Blogs > Liberty and Power > Who IS the father (or mother) of U.S. Anti-imperialism?

Feb 24, 2005

Who IS the father (or mother) of U.S. Anti-imperialism?





I think William Marina's comments below on George Washington are a bit too harsh, but I do agree with him that calling GW the father of American anti-imperialism is problematic. So, if GW is NOT the father of American anti-imperialism, any nominations for who is?


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Roderick T. Long - 2/26/2005

While we're on the subject of anti-imperialist figures in the U.S., let me put in a plug for William Graham Sumner's 1899 analysis of the Spanish-American War, as well as Scott Trask's recent JLS article on Sumner.

As for earlier folks, of course there's Thoreau who protested the Mexican War.


Common Sense - 2/26/2005


Bill: I am extremely familiar with your work, and I agree with your comments. I still think you were a bit harsh on GW, but only a bit. CS


William Marina - 2/24/2005

Dear Common Sense:

Since I did my dissertation on the Anti-Imperialists, utilizing the papers of over 100 people, and materials in the Bur. of Insular Affairs in the Nat. Archives, along with doing an Index to the 96 reels of microfim of the Philippine Insurgent Records there, I feel fairly qualified to address that question.

It is a bit more complicated than one imagines since in my piece I differentiated between expansion, colonialism and kinds of imperialism.

There were a number of opponents of Jefferson's kind of Expansionism, even Lincoln on the way in which we went about acquiring parts of Mexico.

As to the essential Anti-Colonialism of the A-I League after 1898, I would nominate Carl Schurz and Moorfield Storey.

The most perceptive critic by far of the varieties of Imperialism the US has practiced after 1919, and the most highly regarded by people abroad, was Sen. William E. Borah.

Bill Marina


Kenneth R Gregg - 2/24/2005

Yup. Jason has a point here. We thought alike here. More powerful than Rand, able to leap tall regimes with a single bound (book). Look! Up there! It's...It's...

Just an (Age of) Reasonable thought.
Just Tom.


:)


Jason Kuznicki - 2/24/2005

... I'm rather curious about who is the father (or mother) of "Common Sense."

And spare me the Paineful jokes, please.