The Making of the American Empire

In the decade of the 1890s, the United States of America's foreign policy and outlook on the world were at a crossroads. The debate flourished on the topic of imperialism versus isolationism and included prominent participants including all of the political spectre as well as world-famous authors. This essay will revolve around the debate and some of the key debaters; it will shed light on the most important arguments and describe how they are anchored in the different debaters' understanding of American history. The debate and discussion which preceded the US' involvement in the Philippine Revolution (1896-1898) and consequently the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) will used as the primary source of examples such as speeches, articles and essays.

Additionally, the essay will describe how the choices of the 1890s have manifested themselves in the US' long-term foreign policies.Although most historians agree that America's initial reasons for going to war against the Spanish in Cuba and the Philippines were due to humanitarian concerns, it is also generally accepted that the enhanced naval capabilities and probable commercial benefits were meritorious factors, as well. In continuation of President William McKinley's 1898 Teller Amendment that foreswore any intend to annex Cuba or other countries that the United States might help separate from their colonial power, Albert Beveridge, Republican and later United States Senator, suggested, 'It may be that we will not annex the Philippines...

but events will annex them'1.So, in 1899, when the war in the Philippines was coming to a close, the Americans and the Filipinos had differing expectations. On one hand, the United States were eager to gain the territorial acquisition from Spain; this was due to the fact that European countries were striving for land in China and, thus, arose the need for an American gateway to the Far East. The Filipinos, on the other hand, hoped to use the Spanish-American War as a means of attaining independence, and felt betrayed when the Americans, contrary to their statements of having no interest in long-term territorial acquisitions, continued to occupy the islands. This eventually led to the Philippine-American War from 1898 to 1913.2Beveridge was one of the key advocates of American imperialism and expansionism.

In his 1898 'March of the Flag' speech, he articulated why expansionism was the right choice and used the concepts of Manifest Destiny, Social Darwinism, commercial needs, patriotism and evangelism to validate his arguments. Throughout the speech, he used the themes of liberty and civilisation, along with the allegory of the marching flag, to make his words persuasive and valid.Beveridge used the belief in Manifest Destiny to propose three arguments: First, the notion of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority, depicted in Beveridge's description of his race as 'the ruling race of the world'3 and his arguments that white Americans were God's 'chosen people'.4 Consequently, the Americans displaced native peoples from their lands in the name of civilisation. This also correlates well with the theory of Social Darwinism. Second, Beveridge argued that expansion, as a concept, is an essential part of what Manifest Destiny preaches as God's covenant.

Albeit 'destiny' refers to predetermination, Beveridge stated that opponents of imperialism are 'infidels to the gospel',5 and that if European powers were to gain territories, which God originally had given to the Americans, it would be against God's covenant. In continuation, Beveridge pointed out that anti-imperialist are fundamentally selfish:Have we no mission to perform-no duty to discharge to our fellow-man? Has the Almighty Father endowed us with gifts beyond our deserts, and marked us as the people of His peculiar favor, merely to rot in our own selfishness, as men and nations must who take cowardice for their companion and self for their Deity.'6By stating the above, Beveridge succeeded in drawing a red line from the American ancestors, who had also tamed the wilderness for the sake of civilisation, to his own generation. In his third reference to the Manifest Destiny, Beveridge stipulated a more ethical and provocative reason to support imperialism, describing the Spanish-American War as a quest nobler than that of commercial supremacy, 'the most holy ever waged by one nation against another; a war for civilization; a war for a permanent peace; a war which, under God, although we knew it not in the beginning, has swung open to the Republic the portals of the commerce of the world'.7 In other words, he stated that Americans did intervene in the Philippines for the cause of civilisation and peace, but, luckily, they ended up finding portal for commerce in the Far East.

In the speech, Beveridge referred to liberty and civilisation as the key terms from which all political values and principles should originate. They are the foundation for the Declaration of Independence. Beveridge emphasised the connection between the words of liberty and civilisation in the Declaration to the values of the expansionists. The use of these values as means of argumentation for expansionism has its own inherent contradictions.

How can the United States bring liberty to a country by exercising authority on its territory, in order to make commercial and economic gains? As an answer to this dilemma, Beveridge stated: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. I answer, would not the natives 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?8'Beveridge used the pervasive racism of his time to reason that those who cannot govern themselves should not be given liberty.

The natives basically need the Americans' domination. One could, however, argue that had Beveridge been certain of the Filipinos' incapability to govern their country, he should not have had the urge to defend this dilemma.A solution to this paradox could have been to propose a progressive liberation of the Philippines: As the Filipinos became more civilised, they should have the option of independence or consented government by the United States. Contrary to this logic, Beveridge stated that '[America] cannot retreat from any soil where Providence has unfurled our banner; it is ours to save that soil for liberty and civilization',9 and in a speech to the Senate after his return from a visit in the Philippines, he states, 'The Philippines are ours forever!'10Alas, the terms liberty and civilisation still propose a contradiction in 'March of the Flag'. In his first speech after being elected to Senate, and after the before mentioned visit to the battlefields of the Philippines, Beveridge proposed a new definition of liberty and, thereby, achieved a resolution for his liberty-paradox:For what is liberty? The liberty of a people means law. First of all, it is a common rule of action, applying equally to all within its limits.

Liberty means protection of property and life without price, free speech without intimidation, justice without purchase or delay, government without favor[sic]or favorites[sic].11Contrary to the traditional perception of liberty, namely that of both personal freedom and political sovereignty, Beveridge here described it as protection under the rule of law. Thereby, he ensured that his initial postulate, that American expansionism was created out of liberty and civilisation concerns, avoided any paradox it inevitably would have reached.Contrary to the American imperialists were the anti-imperialists. In 1898 the anti-imperialists sought to gather in order to strengthen their message and voice.

The Anti-Imperialist League, as they called themselves, consisted of a large group of notables who came from various backgrounds, political, literary and economical to name a few. The 1900 presidential campaign between imperialist William McKinley and anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan was permeated with the expansionism versus isolationism debate and The Anti-Imperialist League supported Bryan.Due to the different backgrounds of the members of the Anti-Imperialist League, the members also had a number of different reasons underlying their opposition to imperialism. Some were distressed over the large costs related to overseas military operations, some had a social Darwinist point of view and did not want to incorporate inferior cultures into the American Empire, some feared that cheap foreign labour could become a detriment to American workers, and finally, others such as founding member of the Republican Party, Carl Schurz, and author and imperialist turned anti-imperialist, Mark Twain, opposed imperialism because it was contrary to the American principles of democracy and freedom.The perspective of morality and ethics with regard to American imperialism was not only the most influential argument at the time; it is somewhat in correlation with the American foreign policy that have permeated the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century.

Fundamentally, the debaters such as Twain and Schurz argued that imperialism is incompatible with the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. As Schurz put it, it is contrary to the American self-knowledge:I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves...

too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: "Our country, right or wrong!" They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country-when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right."12Schurz's and Twain's argument that it was not right for the US to rule a foreign country - and thus inevitably behave contradictory to the Constitution - was the key argument against the afore mentioned paradox of Beveridge's imperialistic views; more precisely, his views on freedom and liberty for the Filipinos. The anti-imperialists argued that a nation with a history of fighting for self-government such as the US should not betray its own identity and subjugate other people. By stating that the 'Constitution follows the flag' the anti-imperialists argued that different laws should not apply to different people in different parts of the American territory.

Many anti-imperialists primarily held their principles out of consideration for the US and its interests, traditions, security or domestic topics and were not too preoccupied with the conditions for foreign people outside the motherland. Mark Twain, however, often empathised with the peoples of the subjugated countries and tried to appeal to that specific side of the anti-imperialistic argumentation. This is clearly demonstrated in statements like this:I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute. 13It is noteworthy that Twain, through the Spanish-American wars in Cuba and the Philippines, was 'a red-hot imperialist'14 and until the outbreak of the 1899 American-Philippine war he believed in the rightness of American intervention and involvement in foreign territories.

In this excerpt from the New York Herald, 15 October, 1900, Twain explains his initial thoughts on American involvement in foreign territories, in this case, te Philippines:I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with the Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Phillippines[sic], I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do. I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world.

It seemed to me a great task to which had addressed ourselves.15So, to Twain, if the American involvement in the Philippines was with the intention of liberation it would have been the right thing to do. However, when reading the terms of the Treaty of Paris, signed 10 December, 1898, it became evident to Twain that the intentions were of another kind:But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Phillippines[sic]. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. .

. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.16So, Twain was not actually against the US' initial intervention in Philippines - or Cuba for that matter.

He characterised the war in Cuba against Spain as the 'worthiest war ever'17. He opposes the US' quest to rule and subjugate a country, so it can be argued that Twain was never an imperialist, he was an interventionist.Twain was of the opinion that the American conduct in the Philippines did not resemble the behaviour of a noble and grand nation. In fact, in his 1901 essay 'To the Person Sitting in Darkness' he describes how the US, in his opinion, has behaved like pirates and without honour:True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people.

.. who trusted us... we have robbed a trusting friend.

.. we have invited clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandits' work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear...

we have debauched America's honor... And as for a flag for the Philippine Province..

. we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.18Twain uses strong language to emphasise and concretise his arguments.Twain does, like Beveridge, in 'To the Person Sitting in Darkness' use biblical references. Where Beveridge referred to The Manifest Destiny, Twain applies irony to the Bible's Matthew 4:16 - 'The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light' and refers to Christian missionaries' use of words such as 'uncivilised', 'savage' and 'heathen' to describe the native population in countries such as The Philippines.

When taking both sides of the discussion into account, different peculiar factors arise. First, in the discussion on imperialism versus isolationism, both sides have their arguments and beliefs anchored in the Declaration of Independence, or, in other words, in the very self-understanding of being an American. Second, both sides also anchor their rhetorical means in some of the same stepping-stones, for instance religion. And third, both sides share the same concern: what benefits the US the most.Looking back at the 20th century, one can find numerous examples of a common thread running from the debates and decisions of the late 19th century and the early 20th century to the decisions of American political rulers throughout the 20th century and into the new century. Both World War I and World War II helped to put the US in a position where it has been dominant in the decision-making and leadership of the international balance of power.

American interventionism can be seen in conflicts such as Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and thus, the US has continuously been forced to question and debate its militaristic role in the world. Furthermore, the US has had the role of economic superpower and, thereby, been a large voice in the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation.The rhetorical means of Beveridge, Twain and the other debaters has also endured. American debates, to this day, often have religious overtones and the concept of liberty is also often integrated in the political dialogue. Following the attack on September 11, 2011, President George W. Bush stated that 'We owe them, and their children, and our own, the most enduring monument we can build: a world of liberty and security made possible by the way America leads and by the way Americans lead our lives.

'19 Like Beveridge, Bush altered the meaning of liberty by attaching it to other values - like Beveridge did. Where Beveridge described liberty as protection by the law, Bush describes liberty as protection. Bush uses this argument to take precautions to enhance national security. The precautions were in areas such as transportation, immigration, public safety, mail and the U.S Patriot act which altered the legislation concerning wire-tapping and law enforcement regarding terrorism.20It is safe to say that debates and decisions regarding American imperialism and interventionism in the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, has had great impact on the way the world has looked throughout the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.