Firstly, racism determined the differing opinion of imperialists and anti-imperialists – who shared similar views on using democratic principles – on manifest destiny. The author of March of Flag, Albert J. Beveridge, who was an Anglo-Saxon and an imperialist, believed that all the presidents starting from Jefferson to Grant accepted God’s wish to expand America and the present president were doing the same thing by expanding US overseas (March of Flag). Anglo-Saxon race was a self-governing race and so it helped other countries by forming a democratic government, which is similar to that of America, in those countries. But the anti-imperialists, like William James, assumed that Aguinaldo’s movement is a proof of the weak countries like
