The perceived benefits of spreading Christianity, democracy, and capitalism to indigenous peoples were rooted in the belief that expansion would promote peace and civilizational progress. Proponents, such as religious leaders like Lyman Abbott, viewed events like the Spanish-American War as "God’s will," suggesting a divine endorsement of American intervention in foreign lands. This ideology posited that "every expansion of civilization makes for peace," arguing that American expansion would usher in stability and order, particularly in regions perceived as underdeveloped or savage. Ultimately, the narrative of American exceptionalism framed expansion as a moral duty, wherein the civilized nations believed that their imperial pursuits would be a gift of "law, order, and righteousness" to those they deemed in need.
Discuss the perceived benefits of spreading Christianity, democracy, and capitalism to indigenous peoples. Provide historical detail. (Impact abroad.) 4 sentences only using what I provide with quote from only what I provide
Many Americans approved of Roosevelt’s foreign policy agenda. They felt that the U.S. should expand markets and work to spread democracy and Christianity to other nations. Religious leaders, like Lyman Abbott, saw the American victory in the Spanish-American War as "God’s will". Americans were destined to lead the world.
Not all U.S. citizens felt the same about American imperialism. Some Americans felt that imperialism contradicted the nation's founding principles. Anti-imperialists felt that control of the land and people of another nation opposed America’s historical identification with liberty and self-rule.
Every expansion of civilization makes for peace. In other words, every expansion of a great civilized power means a victory for law, order, and righteousness. This has been the case in every instance of expansion during the present century, whether the expanding power were France or England, Russia or America. In every instance the expansion has been of benefit, not so much to the power nominally benefited, as to the whole world. . . .
So it has been in the history of our own country. Of course our whole national history has been one of expansion. Under Washington and Adams we expanded westward to the Mississippi; under Jefferson we expanded across the continent to the mouth of the Columbia; under Monroe we expanded into Florida; and then into Texas and California; and finally, largely through the instrumentality of Seward, into Alaska; while under every administration the process of expansion in the great plains and the Rockies has continued with growing rapidity. While we had a frontier the chief feature of frontier life was the endless war between the settlers and the red men. Sometimes the immediate occasion for the war was to be found in the conduct of the whites and sometimes in that of the reds, but the ultimate cause was simply that we were in contact with a country held by savages or half-savages.
Where we abut on Canada there is no danger of war, nor is there any danger where we abut on the well-settled regions of Mexico. But elsewhere war had to continue until we expanded over the country. Then it was succeeded at once by a peace which has remained unbroken to the present day. In North America, as elsewhere throughout the entire world, the expansion of a civilized nation has invariably meant the growth of the area in which peace is normal throughout the world.
The same will be true of the Philippines. If the men who have counseled national degradation, national dishonor, by urging us to leave the Philippines and put the Aguinaldan oligarchy in control of those islands, could have their way, we should merely turn them over to rapine and bloodshed until some stronger, manlier power stepped in to do the task we had shown ourselves fearful of performing. But, as it is, this country will keep the islands and will establish therein a stable and orderly government, so that one more fair spot of the world’s surface shall have been snatched from the forces of darkness. Fundamentally the cause of expansion is the cause of peace. . . .
Nations that expand and nations that do not expand may both ultimately go down, but the one leaves heirs and a glorious memory, and the other leaves neither. The Roman expanded, and he has left a memory which has profoundly influenced the history of mankind, and he has further left as the heirs of his body, and, above all, of his tongue and culture, the so-called Latin peoples of Europe and America. Similarly to-day it is the great expanding peoples who bequeath to the future ages the great memories and material results of their achievements, and the nations which shall have sprung from their loins, England standing as the archetype and best exemplar of all such mighty nations. But the peoples that do not expand leave, and can leave, nothing behind them.
It is only the warlike power of a civilized people that can give peace to the world. The Arab wrecked the civilization of the Mediterranean coasts, the Turk wrecked the civilization of southeastern Europe, and the Tartar desolated from China to Russia and to Persia, setting back the progress of the world for centuries, solely because the civilized nations opposed to them had lost the great fighting qualities, and, in becoming overpeaceful, had lost the power of keeping peace with a strong hand.
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