While there was a compelling political will to develop an "empire of liberty"—to use President Thomas Jefferson's words—there was also a continuing republican ideal that was distrustful of empire and its needs for standing armies, heavy taxes, large bureaucracies, and centralized decision making.
At the same time, there were strong isolationist tendencies among the ruling class. Not anti-imperialist per se, these isolationists did warn against American "entanglements" in other lands.
Indeed, in his farewell address President George Washington, like John Quincy Adams an ardent expansionist using anti-imperial rhetoric, suggested that "harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing.
Thus, when President Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, effectively doubling the size of the United States, critics attacked his actions as unconstitutional and imperial. Federalists, ironically using arguments that had been advanced against them by their political foes during the debate over the Constitution, contended that the purchase of trans-Mississippi lands was unnecessary and dangerous, for emigration into the new areas would "be attended with all the injuries of a too widely dispersed population, but by adding to the great weight of the western part of our territory, must hasten the dismemberment of a large portion of our country, or a dissolution of the Government.
While the growth of a continental empire in the early nineteenth century may have been inexorable, it did not always proceed smoothly, for diverse voices were raised in protest against American expansion during the major episodes of territorial aggrandizement in the period. Representative John Randolph of Virginia was wary of imperial designs. Shall this great mammoth of the American forest leave his native element," he asked, "and plunge into the water in a mad contest with the shark?
The defeat of Indians in the Creek War and the Battle of Tippecanoe, followed by General Andrew Jackson's invasion and eventual seizure of Florida in , however, made anti-imperial critiques more difficult.
Still, many questioned what they saw as the contradiction of maintaining republican virtues within a growing empire with an expanding military and a willingness to use force in the pursuit of national interests. Although the enthusiasm for new lands might have seemed frenzied, many Americans were concerned about unrestrained growth and especially lamented the destruction of Indian society.
After the War of , the federal and state governments intensified their efforts to oust Native Americans from their lands, with General later President Andrew Jackson the leading figure in the era, attacking the Seminole in Florida and the Cherokee and other tribes in the southeast with particular ferocity.
By the s and s, there was significant division over Indian removal and continental expansion. Questions of morality and constitutionality—not unlike those raised in the late twentieth-century debates over the Vietnam War or intervention in Central America—were common throughout the Cherokee crisis as critics scored the national and state governments for violating the Constitution by rejecting Indian treaties.
Writing under the pseudonym William Penn, Jeremiah Evarts, the chief administrator of the American Board of Commissions for Foreign Missions, an interdenominational missionary organization, exposed and denounced the U.
Throughout the colonial period and under the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, Evarts pointed out, various authorities had, by treaty, guaranteed the territorial integrity of Indian lands; the Cherokee and other tribes, which had never surrendered such title, still held "a perfect right to the continued and undisturbed possession of these lands. Those philosophies appeal to national vanity and national cupidity.
They are seductive, especially upon the first view and the most superficial judgment, and therefore it cannot be denied that they are very strong for popular effect. They are delusions, and they will lead us to ruin unless we are hard-headed enough to resist them. In any case the year is a great landmark in the history of the United States. The consequences will not be all good or all bad, for such is not the nature of societal influences.
They are always mixed of good and ill, and so it will be in this case. Fifty years from now the historian, looking back to , will no doubt see, in the course which things will have taken, consequences of the proceedings of that year and of this present one which will not all be bad, but you will observe that that is not a justification for a happy-go-lucky policy; that does not affect our duty to-day in all that we do to seek wisdom and prudence and to determine our actions by the best judgment which we can form The laws of nature and of human nature are just as valid for Americans as for anybody else, and if we commit acts we shall have to take consequences, just like other people.
Therefore prudence demands that we look ahead to see what we are about to do, and that we gauge the means at our disposal, if we do not want to bring calamity on ourselves and our children.
We see that the peculiarities of our system of government set limitations on us. We cannot do things which a great centralized monarchy could do.
The very blessings and special advantages which we enjoy, as compared with others, bring disabilities with them. One of the most notable examples of American imperialism in this age was the annexation of Hawaii in , which allowed the United States to gain possession and control of all ports, buildings, harbors, military equipment, and public property that had formally belonged to the Government of the Hawaiian Islands.
The American Anti-Imperialist League was an organization established in the United States on June 15, , to battle the American annexation of the Philippines as an insular area. The League also argued that the Spanish-American War was a war of imperialism camouflaged as a war of liberation.
The Anti-Imperialist League represented an older generation and was rooted in an earlier era; they were defeated in terms of public opinion, the election, and the actions of Congress and the president because most younger Progressives who were just coming to power supported imperialism. It was the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence.
Revolts against Spanish rule had been endemic for decades in Cuba and were closely watched by Americans. With the abolition of slavery in , former slaves joined the ranks of farmers and the urban working class, many wealthy Cubans lost their property, and the number of sugar mills declined.
Only companies and the most powerful plantation owners remained in business, and during this period, U. Although it remained Spanish territory politically, Cuba started to depend on the United States economically. Coincidentally, around the same time, Cuba saw the rise of labor movements.
There he mobilized the support of the Cuban exile community, especially in southern Florida. He aimed for a revolution and independence from Spain, but also lobbied against the U. By —, American public opinion grew angrier at reports of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. After the mysterious sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war he had wished to avoid.
Compromise proved impossible, resulting in the United States sending an ultimatum to Spain that demanded it immediately surrender control of Cuba, which the Spanish rejected. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war. Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific.
American naval power proved decisive, allowing U. The Spanish-American War was swift and decisive. A week after the declaration of war, Commodore George Dewey of the six-warship Asiatic Squadron then based at Hong Kong steamed his fleet to the Philippines. Dewey caught the entire Spanish armada at anchor in Manila Bay and destroyed it without losing an American life. Cuban, Philippine, and American forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila as a result of their numerical superiority in most of the battles and despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units and spirited defenses in places such as San Juan Hill.
Madrid sued for peace after two obsolete Spanish squadrons were sunk in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay. A third more modern fleet was recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts.
The result of the war was the Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the United States. It allowed temporary American control of Cuba and indefinite colonial authority over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines following their purchase from Spain.
The war marked American entry into world affairs. Since the Spanish-American War, the United States has had a significant hand in various conflicts around the world, and has entered many treaties and agreements. The Panic of was over by this point, and the United States entered a long and prosperous period of economic and population growth and technological innovation that lasted through the s.
The war redefined national identity, served as a solution of sorts to the social divisions plaguing the American mind, and provided a model for all future news reporting. The war also effectively ended the Spanish Empire. The loss of Cuba caused a national trauma because of the affinity of peninsular Spaniards with Cuba, which was seen as another province of Spain rather than as a colony. Progressive Era evangelism included strong political, social, and economic messages, which urged adherents to improve their society.
The Social Gospel was a Protestant movement that was most prominent in the early twentieth-century United States and Canada.
The movement applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environments, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. In the United States, prior to World War I, the Social Gospel was the religious wing of the Progressive movement, which aimed to combat injustice, suffering, and poverty in society.
Denver, Colorado, was a center of Social Gospel activism. He established a free dispensary for medical emergencies, an employment bureau for job seekers, a summer camp for children, night schools for extended learning, and English language classes.
His middle-class congregation encouraged Reed to move on when he became a Socialist, and he organized a nondenominational church.
Baptist minister Jim Goodhart set up an employment bureau, and provided food and lodging for tramps and hobos at the mission he ran. He became city chaplain and director of public welfare of Denver in Pastor Dwight Moody, ca. Rauschenbusch railed against what he regarded as the selfishness of capitalism and promoted a form of Christian Socialism that supported the creation of labor unions and cooperative economics. While pastors such as Rauschenbusch were combining their expertise in Biblical ethics and economic studies and research to preach theological claims around the need for social reform, others such as Dwight Moody refused to preach about social issues based on personal experience.
Moody claimed that concentrating on social aid distracted people from the life-saving message of the Gospel. Rauschenbusch sought to address the problems of the city with Socialist ideas that proved to be frightening to the middle classes, the primary supporters of the Social Gospel.
In contrast, Moody attempted to save people from the city and was very effective in influencing middle-class Americans who were moving into the city with traditional style revivals. The main purpose of this organization was to abolish slavery, educate African Americans, advocate for racial equality, and promote Christian values.
Its members and leaders were both black and white and chiefly affiliated with Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches. Among its efforts was the founding of antislavery churches. For instance, the abolitionist Owen Lovejoy was among the Congregational ministers of the AMA who helped plant antislavery churches in Illinois before the American Civil War, aided by the strong westward migration of individuals from the East. While the AMA became notable in the United States for its work in opposition to slavery and in support of education for freed men, it also worked in missions in numerous nations overseas.
The nineteenth-century missionary effort was strong in China and east Asia. While the Social Gospel was short-lived historically, it had a lasting impact on the policies of most of the mainline denominations in the United States. Most began programs for social reform, which led to ecumenical cooperation in during the formation of the Federal Council of Churches although cooperation regarding social issues often led to charges of Socialism.
Johnson to transform social problems into moral problems. This helps explain his longtime commitment to social justice, as exemplified by the Great Society, and his commitment to racial equality. The Social Gospel explicitly inspired his foreign-policy approach of a sort of Christian internationalism and nation building.
The Open Door Policy aimed to keep the Chinese trade market open to all countries on an equal basis.
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