Toward the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the United States was becoming an increasingly powerful nation and world power. The country was competing with other nations also expanding. Their motives for expanding were to gain land and resources. While there was a slight departure from past expansionism, the United States mostly continued as it had been in the previous years. In order to accomplish expansionism, the United States needed to acquire foreign territories to increase their global presence. Competing nations had been involved in expansionism long before the United States due to George Washington’s adoption of a policy of isolationism. As shown by Thomas Nast’s cartoon, powerful nations such as Britain, Germany, and Russia had been acquiring territories around the globe long before the United States. (Doc A) This …show more content…
Manifest Destiny is the belief of the nineteenth century that America was destined by God to expand westward. The author of Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis believed that God established Anglo-Saxons as the superior people whose purpose was to spread Christianity. (Doc B) This idea of spreading a superior culture or religion has been a motive for expansion for decades before this. Despite this support for expansionism, there were those who were against it. Many Americans thought occupying foreign countries, like the Philippines after the Spanish American War, was a bad idea because it contradicts the American values of equality found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. (Doc D) However, a majority of America sided with people like Senator Albert J. Beveridge who believed people were chosen by God to expand into China and the Philippines to open more Asian markets. (Doc E) This was a continuation of past expansionism because acquiring land for money Manifest Destiny have been motives for expansionism for