America's Expansionist Policy In The 1890s

The decade of the 1890s marks a diplomatic watershed in American history. During that period the United States embarked upon a very assertive expansionist policy that led to the nation becoming an imperialist power by 1900. The reasons for this change from an essentially low-key, isolationist foreign policy stance to an aggressive involvement in world affairs involved fundamental changes in the American economy and the attitudes of the American people. The industrial revolution of the last quarter of the 19th century was the primary factor in the shifting foreign policy. As the nation became more industrialized it began to look overseas for new markets for its manufactured goods and for new sources of raw materials to feed the growing industrial system. To protect these foreign markets and raw materials the United States began to expand its power and influence overseas through the acquisition of trading centers, naval stations, and coaling ports. Indeed one of the major differences between the expansion of the 1890s and previous decades was that the nation did not see these new territories as potential states to add to the nation, but as spheres of influence in the aid of foreign trade. Two other elements
when annexation was proposed. Indeed the Philippine insurrection against the U.S. was more costly in terms of money and American lives lost than had been the Spanish-American war. Nor was everyone in the U.S. in favor of Philippine annexation. Anti-imperialists claimed that the Philippines might involve us in a war in the Far East, and that forced annexation violated the traditional American belief in "government by the consent of the governed." American labor leaders joined in opposition to acquisition lest it lead to the introduction of cheap Philippine labor. American racism also rallied against acquiring