An oft-repeated argument in favor of American imperialism was that it was justified because it spread the American ideals of democracy and liberty to people who lived without them. In an 1896 speech before congress, President Grover Cleveland observed that Cuban rebels were encouraged by “the widespread sympathy the people of this country always and instinctively feel for every struggle for better and freer government.” This American affinity for democracy would translate into arguments for American intervention in Cuba. In April, shortly before the formal start of the Spanish-American War, journalist Henry Watterson wrote in an editorial praising the likely war that “liberty and law shall no longer be trampled upon, outraged, and murdered by despotism and autocracy upon our threshold.” The purpose of American intervention was clear: to spread liberty and defeat its tyrannical opponents -- beginning with Spain. Later, when
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In a speech in early 1899, when debate was raging over what the United States should do with the Philippines, Congressman George Hoar made the argument that the constitution does not give the United States the right to rule people in order to “civilize them,” and doing this against that people’s own interests went against the text and the spirit of the document, and the founding principles of the United States. Hoar also argued against the claim that holding on to the Philippines was for the Filipinos’ benefit:
The people there have got a government, with courts and judges, better than those of the people of Cuba, who, it was said, had a right to self-government, collecting their customs; and it is proposed to turn your guns on them, and say, “We think that our notion of government is better than the notion you have got
In a speech in early 1899, when debate was raging over what the United States should do with the Philippines, Congressman George Hoar made the argument that the constitution does not give the United States the right to rule people in order to “civilize them,” and doing this against that people’s own interests went against the text and the spirit of the document, and the founding principles of the United States. Hoar also argued against the claim that holding on to the Philippines was for the Filipinos’ benefit:
The people there have got a government, with courts and judges, better than those of the people of Cuba, who, it was said, had a right to self-government, collecting their customs; and it is proposed to turn your guns on them, and say, “We think that our notion of government is better than the notion you have got