great raw materials and as a potential market for goods, but even more tantalizingly, as a potential springboard to the China market. In those days, the China market was held up as a great phantasm of tremendous prospects for wealth. Articles were appearing about how much cotton the Chinese would buy if they could be induced to make their clothes of cotton, or how many nails they could buy, or how much beef they could buy if they converted to American habits.

No doubt Lodge, in weaving the imperial project together, used the ambition of commercial interests as an important thread.

Robin Lindley: It may surprise some readers that so many great minds were on the anti-imperialist side of the debate: Booker T. Washington, Jane Addams, Carl Schurz, Mark Twain, and even the richest man in America, industrialist Andrew Carnegie. The debate was by no means one-sided and the imperialist impulse was not overwhelming.

Stephen Kinzer : Actually, the power of the anti-imperialist movement and the earnestness that many Americans took its arguments was something that I hadn’t realized. This episode has essentially fallen out of American history. There was a great debate that seized America. It was on the front page of every newspaper day after week after month. Every major political and intellectual figure in America took sides and it shaped the entire subsequent history of the United States.

All of my books are voyages of discovery and, in this book, my main discovery was that this debate ever happened. It’s a vitally important episode of American history that shaped who we are today but has fallen out of our history books. So the greatest satisfaction for me in writing this book is being able to recover this debate and hoping to make clear to Americans today who question, as I do, aspects of American policy. The idea that the United States should allow other nations to rule themselves and not try to project our military and coercive power around the world is very deeply rooted in American history.

Those of us who are trying to push America to a more prudent and restrained foreign policy are standing on the shoulders of titans—great figures of American history who first enunciated the view and to continue to make their argument is something quintessentially American.

Robin Lindley: To go back, our brutal Philippines campaign is shocking today. Apparently, the leader of the independence movement there, Emilio Aguinaldo, had a promise from the U. S. that, if his forces fought with the U.S. against the Spanish, the U.S. would assure Philippines independence. Instead, after liberating the Philippines from the Spanish with the helped of Aguinaldo’s forces, the U.S. turned on Aguinaldo and his “insurgents” in a horrific war.

Stephen Kinzer : The Americans were told that Filipinos has every reason to rebel against Spanish rule. After all, being portrayed as under a cruel Spanish master, Filipinos in rebellion seemed to us the equivalent of George Washington and the Continental Army fighting to overthrow British. Then, after we changed our ideas about what we wanted to do with the Philippines and decided we wanted to take the Philippines rather than grant them independence, we began to tell ourselves that we were a very different master from the Spanish.

You certainly can understand why the Filipinos wouldn’t want to be ruled by the Spanish because they were brutal and oppressive and far away and had evil intentions. We were told Filipinos would love to be ruled by Americans. They would realize Americans are benevolent and only want to help.

Americans were never able to grasp the idea that, for many Filipinos, being ruled by a foreign power was [anathema] no matter what power it was. These Filipino rebels were not willing to accept the exchange of one distant master for another. They wanted full independence. Americans were never able to see this. We deluded ourselves into believing that, although they hated being ruled by the Spanish, they would love being ruled by the Americans. This is the kind of self-delusion that characterized much of our approach to the world.

Robin Lindley: Racism also played a role in these interventions. Imperialists not only saw the U.S. mission as liberating Cuba and the Philippines, but they saw non-white people as inferior and primitive creatures who needed us to “civilize” them. Roosevelt called Filipinos “wild beasts.”

Stephen Kinzer : It was particularly vivid in Cuba. We were told when we entered the war there that the Cuban patriots were great heroes and the equivalent of the leaders of our American Revolution. They were lionized in the American press. That’s why we felt they should have the independence they were fighting for.

Then, after the war ended, our commanders in Cuba reported back the horrible realization that many of these leaders that we had been taught to admire was that they were black. That suddenly changed American opinion. We began to think that there might be a government in Cuba that would be partly black, and that certainly would have happened if we allowed Cuba to become independent.

Our racial attitudes at that time made it absolutely impossible for us to accept that result. That’s one reason that the United States refused to permit Cuba to become independent after 1898.

Robin Lindley: It’s interesting that some white supremacists were anti-imperialist because they were worried that we would bring more non-white, less-than-civilized immigrants into the United States.

Stephen Kinzer : You’re right. Racism was used on both sides of this argument. It’s easy to understand how imperialists viewed it because they believed that non-white people couldn’t govern themselves and needed white people’s help. But some anti-imperialists also were racist. They came from the south and they didn’t want the United States taking in people who were not white.

I do think that racial attitudes played a big role in this debate. Another example is the experience of Hawaii. Hawaii, with the connivance of the United States government, had a change of regime in 1893. A group of white American planters and their friends overthrew the Hawaiian government so that they could come into the United States and sell their sugar at a cheaper rate. But there was a change of administration in Washington. Grover Cleveland became president and he didn’t want to take in Hawaii under these conditions.

Hawaii had to become an independent nation—something these white settlers had never imagined. Their challenge was to find themselves a constitution which would look good to Americans in case they ever became a part of the U.S., but also would disenfranchise most of the population. They couldn’t have native people voting; otherwise they’d be voted out of office. They chose as their model the constitution of the state of Mississippi, which was ingeniously drawn up with all sorts of qualifications for voting so that it looked democratic while denying most people the vote. So you can say that the racism that permeated the United States definitely shaped our foreign.

Robin Lindley: Thanks for your insights on the role of race. I appreciate your comment on intervention in the book: “Violent intervention in other countries always produces unintended consequences.” That is writ large in the period you examine and in our foreign policy in the past two decades that has produced terrible blowback.

Stephen Kinzer : I think you’re right that our interventions have produced terrible unintended consequences. What I find even more puzzling is that we don’t seem to learn from these experiences. There doesn’t seem to be any limit to the number of times we can crash into another country violently and have it come out terribly until we begin to reassess whether this is a good idea or not.

One reason I was so interested to write this book The True Flag is that I envy the debate they had in those days when the U.S. Senate convened for an epochal 32-day debate for this vital question of expansionism in the winter of 1899. Senators debated this great question: Should the United States try to push its power onto other people and other countries or how do we leave them alone and build up our own country?

We don’t have that debate today. We’re debating whether to send four thousand troops to Afghanistan for the new surge or should it be six thousand. We never pull back to have this larger debate and, if we ever did, it would probably sound a lot like debates that I write about in my book.

Robin Lindley: You have a wealth of good advice for the new administration. In a speech on July 6 in Warsaw, Trump asked if the West has the will to survive? What do you think of that remark from our new president.

Stephen Kinzer : The West has the will to survive, but do we could survive without trying to impose our will on others? The more we crash into other countries, the more we weaken ourselves. This is the lesson our interventions teach us. We can survive and thrive but we should pay more attention to building our own nation than trying to use our thousand-mile screwdriver to fix others. How’s that for a coda?

Robin Lindley: That’s quite fitting. At the close of The True Flag you go back to the words of George Washington. Your book reveals the wisdom of Washington’s warning to Americans: to avoid the “mischiefs of foreign intrigues.” Thank you for your thoughtful comments and your illuminating new book.

The History of American Imperialism

The meaning of american imperialism, factors and causes, critics and supporters, the “splendid little war”, reference list.

At the end of the 19 th century, the United States started to follow the footsteps of European imperialistic countries and began to keep to the policy of the corresponding behavior. The United States starts its intervention in the territories of other countries with the purpose of development, advancement and domination on many levels. The American politicians of those times strongly believed that the expansion of the country’s territory was the best and only demonstration of its power.

According to Henry Cabot Lodge, the Americans have been too absorbed with their own domestic problems for too long and left unnoticed some really important interests that lay outside of the country’s borders (1985). For decades the United States’ political development was mainly directed to the improvement of the situation inside the country, annexing local lands, fixing the inner policy of the state. However, at the beginning of the 1890s, the United States rapidly started to be interested in the imperialistic experiences of the European countries. Ambitions and national ego began to grow and desire to be fulfilled.

The factors that contributed to the National expansion were different. There was a strong economical point to this movement. The consequences of the devastating battles of the Civil War, attaching more new lands, mass disorders and disagreements influenced the economy and caused confusion in the ways to determine the future direction of the country’s development within the borders.

The desire for the new territories was not satisfied by Louisiana, Texas, Oregon, and other states. The opportunity to move up north was not enough. The United States started to be interested in expanding the horizons, moving abroad, looking at the territories of other countries, moving into the Caribbean, becoming the greatest force on the Pacific. The times of diplomatic isolationism were over. The country’s leaders started to be aware of so many possibilities, waiting for them abroad.

Strategically the idea of taking new lands was based on becoming more influential and starting to play an important role in the world’s politics. Lodge believed that “small states are of the past and have no future”. Of course, one of the best motivational factors for the expansion was the opportunity of gaining power through international trade.

Officially, during the expansion, the United States was bringing what they considered to be the correct ideology to less fortunate nations and their uncivilized lands. Americans strongly believed that intervention in foreign countries has a positive and useful purpose of sharing Christian values and setting peace and order in damaged and chaotic societies. Americans only saw their policy as an act of great generosity and giving help to countries that appeared under their control.

Of course, such policy had its critics. First of all, the war was disapproved by many citizens. People of the United States were against the war and military conflict with other countries. New York Herald Tribune published a protest, saying that President William McKinley has “violated the unwritten law of the Republic” by not declaring the war he started (1898).

The supporters of the imperialistic movement were motivated by the ideas of how many possibilities would the expansion provide for the United States. They wanted to have access to the new markets, which would bring a lot of income for the nation, but, as Love explains on the example of the Philippines’ intervention, Lodge’s concern was not with the nation struggling through hard times under Cuban power, and their desire for political independence (2004). Lodge wanted the islands as a good purchase so that he could have a promising opportunity to sell or trade them for some other islands that were more useful for increasing American influence in the Caribbean.

There is no doubt, that the arguments of imperialist supporters were much more powerful and loud. The protesters, speaking against war and armed conflicts had little impact because their main strategy – being neutral and isolated – has been rejected long ago. The ambitions and high-level goals of the country’s international policy, the opportunity of taking more lands and territories sounded much more appealing to the politicians, keen on the country’s development, progress and finally becoming visible on the international scene.

The war between Spain and the United States was very short. As a result, many goals were achieved. New lands were annexed, a strong European rival was defeated, Theodore Roosevelt, at that time an Assistant Secretary of the Navy had a great chance to demonstrate the strength of the US military. Access for market expansion was granted, the United States became one of the most powerful countries in the world in many aspects.

Another very important impact the Spanish-American war made was the redefinition of national identity and unity. A confused country with a layered society and scattered opinions, not knowing which direction to take in its further development, has managed to make one huge leap and break through all of the obstacles at a time, turning its various nations into one force fighting for a common purpose and achieving the first steps in unity and agreement. For the United States’ leaders this “little” war was truly splendid, and as Rosenfeld noticed, “its proceedings made it America’s most popular war since nationhood” (2000).

Lodge, H. C. (1895), Forum.  Web.

Love, E. T. L. (2004), Race over Empire: Racism and U. S. Imperialism, 1865-1900.  Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

New York Herald Tribune . (1898). Web.

Rosenfeld, H. (2000), Diary of a Dirty Little War: The Spanish American War of 1898.  Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

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Causes And Effects Of U.S. Imperialism

In analyzing the causes and effects of United States Imperialism from 1870 to 191 6, one finds that there are three main factors. These major factors of united States Imperialism in this time period are: Hawaii, the Spanish-American war, and Theodore Roosevelt. In this time period Hawaiian islanders were very happy to live traditionally, but Americans were not content with the traditional ways of the Hawaiian (Bushing, n. Page. ). Even though America seemed to be on the road to Imperialism with Hawaii, the Spanish- American war actually set the United States on the new road of

Imperialism (The Spanish American War n. Page. ). Theodore Roosevelt played an Important role In the united States road to Imperialism In the sass’s while serving as president. These three subjects all have given us many causes and effects, In dealing with united States Imperialism In 1870 to 1916. Queen Louisianan and the Hawaiian Islanders were very content, and Happy to live traditionally: the way that they always had before the Americans came along. Americans built huge plantations, railroads, dry-docks, banks, hotels, and stores.

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They soon dominated the Hawaiian economy and greatly influenced the government. Queen Louisianan was determined to eliminate the American influence in the Hawaiian government. As a new plan, Queen Louisianan tried to create a new constitution to strengthen the Hawaiian Monarchy, but her cabinet refused. American residents were outraged and organized the committee of safety and appointed annexation members as its leaders. On January 17, 1893, armed members attacked, and took over the government office building to read a proclamation abolishing monarchy, and naming Sanford B.

Dole president (Bushing, n. Page. ). All of this was done, because in the mid-19th century United States owned sugar limitations equaled three quarters of the island’s wealth. Foreigners and immigrant workers outnumbered Hawaiian. The McKinley tariff resulted in competition of Hawaiian sugar growers in the American market. Therefore, American planters in Hawaii called for the united States to annex the islands (Dander, 366,367). The Spanish-American war definitely set the United States on the road to Imperialism. In the beginning, Captain Alfred T.

Amman argued that future national security depended on a large Navy supported by bases around the world. After many Incidents leading up to what could only be war the US Maine exploded In Havana arbor on February 15, 1 898 (The Spanish American War n. Page. ). “Though Spain was become the minimum and official US demand”Spanish withdrawal from Cuba and recognition of the Island’s Independence (The Spanish American War n. Page. ). ” Overall, this says that the united States wanted Cuba to gain its independence so that they did not have to deal with Spain anymore.

In mid April 1898, congress authorized McKinley to use armed forces to expel the Spanish from Cuba. On April 20, 1898 the united States went to war with Spain. George Dewey then decided that flotilla in the harbor of Manila in the Philippines. The fighting was finally over by august 12 when a preliminary peace treaty was signed. McKinley then forced the Spanish to “sell” the Philippines to the United States for Twenty Million dollars (The Spanish American War n. Page. ).

Theodore Roosevelt was assistant secretary of state in 1898 when news of the Maine being blown up reached his office. Teddy Roosevelt hoped that President McKinley would order the US Naval fleet to Havana. He believed that the Maine was sunk “by an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards. Teddy ended up being correct. A naval board decided that the Maine was destroyed by a submarine mine of known origin (Hutting, n. Page. ). When Roosevelt came into office, he liked the potential commercial and strategic opportunities that could come from America’s venture into the Pacific.

He could not see how any man could be anything but expansionist (Theodore Roosevelt, n. Page. ). We see in this that Teddy Roosevelt is now turning towards imperialism in his thinking about America’s venture into the pacific. Teddy decided that in order to obtain friendly relations with Japan, he needed to cultivate a balance of power between Japan and Russia. By mediating the end to the Russo-Japanese war Theodore Roosevelt earned the Nobel Peace Prize (Theodore Roosevelt, n. Page. ).

The Nobel Peace Prize was Just a perk in Teddy Roosevelt plan to obtain friendly relations with Japan. He wanted friendly relations with Japan so that he could successfully set the United States on the road to Imperialism. Hawaii, The Spanish American war, and Teddy Roosevelt all contributed to Imperialism in the United States. Some more than others, but consequently they seemed to come out even. The intention was not exactly for the United States to be put on the road to Imperialism, but as a result, it was indeed set on that road.

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AN EMANCIPATION OF THE MIND: Radical Philosophy, the War Over Slavery, and the Refounding of America, by Matthew Stewart

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SECOND AMERICAN REPUBLIC: Reconstruction, 1860-1920, by Manisha Sinha

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Between 1852 and 1862, Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote 487 articles for The New York Daily Tribune; Lincoln likely read them . They explained the war as “nothing but a struggle between two social systems, the system of slavery and the system of free labor.”

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But the Second American Republic would soon come crashing down, the victim of another violent counterrevolution whose principal weapons were racial terror and political assassination. In its place rose a New South, where class distinctions were shored up, where the government was by and for white men and where the belief that Black people were inferior to white people was firmly in place. Instead of economic freedom, Americans got debt peonage, stolen wages, criminalized self-employment and a convict leasing system. The great flowering of education during Reconstruction was trampled too as terrorists burned down more than 600 Black schools.

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AN EMANCIPATION OF THE MIND : Radical Philosophy, the War Over Slavery, and the Refounding of America | By Matthew Stewart | Norton | 374 pp. | $32.50

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