Us Expansionism

To what extent was late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century United States expansionism a continuation of past United States expansionism and to what extent was it a departure?

Throughout the history of the United States, America had a burning desire to expand its boundaries. The United States acquired most its land during the nineteenth and early twentieth century with a brief hiatus during the Civil War and Reconstruction. However, the means by which America grained new lands drastically changed from anon-aggressive fashion in the beginning to an extremely aggressive one towards the end. The two main ways of land gain for the United States was through expansionism and imperialism. These two means have several striking similarities between them. For instance, both of these policies led to conflicts. During expansionism, the main logic behind new statehood was to have the upper edge for free or slave states. Of course, this desire to gain as many free or slave states as possible led to such conflicts as Bleeding Kansas, where free and slave advocates flocked to Kansas in order to decide whether Kansas would allow or ban slavery. While the U.S. was imperializing, conflicts also took place rather frequently. In the Philippines, Emilio Aguinaldo led a two-year revolt against American forces in order to become free from American reign. Racism was also a key similarity between expansionism and imperialism. When Americans began to establish states as they moved westward, they had no consideration for Native Americans andconsidered them to be extremely invaluable. The exact same thing occurred about onehundred years later, with the “criminal aggression” that took place in the Philippines. TheAmerican Anti-Imperialist League argued that the blood of the Filipinos was onAmerican hands, and we more deeply resented this betrayal. Just about everybody whowas not a white, Anglo-Saxon protestant was discriminated against. The foreign policiesthat