Mugwumps

     The Twentieth Century, known as the American Century, elevated the United States' reach expand with unprecedented power economically, militarily, and influentially around the world. That century saw the United States involved in interventionists wars in every decade on nearly every continent. The path to American Imperialism did not rise unprotested from the world; indeed, a full decade of debate in American politics fought against the militaristic domination of the mighty the American economy.
     Anti-expansionist isolationists began cries of alarm in the 1860s with American's consideration of annexing several Pacific islands. As American foreign relations swelled, these isolationists, referred to as Mugwumps, joined forces with a large number of Republicans to create a considerable anti-imperialist political movement in the 1890s.
     The Spanish-American War allegedly fought over humanitarian issues on the Caribbean Island of Cuba was the first American interventionist war and foreshadowed the entire twenty-first century. Despite the humanitarian declaration that incited U.S. intervention, after the war the island of Cuba was ruled through an American military state some years. Since war proponents had encouraged removal of Spanish influence to protect American interests, anti-imperialists feared further annexation of territories abroad to defend American economic intersts. With this logic, William Sumner argued that “the U.S. would have to dominate the entire world to feel safe in any part of it.”¹ The Mugwumps’ protest intensified.

1 William Sumner. “The Predominant Issue,” War and Other Essays. Edited by Albert Keller. (New Haven,

Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1919), 351.

     The Mugwumps as a whole were older members of society that refused to accepted the industrial changes throughout America and sought to return to the agrarianism espoused by President Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. Several of their strongest reasons for opposing American imperialism rested on the statements of that president and of the views of many of the Founding Fathers.

     A republic is composed of free citizens; an empire has subjects. The Constitution does not prohibit control over non-citizens, but to control small islands around the world, the United States would have to force itself onto those people and rule through oppression as the European Empires did at the time. American isolationists argued that a republic cannot govern without consent of the govern. Pro-expansionists defended their stance that occupational force was a necessary evil and would allow the U.S. to defend native islanders against any future invaders.

   Bourke Cockran, a Tammany Hall leader, spoke out against Republican expansionist policies because, “it is cowardly to invade the rights of the weak while respecting those of the strong; because it would divorce the American flag from the American Constitution . . . because it is a policy of inconceivable folly from a material point of view, and a policy of unspeakable infamy from a moral point of view.” These reservations against invasions did not sway its opposition because they believed that the growing might of U.S. economy needed military and trade bases to aid in dispersal of American goods.

    The domestic social unrest of late nineteenth century America's adjustment to industrialization complicated the issue further by having to adjust to the assimilation of ten million freed slaves after the Civil War's end in 1865. Isolationists feared that the incorporation of Pacific Islanders into American society would further disintegrate American society and that the the cost of providing governing laws and a military presence abroad would outweigh any economic benefit.

     One of the last arguments by Mugwumps and isolationist-Republicans held on to the American colonial fear of a large standing army and a subsequent, substantial national debt limiting the freedoms of Americans and necessitating the federal government retracting upon its own anti-colonial history. George Hoar, a Republican senator for Massachusetts, equated expansionist principles with “forsak[ing] the Declaration of Independence, Washington’s Farewell Address, the Monroe Doctrine, and the nation’s traditional distrust of a standing army.”² These reservations did not successfully counter the dogmatic, imperialist viewpoints of the pro-expansionist movement and American became a colonial power by the close of the nineteenth century.
 2Robert Beisner. Twelve Against the Empire: The Anti-Imperialists 1898-1900. (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill 

Book Company, 1971),

     The fundamental purpose of the anti-expansionists was to defend the United States on Constitutional grounds. Anti-imperialism failed because of advanced age of many of its leaders, inability to connect with the new industrial population, and the negative approach to the isolationist arguments.

     Despite their political defeat by McKinley, Roosevelt, and other Republican expansionists by 1900, the anti-imperialists were fairly accurate in their predictions. The Philippine Islands’ rebellion cost thousands of American lives. American treatment of the Filipino population was the same or worse than the previous Spanish overseers. American military expenditures did increase causing greater taxes with the formation of the Federal Income Tax. Imperialism inextricably involved America in European political affairs.

     With the abandonment of its isolationist policies, America lost her innocence and transformed into an imperial country. Expansionist government changed the social, economic, and constitutional perceptions of Americans and colonies alike. “The traditional consensus persisted: America has a unique set of values, way of life, and form of government to offer the world . . . the consensus then divided, as it always had, between those who believed those goods were best spread benignly, by example, or assertively, by force.”³ With the collapse of the anti-imperialist movement at the close of the nineteenth century, America entered the new era with a new purpose: to destroy those who oppress and to liberate the weak.

3  Walter Nugent. Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion. (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 315.

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Agatha Tyche