미서전쟁으로 인한 미국의 제국주의 출현

Abstract

It is the purpose of this paper to trace the rise and development in the United States of the movement for overseas exansion from the lase decade of nineteeneh century to its triumph in the ratification of the treaty with Spain in February, 1899 and the election of 1900. The United States pursued a logical, and understandable peace policy teward Cuba, attempting to force Spain to roform the island in order to remove the Cuban issue from world affairs. Ths Spenish failure to do so provoked American intervention in 1898. By its intervening the Mckinley adninistration merely accepted its inevitable role in the solution of long atanding Cuban issue. Hower, and fact romains that the United States acquired Hawaii and the Philippines Islands , and other oupposts of ompire on the Pacific as part of a conscious program of oxtending American power into the arena of international politics and trande, and not by accident or defauit. The annexation of the Philippinds which followed the defeat of Spain in the war brought a sharp divergence from provious American traditions. For the first time in long gistory of territorial expansion Amercans stepped boyend their continental limits to seize lands which lay much closer to the peoples of Asia than to ehsir own shores. In every way the acquisition of these islands posed now problem for American civilizetion. Strategically, they committed themsolves th defenso of a romote outpost in the Far East. Politically, they undertook to rule over millions of people who in all probability would never becomme promotition of their foreign trado in this part of the world through the aid of military force and political domination. Hero was one of the turning points in American history, and the debate in the years 1898-1900 over annoxation of the Philiooines constituted one of the great debates of American history. In the arguments for annexation two essential themes, moral and psychological, appeared over and over again. Those themes were eapressed in the words Duty and Destiny. According to the expressed in the words Duty, TO REJECT ANNEXATION OF THE Philiooines would be to fail of fulfilling a solemn obligation. By Destiny, another themo in this great dobate, it was argued that the annexation of the Philippines in particular , and expansion generally, were incvitable and irresistible destiny Americak should face at this period. Anti-Imperialists, on the dther hand, questioned Whother or not a republic like the United States could afferd to contradict its political and social traditions by assuning control over other peoples who were to be its subjects, not its citizens. Would not such a course endanger our basic institutions and woaken our philosophy of government? These were the contral and the onduring questions which posed the dilorame for thoughtful citizons. By 1899 the United States Senate had reached its momentous decision to annex the Philippines. The roolection of President MeKinloy seemed to indicate that the Amefican people had no strong desire to repudiate this venture in imperialism. Victory at the polls enabled the McKinley administration to interprot the result as an approval of its record and a mandate to preserve along the path of ompire. It may be concluded that the Amercan people quickly turned away from overseas dependencies because once their emotional needs(Manifest Destiny and Duty)were satisfied, the other pressuros were too weak to uphold a policy that did not accord with their traditional ideals or the principles upon which their institution rested.