Empire and the Debate Over It, 1890–1917
- Explain the economic, strategic, and ideological arguments for expansion
- Analyze anti-imperialist arguments and the Philippine-American War
- Describe the Roosevelt Corollary and dollar diplomacy
Why the United States turned outward
Three arguments converged in the 1890s and a strong answer separates them. Economic: industrial overproduction and the depression following the Panic of 1893 convinced business and policymakers alike that foreign markets were necessary outlets, an argument sharpened by the perceived closing of the frontier. Strategic: Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History argued that national greatness required a battle fleet, and a fleet required coaling stations and canals — which is why Hawaii, Samoa, and an isthmian canal mattered. Ideological: Social Darwinism applied to nations, Anglo-Saxon racial theory, and the missionary conviction expressed in Kipling's "white man's burden" cast expansion as duty. The Spanish-American War (1898), driven partly by yellow journalism over Cuba and the Maine, produced Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in ten weeks.
Anti-imperialism was a serious movement
The Anti-Imperialist League included Mark Twain, Carnegie, Jane Addams, Samuel Gompers, and former presidents. Its arguments ran on several tracks. Constitutional: governing people who could never become citizens contradicted the Declaration and consent of the governed. Economic: Gompers feared competition from low-wage colonial labor. Racist: some opponents objected precisely to incorporating non-white populations — an uncomfortable fact that belongs in an honest answer, because it shows the coalition was not unified by principle. The Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris by a single vote more than the required two-thirds. The Insular Cases then held that the Constitution did not fully apply to unincorporated territories, creating the category of people under American sovereignty without full constitutional rights.
The Philippines and what followed
Filipino forces under Emilio Aguinaldo had been fighting Spain and expected independence. The Philippine-American War (1899–1902) that followed annexation killed more than four thousand Americans and, by conservative estimates, over two hundred thousand Filipinos including civilian deaths from disease and famine; both sides committed atrocities and the American use of the "water cure" was investigated by the Senate. The pattern then extended across the hemisphere. The Roosevelt Corollary (1904) to the Monroe Doctrine asserted an American right to intervene in Latin America to forestall European involvement, justifying repeated occupations. Taft's dollar diplomacy substituted investment for troops, in theory. Wilson's moral interventionism sent forces into Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic anyway — which is why "imperialism was a Republican policy" is a claim the evidence does not support.
Briefly explain ONE argument made by opponents of American acquisition of the Philippines.
- 1.Identify an anti-imperialist line of argument: the constitutional and republican objection.
- 2.State the reasoning: governing a distant population that had no voice in the government and no path to citizenship violated the principle of consent of the governed.
- 3.Note the evidence: the Anti-Imperialist League invoked the Declaration of Independence directly, and the Senate ratified annexation by only one vote above the required margin.
Mahan's argument in The Influence of Sea Power upon History most directly encouraged
For any 1898 prompt, sort your evidence into economic / strategic / ideological and give one specific piece under each. Three labeled causes with concrete evidence beats a paragraph of narrative every time, and it makes the "multiple causation" point almost automatic.
The Open Door and the limits of American power
China shows the same aims pursued without territory. Rather than seek a colony, Secretary of State John Hay issued the Open Door Notes (1899–1900), asserting that all powers should have equal commercial access to China and that its territorial integrity should be preserved. The policy was less a concession to China than a way to keep American exporters from being shut out of markets that European powers and Japan were carving into spheres of influence. American troops joined the multinational force that suppressed the Boxer Rebellion. The Open Door is a useful corrective for essays that equate imperialism with flags on maps: the goal throughout was access to markets, and formal colonies were only one means of obtaining it.
The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine asserted that the United States
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