Question

“The Opinion of Massachusetts on Imperialism”
Extract from the Speech of Senator George F. Hoar, to the Massachusetts Club, July 29, 1898.

Her opinions on such questions are the fruit of nearly 300 years of a great and honorable history. She will not depart from the Declaration of Independence. She will not depart from the doctrines of liberty laid down in her own Constitution. She will not consent to be the ruler over vassal States or subject peoples. She will enter upon no mad career of empire in distant seas. She will not seek to force her trade upon unwilling peoples at the cannon’s mouth. She will not exact tribute or revenues from men who have no voice in regard to them. She will not consent to enter with the powers of Europe into any partnership, alliance or contest for the plunder of China or the division of Africa, or for the subjugation of the eastern archipelagoes, or for compelling unwilling peoples to trade with her. If the American flag appear in the East, it will be as the emblem of their liberty and not of their dominion. She will desire to meet the great responsibilities which the end of the war seems likely to bring to the American people solely in the interests of the provinces we may deliver from Spain and not for our own. The power of the United States is to be exerted through example and influence, and not by force.

It will be a sad thing for the country, it will be a sad thing for mankind, if the people of the United States come to abandon their fundamental doctrine. We are giving it a hard strain in our dealing with the negro at the South. We are giving it a hard strain in our dealing with the great problem of immigration. But it cannot stand if this country undertake also to exercise dominion over conquered islands, over vassal States, over subject races; if in addition to the differences of race and the differences of education we attempt to govern great masses of people, aliens in birth, of strange language, of different religions. If we do it, our spirit will not, I am afraid—God grant that I may be wrong—the American spirit will not enter into and possess them, but their spirit will enter into and possess us.

An aristocracy or a monarchy may govern subject States. It never was done and never will be done successfully by a democracy or republic.

—Save the Republic: Anti-Imperialist Leaflet No. 13, Anti-Imperialist League, Washington, D.C., 1899
Find two anti imperialism arguments

Answer 1

1) Imperialism violates American principles and law.
Hoar argues that ruling vassal states, exacting tribute, or forcing trade by “the cannon’s mouth” would contradict the Declaration of Independence and Massachusetts’s Constitution; the U.S. flag “will be as the emblem of their liberty and not of their dominion.” In short, empire would betray the nation’s founding doctrines.

2) Imperialism is practically and socially harmful to a republic.
Hoar warns a democracy cannot successfully govern subject peoples and that ruling alien races and distant provinces will “strain” the Republic, corrupt the American spirit, and import problems the nation cannot assimilate. He concludes an aristocracy or monarchy may rule colonies, but a republic cannot do so successfully.