The American Anti-Imperialist League

(noun)

An organization established in the United States on June 15, 1898, to battle the American annexation of the Philippines as an insular area.

Related Terms

Examples of The American Anti-Imperialist League in the following topics:

  • The Debate over American Imperialism

    • The "Age of Imperialism" was the height of American expansion overseas, but not everyone agreed with the imperialistic policies of the U.S.
    • A strong vocal minority, the American Anti-Imperialist League, was an organization established in the United States on June 15, 1898, to battle the American annexation of the Philippines as an insular area.
    • The League also argued that the Spanish-American War was a war of imperialism camouflaged as a war of liberation.
    • The party quickly collapsed, however, when Caffery dropped out, leaving Bryan as the only anti-imperialist candidate.
    • The Anti-Imperialist League disbanded in 1921.

  • American Imperialism

    • Polk, the concept of an "American Empire" was made a reality throughout the latter half of the 1800s.
    • The American Anti-Imperialist League was an organization established in the United States on June 15, 1898, to battle the American annexation of the Philippines as an insular area.
    • The League also argued that the Spanish-American War was a war of imperialism camouflaged as a war of liberation.
    • The anti-imperialists opposed the expansion because they believed imperialism violated the credo of republicanism, especially the need for "consent of the governed."
    • The Anti-Imperialist League represented an older generation and was rooted in an earlier era; they were defeated in terms of public opinion, the 1900 election, and the actions of Congress and the president because most younger Progressives who were just coming to power supported imperialism.

  • The Philippine–American War

    • The Philippine–American War was an armed conflict that resulted in American colonial rule of the Philippines until 1946.
    • However, some Philippine groups led by veterans of the Katipunan continued to battle the American forces.
    • Some Americans, notably William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Ernest Crosby, and other members of the American Anti-Imperialist League, strongly objected to the annexation of the Philippines.
    • Anti-imperialist movements claimed that the United States had become a colonial power, by replacing Spain as the colonial power in the Philippines.
    • Other anti-imperialists opposed annexation on racist grounds.

  • The League of Nations

    • The league was the brainchild of U.S.
    • Anti-war sentiment rose across the world following the First World War, which was described as "the war to end all wars."
    • The Paris Peace Conference approved the proposal to create the League of Nations in January 1919, and the league was established by Part I of the Treaty of Versailles.
    • Among the American public, Irish-Catholics and German-Americans were intensely opposed to the treaty, claiming it favored the British.
    • Harding, continued American opposition to the League of Nations.

  • Blue Water Imperialism

    • The dominant 17th- and 18th-century British imperialist ideology was founded on a liberal conception of freedom and commerce—however, this freedom was only conceptualized in terms of white Anglo-Saxon men.
    • Theoretically, British imperialists envisioned a "blue water empire," in that the British empire stretching across the Atlantic was "Protestant, commercial, maritime, and free."
    • Broadly, blue water imperialists aimed to use the power of the metropole to enforce the proper conditions that would allow for commercial and maritime expansion.
    • British liberals considered this framework of blue water empire to be anti-despotic—the government sought trade markets abroad in order to extend imperial influence commercially, without arbitrary territorial expansion.
    • The American language of liberty is a concept deeply rooted in the Anglo-American colonial experience as well as the American Revolution.

  • The Anti-Federalists

    • Anti-Federalists were those opposed to ratification of the US Constitution following the Revolutionary War.
    • During the American Revolutionary War and its immediate aftermath, the term "federal" was applied to anyone who supported the colonial union and the government formed under the Articles of Confederation.
    • These so-called Anti-Federalists rejected the term, arguing that they were the true federalists.
    • A common complaint of Anti-Federalists was that the Constitution provided for a centralized, rather than federal, government, and that a truly federal form of government was a leaguing of states, as under the Articles of Confederation.
    • With the passage of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Anti-Federalist movement was exhausted.

  • The Anti-Federalists

    • The Anti-Federalists included diverse factions, such as those opposed to the Constitution or supporters of the Articles of Confederation.
    • During the American Revolution and its immediate aftermath, the term "federal" was applied to any person who supported the colonial union and the government formed under the Articles of Confederation.
    • The Anti-Federalists rejected the term, arguing that they were the true Federalists.
    • Another complaint of the Anti-Federalists was that the Constitution provided for a centralized rather than federal form of government (in The Federalist Papers, James Madison wrote that the new Constitution has characteristics of both) and that a truly federal form of government was a leaguing of states as under the Articles of Confederation.
    • The Anti-Federalists played upon these feelings in the ratification convention in Massachusetts.

  • Isolationism

    • The first significant foreign intervention by the United States was the Spanish-American War, which saw the United States occupy and control the Philipines.
    • Congress refused to endorse the Treaty of Versailles or the League of Nations.
    • First, the United States Congress rejected president Woodrow Wilson's most cherished condition of the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations.
    • Many Americans felt that they did not need the rest of the world, and that they were fine making decisions concerning peace on their own.
    • Even though "anti-League" was the policy of the nation, private citizens and lower diplomats either supported or observed the League of Nations.

  • The Iranian Crisis

    • The Iranian hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days.
    • Mossadegh had sought greater Iranian control over the nation’s oil wealth, which was claimed by British imperialist companies.
    • The women and African Americans were soon released, leaving 53 men as hostages.
    • However, the crisis strengthened both anti-Iranian (and more broadly, anti-Islamic) sentiment in the U.S. and anti-American sentiment in Iran.
    • The fifty-two American hostages return from Iran in January 1981.

  • The Nativist Response to Immigration

    • Nativist movements included the Know-Nothing or American Party of the 1850s, the Immigration Restriction League of the 1890s, and the anti-Asian movements in the West, the latter of which resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
    • The League was founded in Boston and had branches in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
    • The League also had political allies that used their power in Congress to gain support for the League's intentions.
    • Everything was orderly until an anti-coolie procession pushed its way into the audience and insisted that the speakers say something about the Chinese.
    • The American Party often is associated with xenophobia and anti-Catholic sentiments.