Document A We hold that the policy known as imperialism is hostile to liberty and tends toward militarism, an evil from which it has been our glory to be free. We regret that it has become necessary in the land of Washington and Lincoln to reaffirm that all men, of whatever race or color, are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We maintain that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We insist that the subjugation of any people is "criminal aggression."

... We hold, with Abraham Lincoln, that "no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."

Platform of the Anti-Imperialist League. 1900

Document B

". . . we are in the Philippines as righteously(honorably) as we are there rightly and legally.

The taking of the Philippines does not violate the principles of the Declaration of Independence, but will spread them among a people who have never known liberty, and who in a few years will be as unwilling to leave the shelter of the American flag as those of any other territory we ever

brought beneath its folds.

Henry Cabot Lodge, Senate Speech, Congressional Record. 1900

Document C

... the question with which we now have to deal is whether Congress may conquer and may govern, without their consent and against their will, a foreign nation, a separate, distinct, and numerous people, a territory not hereafter to be populated by Americans. . .

. . . under the Declaration of Independence you cannot govern a foreign territory, a foreign people, another people than your own ... you cannot subjugate them and govern them against their will, because you think it is for their good, when they do not; because you think you are going to give them the blessings of liberty. You have no right at the cannon's mouth to impose on an unwilling people your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution and your notions of freedom and notions of what is good.

George F. Hoar, House Speech, Congressional Record. 1899

Document D

Resolved, That the colored people of Boston in meeting assembled desire to enter their solemn protest against the present unjustified invasion by American soldiers in the Philippines Islands.

Resolved, That, while the rights of colored citizens in the South, sacredly guaranteed them by the amendment of the Constitution, are shamefully disregarded; and, while frequent lynchings of Negroes who are denied a civilized trial are a reproach to Republican government, the duty of the President and country is to reform these crying domestic wrongs and not attempt the civilization of alien peoples by powder and shot.

The Boston Post, July 18, 1899. Reprinted in The Philippines Reader (Boston: South End Press, 1987), 33.

Document E

Americans must begin to look outward. The growing production of the country demands it. An increasing volume of public sentiment demands it. The position of the United States, between the two Old Worlds and the two great oceans, makes the same claim,

Alfred T. Mahan. The Interest of America in Sea Power. Boston: Little, Brown, 1897.

Document F

It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is training the Anglo-Saxon race for an hour sure to come in the world's future. . .The unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken. . .Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history - the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. . . Then this race of unequalled energy, with all the majesty of numbers and the might of wealth behind it — the representative, let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization. . . will spread itself over the earth. If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the result of this competition of races will be the "survival of the fittest"?

Josiah Strong. Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis. American Home Missionary Society, 1885.

Questions:

1. Does document A support or oppose imperialism? What is its argument?
2. Does document B support or oppose imperialism? What is its argument?
3. Does document C support or oppose imperialism? What is its argument?
4. Does document D support or oppose imperialism? What is its argument?
5. Does document E support or oppose imperialism? What is its argument?
6. Does document F support or oppose imperialism? What is its argument
7. What argument for imperialism do you think is the most effective? Why?
8. What argument for imperialism do you think is the least effective? Why?
9. What argument for anti-imperialism do you think is the most effective? Why?