¶ … Anti-Imperialist League, formed in 1899 by prominent citizens such as Andrew Carnegie and William James, held the belief that American Imperialism went against the spirit of those that fought the Revolutionary War and participated in the creation of the Declaration of Independence (Halsall, 1997). Specifically, they asserted that the American government's actions in places such as Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico represented a hostile attitude toward liberty and step in the direction of militarism (Halsall, 1997). Moreover, they argued, the American Government derived its power from the consent of the governed, and imperialism denied man's natural right to either govern himself or choose to be governed (Halsall, 1997). Instead, it promoted a form of despotism (Halsall, 1997). They maintained that, through imperialistic policies, the United States was practicing truth-suppressing censorship and the deliberation of war, and they called for an immediate end to the United States' presence in the Philippines as well as the liberation of the Filipinos (Halsall, 1997).
However, the U.S. never technically adopted a policy of "imperialism." The Anti-Imperialist league were simply the first to term U.S. actions as such, and that term, related to U.S. foreign policy, remains debated to this day. Just as today's leaders would scoff at calling the "War on Terror" an imperialistic policy, 19th century leaders never called their involvement in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam "imperialism." It remains, however, that the U.S. did in fact follow imperialistic policies in these countries, simply extending, or mirroring, the Spanish imperialism that had been instituted there for over two centuries.
These imperialistic policies were quite possibly...
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