Abraham Lincoln said :“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.” In 1898 America won the Spanish-American War and during the aftermath the US was faced with a few choices when it came to the Philippines: hand the Philippines back to Spain, give the Philippines independence, or the US could annex the Philippines. The act of annexation was imperialistic, and imperialism was the practice of building an empire by founding colonies or conquering other nations. In the end the US decided to annex the Philippines, welcoming them to be a part of the US territory. Should the United States have annexed the Philippines? The US should not have annexed the Philippines because it would be hypocritical of Americans, the …show more content…
“We hold with Abraham Lincoln, that ‘no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent’... ‘that is despotism (rule by a tyrant),”(document A). Even though he was not alive, Abraham Lincoln posed a great point as to why the Philippines should not be annexed; they did not give their consent. The Philippines was taken over and annexed against their will by the US. Document A also says that annexing the Philippines extinguishes “the spirit of 1776 in those islands”. The spirit of 1776 was independence and by annexing the Philippines the US took away the independence of the Philippines as well as the Filipino people. Taking away the independence of another colony/nation is hypocritical because it goes against the values of which the US was founded on. The Philippines should not have been annexed because the US could still profit from the Philippines without annexation. “It is not necessary to own people to trade with them,”(document D). The US did not profit from annexing the Philippines, trade wise, because they could still trade with them whether they were annexed into the US or not. Separate countries trade with each other without having to be annexed in another country, so the US took away the Philippines independence and they did not truly profit. In the end, Annexing the Philippines to profit from trade was