Imperialism Apus Dbq

As countries develop they must expand, and like many countries, the United States found its way on a path of expansionism. Though this happened throughout the U.S.’s early history, the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries proved that the U.S. continued to be an expansionist country. However, there is also evidence that shows how the U.S. slowly departed from their expansionistic ways. Imperialism in the U.S referred to their military and economic influence on other countries. Generally, expansionism is born through imperialism, and there were many people who disagreed with what many world powers were doing at the time. One newspaper artist named Thomas Nast published a drawing, in “Harper’s Weekly,” which portrayed all of the worlds major powers picking up the regions they wished to have and dropping them into their ‘grab-bags.’ This exaggeration was quite accurate because at the time many Americans were upset with the United States’ continuation to expand. Not only did it disrupt foreign policy, but it also enraged many citizens that were Anti-Imperialists, one of them being Nast. Imperialism in the U.S. dates all the way back to the Louisiana Purchase, and it was clearly the beginning of expansionist acquisitions. This concept began its popularity during the presidency of James Polk, who led the U.S. into the Mexican-American war of 1846. Polk continued to express imperial behavior with the annexation of California, along with the purchase of other western territories, all which occurred through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase. All of this expansionism and lust for territory comes from a belief called Manifest Destiny, the idea that America was destined to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Josiah Strong, an author from New York, argues that God expects the U.S. to expand until they have fulfilled their destiny, and he attempts to convince American citizens that the superiority of the races will come down to the survival of the fittest. Also, Senator Albert J. Beveridgein’s speech to the 56th congress added on to the pro-imperialism era, and most of his speech closely resembled the ideologies that the Manifest Destiny consisted of. This shows America’s continuation to expand in that the U.S.’s white influence planned to make an inevitable growth into all parts of the earth. More or less, imperialism was more of a competition rather than the true desire to expand. America was competing with other countries in order to secure more territories. Alfred Mahan believed that the growth of the country demanded imperialism and it all coincides with the continuous growth of the other foreign territories like Japan and the European colonies in the Pacific. Ultimately, in order to achieve the expansion that America wanted in order to defeat its competitors, it must respond to expansionism in the Pacific by strengthening its great sea power. This is a continuation of expansionism because it exemplifies that the motives that they once had are now nothing compared to the wrath of imperialism. Expansionism did not have much opposition when it first began, but as the nineteenth-century progressed, those who once stood behind it slowly lost their interest in the idea that the U.S. was making its way toward an Empire. What once started out as an acquisition of lands in order to support American growth, turned into a strive for dominant force among the other foreign powers. The Anti-Imperialistic League argued that the slaughter and continuation to express expansionism towards other countries must stop. They felt that the departure from imperialistic values would aid the U.S.’s foreign policy and help America in the long run.