Civil War

During the decades leading up to the Civil War, annexation of territory was viewed within the context of the debate about slavery. No anti-imperialist organization was formed to oppose the Mexican War or the annexation of territory that resulted from it because it was seen primarily as a war for the extension of slavery and opposition was channeled through abolitionist organizations. It reluctantly approved the purchase of Alaska in 1867. In the early 1870's, it rejected two treaties for control of a small part of Samoa for use as a naval base before accepting a third proposal in 1878. Treaties to annex the Danish West Indies, Santo Domingo, and Hawaii were all rejected. If the hand of “Providence” was guiding the United States towards world dominion, it was slapped by Congress more often than it was accepted.

With these territories under its control, the government quickly turned its attention to their utilization. In 1900 it sent troops from the Philippines to participate in an international military force to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in China, gaining access to coveted Chinese markets in the process. Back in the Americas, it was concentrating on finding a suitable site for a canal through Central America. The U.S. had planned canals through both Panama and Nicaragua as early as the 1840s. With a new need to facilitate transportation from the U.S. east coast to its colonies in Asia, deciding on a site and building the canal became an urgent task. With the canal, the U.S. had established an empire that stretched from the Americas through island outposts in the Pacific to the Philippines, from which it could stage military interventions throughout East Asia. "Thus the old America passes away," a jubilant contemporary historian observed; "behold a new America appears, and her face is toward the Pacific!" To many Americans, though, this "new America" was nothing to celebrate. In November 1898,