Annexation of Hawaii Essay

The decade of the 1890s tag a diplomatical watershed in the Statesn history. During that period the couplight-emitting diode States embarked upon a very assertive magnificationist polity that led to the landed estate becoming an imperialist power by 1900. The reasons for this change from an fundamentally low-key, isolationist foreign constitution military posture to an aggressive amour in valet de chambre affairs involved fundamental changes in the the Statesn economy and the attitudes of the American masses. The industrial revolution of the last quarter of the nineteenth century was the primary factor in the shifting foreign policy. As the res publica became to a greater extent industrialized it began to look abroad for new markets for its manufactured goods and for new sources of lancinating materials to feed the growing industrial system. To comfort these foreign markets and raw materials the unify States began to hold out its power and mildew everywhereseas by means of the acquisition of trading centers, naval stations, and coaling ports. indeed iodine of the major differences between the expansion of the 1890s and previous decades was that the nation did not see these new territories as latent states to add to the nation, but as spheres of square up in the aid of foreign trade. devil other elements entered the expansionist/imperialist equation. maven was the closing of the American frontier in1890. When the census report of that year proclaimed that in that location was no more frontier it meant that the nation could no longer pursue its double goals of territorial expansion and isolation from beingness affairs. One or the other would fuddle to be abandoned since there was no more contiguous rule to annex. The expansionist impulse proved stronger than the isolationist one and the nation began acquire an everywhereseas empire. A randomness factor was the desire to fan out the Christian gospel abroad, which meant securing an o rifice for American missionaries overseas. Militant Christianity reinforced the mood of American expansionism. A classic example of the intertwining of sparing and religious impulses was linked States annexation of hullo. The graduation Americans to settle in Hawaii were Christian missionaries whose families remained and exerted a growing sour over the Hawaiian economy.By 1890 American economic and religious interests in the island kingdom were a permanent feature of the society. When the McKinley tariff broadside of 1890 sought to stimulate the American scratch beet industry by placing a duty on imported kail and giving a two cent a pound bonus for domestically grown moolah, the American-owned sugar companiesfaced a serious economic problem. From the standpoint of the American sugar companies in Hawaii the per variety show to their economc problem was simple have Hawaii annexed by the united States so that Hawaiian sugar was domestic, not foreign grown. The blot in that solution was that the Hawaiian people had no desire to become American. This normal aversion to annexation was reflected in the refusal of the Hawaiian hold outer, Queen Liliuokalani, to request an American take-over. The sugar company executives, with the timely assistance of a contingent of American marines who marched through capital of Hawaii to protect American lives and property, simply ordered a political coup and asked for annexation. after(prenominal) chair Cleveland refused, President McKinley acquiesced in 1898. Americas desire to extend its influence beyond its borders was not limited to expressed acts of annexation. In the case of a bourn dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, united States action took the form of a realistic diplomatic ultimatum to England, insisting that Britain send no troops to press its limitation claims. The fall in States would set up a boundary commission to arbitrate the dispute and put the legitimate boundaries. After initi ally declining American good offices, Great Britain accepted after U.S. Secretary of State Olney asserted that the United States was practically sovereign in this hemisphere and threatened military action. This rather high-handed maneuver reflected growing U.S. power of persuasion. The around dramatic example of Americas increasingly imperialistic foreign policy was the Spanish-American War of 1898.After having remained aloof from Cubas previous attempts to throw off Spanish rule, the United States adopted a more interventionist policy when another Cuban insurrection erupted in the 1890s. The American people were likable with the Cuban cause and their rallying call became Cuba Libra, free Cuba. A sensationalist American press, led by New York city newspaper publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, contend up Spanish atrocities against the Cubans and ran front page stories about the Cuban struggle for freedom. Hearst regular(a) sent a photographer to Cuba with operating i nstructions to send back pictures of Spanish atrocities. In addition to yellow journalism, anti-Spanish emotions were stirred up by the publication of a common soldier letter written by the Spanish ambassador to the United States, de Lome, considered insulting to President McKinley. Another event fanning the flames of state of war fever was the sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana.Eventhough there was no proof of any Spanish involvement the rallying cry for pro-war forces became Remember the Maine, and to the pits with Spain. Even though Spain, trying to keep off confontation with the United States, responded optably to a diplomatic ultimatum from the State Department, McKinley yielded to popular pressure for war and delivered a war message. Congress, sensing Americas mood, declared war. Congress result of war was soon accompanied by the Teller Resolution promising that the United States would not annex Cuba as a result of American intervention in its behalf. Wh en the brief, successful war ( a elegant little war in the address of our Secretary of State) was ended, however, the Platt Amendment, incorporated in an American-Cuban treaty, accorded the United States the right to intervene in Cuba to make unnecessary its independence and maintain law and order. In effect this amendment gave the United States a quasi-protectorate over Cuba.And while the war did not lead to U.S. acquisition of Cuba it did result in United States annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands (acquired from Spain). The Philippinos expressed their aversion to becoming an American territory by engaging in a guerilla war against the U.S. when annexation was proposed. thus the Philippine insurrection against the U.S. was more costly in terms of money and American lives lost than had been the Spanish-American war. Nor was everyone in the U.S. in favor of Philippine annexation. Anti-imperialists claimed that the Philippines might involve us in a war in the Far East, and that forced annexation break the traditional American belief in government by the consent of the governed. American labor leaders joined in opposition to acquisition lest it lead to the inception of cheap Philippine labor.American racial discrimination also rallied against acquiring yellow-skinned Americas desire to extend its economic influence to the Far East through opening up trade with china led to yet another diplomatic confrontation. By 1900 China had succumbed to European imperialism in the form of spheres of influence each of the major European powers and Japan had established. Concerned that this would lead to those powers excluding the U.S. from the China trade the U.S. sent a round-robin diplomatic note to all of them asserting that it was the U.S. policy, and sour it was theirs as well, to provide an Open doorsill for trade with China. This was followed by a second Open Door note affirming measure for the territorial and administrativeintegrity of Chin a. reluctantly most of the nations gave lukewarm assent.