Imperialism Dbq Essay

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Throughout American History, imperialists and anti-imperialists ideals have opposed each other, but each for a valid reason. The imperialists were for expanding the United States and for spreading their ideas of government. The anti-imperialists wanted to play it safe and prevent any conflict that could have risen. It is also existent in today's world with modern day conflicts about the current imperialistic values. The views of American Imperialism were similar about the concerns for racism, but the views also differed because some believe the US was strong when others do not. During the Imperial Era of america there were two different viewpoints to imperialising America. Though most of the ideas differed, some of the concerns were …show more content…

One of the main ideas that Imperialists believed in with the expansion of the US would strengthen the country. President William McKinley, once said, “That we could not give them back to Spain-that would be cowardly and dishonorable… That we could not turn them over to France or Germany, our commercial rivals in the Orient-that would be bad business and discreditable” (Document 3). He is saying that expanding overseas would strengthen the power of the US and make the US seem not cowardly or weak. Though if an anti-imperialists were to of given an opinion of what expanding overseas would do to the strength of they would say that it would weaken the US. In many propaganda posters (Document 7) it would depict the US as being fools and spreading out too thin and making the US weaker. Sequentially, in William graham Sumner's speech he states, “that we must send fleets and armies to kill them if they do it; that we must devise a government for them and administer it ourselves” (Document 2). McKinley is saying that in expanding overseas it will cause other countries to create an image of the US as the bad guys of the world. Another opposing idea of the two groups is military