Imperialism In The Philippines Research Paper

The United States war with Spain was commonly called the “splendid little war,” but the repercussions of this war were far from its adorning nickname. Unrest in the Philippines and political conflict on the mainland led to anti-imperialist feelings in the United States, affecting territories around the world and forward expansion of the nation. The kickoff to this long-standing trend of tension was the Spanish-American War. After the war, America faced Constitutional limitations and moral obligations surrounding newly freed Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. With heavy, empire-hungry European influences like France and Britain, the United States wanted an empire of their own, but not all Americans were on board. The capricious feelings

By August 1898, the U.S. had removed Spain from Cuba and Puerto Rico, leading up to the Treaty of Paris and the Teller Amendment. The treaty forced Spain to cede the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico to America; however, the Teller Amendment stated that the U.S. could not permanently annex Cuba. This, though, would not stop McKinley from maintaining American influence in the new territories: setting up American naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and keeping Puerto Rico. Yet there was still the matter of the

The league was made up of a smorgasbord of unlikely allies including Andrew Carnegie, who was disappointed by the U.S.’s efforts to “civilize” the Filipinos and resulting violence and even offered to buy the islands from the U.S. Booker T. Washington was another member of the league, who argued we had no right to invest in other nations’ social problems until we could handle our own problems with Indians and African Americans. Anti-imperialists soon got behind the slogan “the Constitution follows the flag,” which claimed that the Constitution did not allow the U.S. to acquire any territories it did not plan to admit as states, and it also stated that civil and political rights in the Constitution applied to anyone under American control. Upsetting for anti-imperialists, the Supreme Court ruled that the Philippines and Puerto Rico were not citizens but subjects and instituted them as