Compare And Contrast Spanish American Imperialism

Opposition to Spanish - American War Following the explosion of the USS Maine in February 15, 1898, while many Americans favored going to war with Spain, some were adamantly against the notion. The few who were against the idea of going to war include President McKinley, a fraction of African Americans, and one significant group, “ The Anti- Imperialism League”.

Immediately after the explosion of the USS Maine, President McKinley, who disliked the idea of going to war ordered an investigation of the explosion. Americans claimed that an external force caused the sinking of the ship and the death of 266 crew members while Spain claimed that the sinking was the result of an internal force. Because neither side came to an agreement , Mckinley

Another group who resisted the idea of war was “The Anti- Imperialist League” which consisted of many of America’s most influential people such as Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, and many more who spoke out about their views on how immoral imperialism is. This group believed that America shouldn’t get involved with imperialism and was formed to resist America’s oversea expansion and imperialization of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. They believed that the colonization of the Phillipines against their will was morally wrong and argued that if America tries to get involved and imperialises a country instead of liberating them from another country, we will lose our image. Notable leaders of the league include George Boutswell, Mark Twain ,and Moorfield Storey. Mark Twain was regarded as “ the most influential anti-imperialist and the most dreaded critic of the sacrosanct person in the White House that the country contains” ,according to Springfield Republican. He wrote a book titled The War Prayer in which the Spanish- American antiwar slogan “ "Underneath the starry flag, civilize them with

The Philippines, led by Emilio Aguinaldo wanted to be an independent country instead of being colonized by yet another nation. In an attempt to achieve this, they fought America for their liberation, which led to the death of 20,000 Filipino soldiers and 200,000 Filipino civilians who perished from disease, violence, and famine due to the war. Following the Treaty of Paris at the end of the Spanish American War, Twain states, “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 Philippines. 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.” Moorfield Storey, President of the Anti- Imperialist League at the time believed that "To seize any colony of Spain and hold it as our own, without the free consent of its people is a violation of the principles upon which this government rests, which we have preached to the world for a century, and which we pledged ourselves to respect when this war was declared."[ Although the League was