The McKinley administration brought foreign affairs to the top of the agenda for the first time since the 1840s. Most Republicans supported an expansionist foreign policy, building the American presence in the world that suited its increasing economic dominance. Opposition came from an anti-imperialist element that included some old time Republicans, as well as most Democrats. However, in 1898 the Democrats took the lead in demanding Spain stop oppressing the independent-minded people of Cuba, while McKinley tried to stop the rush to war.
Annexation of Hawaii of the
Republic of Hawaii in 1898 Hawaii long had very close political, cultural, religious and economic relations with the United States. The native population was virtually powerless in small villages. Large sugar interests had imported tens of thousands of workers, mostly Japanese. Expansionists spoke of annexation and the business community in Honolulu wanted annexation by the U.S., fearing that otherwise Japan would take it over from a king who had no army. The reciprocity treaty in the 1870s had made the
Kingdom of Hawaii a "virtual satellite" of the United States. After Queen
Liliʻuokalani announced plans to issue a new constitution designed to give her absolute power, she was immediately
overthrown by the business community, which requested annexation by the United States. President Harrison tried to annex Hawaii, but his term ended before he could win Senate approval of an annexation treaty, and Cleveland withdrew the treaty. Cleveland deeply opposed annexation because of a personal conviction that would not tolerate what he viewed as an immoral action against the little kingdom. Additionally, annexation faced opposition from domestic sugar interests opposed to the importation of
Hawaiian sugar, and from some Democrats who opposed acquiring an island with a large non-white population. The temporary government of Hawaii thereupon established the
Republic of Hawaii which was recognized by the world powers as an independent nation. McKinley pursued the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii as one of his top foreign policy priorities. In American hands, Hawaii would serve as a base to dominate much of the Pacific, defend the Pacific Coast, and expand trade with Asia. Republican Congressman
William Sulzer stated that "the Hawaiian Islands will be the key that will unlock to us the commerce of the Orient." McKinley stated, "we need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is
manifest destiny." President McKinley's position was that Hawaii could never survive on its own. It would quickly be gobbled up by Japan—already a fourth of the islands' population was Japanese. Japan would then dominate the Pacific and undermine American hopes for large-scale trade with Asia. The issue of annexation became a major political issue heatedly debated across the United States, which carried over into the 1900 presidential election. By then the national consensus was in favor of the annexation of both Hawaii and the Philippines. Historian
Henry Graff says that in the mid-1890s, "unmistakably, the sentiment at home was maturing with immense force for the United States to join the great powers of the world in a quest for overseas colonies." The drive for expansion was opposed by a vigorous nationwide anti-expansionist movement, organized as the
American Anti-Imperialist League. The anti-imperialists listened to Bryan as well as industrialist
Andrew Carnegie, author
Mark Twain, sociologist
William Graham Sumner, and many older reformers from the Civil War era. The anti-imperialists believed that
imperialism violated the fundamental principle that just
republican government must derive from "
consent of the governed." The anti-imperialist league argued that such activity would necessitate the abandonment of American ideals of self-government and
non-intervention—ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence,
George Washington's Farewell Address and
Abraham Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address. In addition to the Anti-Imperialist League within the United States, forces in Hawaii vigorously opposed the annexation. The Hawaiian Patriotic League and its female counterpart, both of which were made up of native Hawaiians, began a mass petition drive. The petition, which was clearly titled "Petition Against Annexation", was signed by over half of the native Hawaiian population. However, the anti-imperialists could not stop the even more energetic forces of imperialism. They were led by Secretary of State Hay, naval strategist
Alfred T. Mahan, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Secretary of War Root, and Theodore Roosevelt. These expansionists had vigorous support from newspaper publishers
William Randolph Hearst and
Joseph Pulitzer, who whipped up popular excitement. Mahan and Roosevelt designed a global strategy calling for a competitive modern navy, Pacific bases, an isthmian canal through Nicaragua or Panama, and, above all, an assertive role for the United States as the largest industrial power. They warned that Japan was sending a warship and was poised to seize an independent Hawaii, and thereby be within range of California—a threat that alarmed the West Coast. The Navy prepared the first plans regarding a war with Japan. McKinley submitted an annexation treaty in June 1897, but anti-imperialists prevented it from winning the support of two-thirds of the Senate. In mid-1898, during the Spanish–American War, McKinley and his congressional allies made another attempt to win congressional approval of an annexation measure. With McKinley's support, Democratic Representative
Francis G. Newlands of Nevada introduced a
joint resolution that provided for the annexation of Hawaii. The
Newlands Resolution faced significant resistance from Democrats and anti-expansionist Republicans like Speaker of the House Reed, but pressure from McKinley helped the bill win passage by wide margins in both houses of Congress. McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution into law on July 8, 1898. McKinley biographer H. Wayne Morgan notes, "McKinley was the guiding spirit behind the annexation of Hawaii, showing ... a firmness in pursuing it". Congress passed the
Hawaiian Organic Act in 1900, establishing the
Territory of Hawaii. McKinley appointed
Sanford B. Dole, who had served as the president of the Republic of Hawaii from 1894 to 1898, as the first territorial governor.
Spanish–American War Cuban crisis (the American people) reaches out to help oppressed Cuba in 1897 while
Uncle Sam (the U.S. government) is blind to the crisis and will not use its powerful guns to help.
Judge magazine, February 6, 1897. By the time McKinley took office, rebels in
Cuba had waged an intermittent campaign for freedom from Spanish colonial rule for decades. By 1895, the conflict had expanded to a
war for independence. The United States and Cuba enjoyed close trade relations, and the Cuban rebellion adversely affected the American economy which was already weakened by the depression. As rebellion engulfed the island, Spanish reprisals grew ever harsher, and Spanish authorities began removing Cuban families to guarded camps near Spanish military bases. The rebels put high priority on their appeals to the sympathy of ordinary Americans, and public opinion increasingly favored the rebels. President Cleveland had supported continued Spanish control of the island, as he feared that Cuban independence would lead to a racial war or intervention by another European power. McKinley also favored a peaceful approach, but he hoped to convince Spain to grant Cuba independence, or at least to allow the Cubans some measure of autonomy. The United States and Spain began negotiations on the subject in 1897, but it became clear that Spain would never concede Cuban independence, while the rebels and their American supporters would never settle for anything less. Business interests overwhelmingly gave strong support to McKinley's go-slow policies. Big business, high finance, and Main Street businesses across the country were vocally opposed to war and demanded peace, as the uncertainties of a potentially long, expensive war posed serious threat to full economic recovery. The leading railroad magazine editorialized, "from a commercial and mercenary standpoint it seems peculiarly bitter that this war should come when the country had already suffered so much and so needed rest and peace." The strong anti-war consensus of the business community strengthened McKinley's resolve to use diplomacy and negotiation rather than brute force to end the Spanish tyranny in Cuba. On the other hand, humanitarian sensibilities reached fever pitch as church leaders and activists wrote hundreds of thousands of letters to political leaders, calling for intervention in Cuba. These political leaders in turn pressured McKinley to turn the ultimate decision for war over to Congress. In January 1898, Spain promised some concessions to the rebels, but when American
consul Fitzhugh Lee reported riots in
Havana, McKinley obtained Spanish permission to send the battleship
USS Maine to Havana to demonstrate American concern. On February 15, the
Maine exploded and sank with 266 men killed. Public opinion was disgusted with Spain for losing control of the situation, but McKinley insisted that a
court of inquiry determine whether the explosion of the
Maine was accidental. Negotiations with Spain continued as the court of inquiry considered the evidence, but on March 20, the court ruled that the
Maine was blown up by an
underwater mine. As pressure for war mounted in Congress, McKinley continued to negotiate for Cuban independence. Spain refused McKinley's proposals, and on April 11, McKinley turned the matter over to Congress. He did not ask for war, but Congress declared war anyway on April 20, with the addition of the
Teller Amendment, which disavowed any intention of annexing Cuba. European powers called on Spain to negotiate and give in; Britain supported the American position. Spain ignored the calls and fought the hopeless war alone in order to defend its honor and keep the monarchy alive.
Historical interpretations of McKinley's role McKinley put it succinctly in late 1897 that if Spain failed to resolve its crisis, the United States would see "a duty imposed by our obligations to ourselves, to civilization and humanity to intervene with force." Most historians argue that an upsurge of humanitarian concern with the plight of the Cubans was the main motivating force that caused the war with Spain in 1898. Louis Perez states, "Certainly the moralistic determinants of war in 1898 has been accorded preponderant explanatory weight in the historiography." By the 1950s, however, some political scientists said that policy was unwise because it was based on idealism, arguing that a better policy would have been realism in terms of American self interest. They discredited the idealism by suggesting the people were deliberately misled by propaganda and sensationalist
yellow journalism. Political scientist Robert Osgood, writing in 1953, led the attack on the American decision process as a confused mix of "self-righteousness and genuine moral fervor", in the form of a "crusade" and a combination of "knight-errantry and national self- assertiveness." Osgood argued: :A war to free Cuba from Spanish despotism, corruption, and cruelty, from the filth and disease and barbarity of General 'Butcher' Weyler's reconcentration camps, from the devastation of haciendas, the extermination of families, and the outraging of women; that would be a blow for humanity and democracy.... No one could doubt it if he believed – and skepticism was not popular – the exaggerations of the Cuban ''Junta's'' propaganda and the lurid distortions and imaginative lies pervade by the "yellow sheets" of Hearst and Pulitzer at the combined rate of 2 million [newspaper copies] a day. For much of the 20th century historians and textbooks disparaged McKinley as a weak leader—echoing Roosevelt, who called him spineless. They blamed McKinley for losing control of foreign policy and agreeing to an unnecessary war. A wave of new scholarship in the 1970s, from both right and left, reversed the older interpretation.
Robert L. Beisner summed up the new views of McKinley as a strong leader. He said McKinley called for war—not because he was bellicose, but because he wanted: :what only war could bring—an end to the Cuban rebellion, which outraged his humanitarian impulses, prolonged instability in the economy, destroyed American investments and trade with Cuba, created a dangerous picture of an America unable to master the affairs of the Caribbean, threatened to arouse uncontrollable outburst of jingoism, and diverted the attention of U.S. policymakers from historic happenings in China. Neither spineless nor bellicose, McKinley demanded what seemed to him morally unavoidable and essential to American interests. Along similar lines Joseph Fry summarizes the new scholarly appraisals: :McKinley was a decent, sensitive man with considerable personal courage and great political facility. A master manager of men, he tightly controlled policy decisions within his administration....Fully cognizant of the United States' economic, strategic, and humanitarian interests, he had laid out a "policy" early in his administration that ultimately and logically led to war. If Spain could not quell the rebellion through "civilized" warfare, the United States would have to intervene. In early 1898, the Havana riots, the De Lome letter, the destruction of the Maine, and the Redfield Proctor speech convinced McKinley that the autonomy project had failed and that Spain could not defeat the rebels. He then demanded Cuban independence to end both the suffering on the island and the uncertainty in American political and economic affairs.
Course of the war The telegraph and the telephone gave McKinley a greater control over the day-to-day management of the war than previous presidents had enjoyed. He set up the first war room and used the new technologies to direct the army's and navy's movements. McKinley did not get along with the Army's commanding general,
Nelson A. Miles. Bypassing Miles and Secretary of War Alger, the president looked for strategic advice first from Miles's predecessor, General
John Schofield, and later from
Adjutant General Henry Clarke Corbin. McKinley presided over an expansion of the
Regular Army from 25,000 to 61,000 personnel; including volunteers, a total of 278,000 men served in the Army during the war. McKinley not only wanted to win the war, he also sought to bring North and South together again, as white Southerners enthusiastically supported the war effort, and one senior command went to a former Confederate General. His ideal was a unity with Northerner and Southerner, white and black, fighting together for the United States. Since 1895, the Navy had planned to attack the
Philippines if war broke out between the United States and Spain. On April 24, McKinley ordered the
Asiatic Squadron under the command of Commodore
George Dewey to launch an attack on the Philippines. On May 1, Dewey's force defeated the Spanish navy at the
Battle of Manila Bay, destroying Spanish naval power in the Pacific. The next month, McKinley increased the number of
troops sent to the Philippines and granted the force's commander, Major General
Wesley Merritt, the power to set up legal systems and raise taxes—necessities for a long occupation. By the time the troops arrived in the Philippines at the end of June 1898, McKinley had decided that Spain would be required to surrender the archipelago to the United States. He professed to be open to all views on the subject; however, he believed that as the war progressed, the public would come to demand retention of the islands as a prize of war, and he feared that
Japan or possibly
Germany might seize the islands. Meanwhile, in the Caribbean theater, a large force of regulars and volunteers gathered near
Tampa, Florida, for an invasion of Cuba. The army faced difficulties in supplying the rapidly expanding force even before they departed for Cuba, but by June, Corbin had made progress in resolving the problems. The U.S. Navy began a blockade of Cuba in April while the Army prepared to invade the island, on which Spain maintained a garrison of approximately 80,000. Disease was a major factor: for every American soldier killed in combat in 1898, seven died of disease. The U.S. Army Medical Corps made great strides in treating tropical diseases. There were lengthy delays in Florida—Colonel William Jennings Bryan spent the entire war there as his militia unit was never sent to combat. The combat army, led by Major General
William Rufus Shafter, sailed from Florida on June 20, landing near
Santiago de Cuba two days later. Following a skirmish at
Las Guasimas on June 24, Shafter's army engaged the Spanish forces on July 2 in the
Battle of San Juan Hill. In an intense day-long battle, the American force was victorious, although both sides suffered heavy casualties.
Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt, who had resigned as assistant secretary of the Navy, led the "
Rough Riders" into combat. Roosevelt's battlefield exploits would later propel him to the governorship of New York in the fall election of 1898. After the American victory at San Juan Hill, the Spanish Caribbean squadron, which had been sheltering in Santiago's harbor, broke for the open sea. The Spanish fleet was intercepted and destroyed by Rear Admiral
William T. Sampson's North Atlantic Squadron in the
Battle of Santiago de Cuba, the largest naval battle of the war. Shafter laid siege to the city of Santiago, which surrendered on July 17, placing Cuba under effective American control. McKinley and Miles also ordered an invasion of
Puerto Rico, which met little resistance when it landed in July. The distance from Spain and the destruction of the Spanish navy made resupply impossible, and the Spanish government—its honor intact after losing to a much more powerful army and navy—began to look for a way to end the war.
Peace treaty On July 22, the Spanish authorized
Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador to the United States, to represent Spain in negotiating peace. The Spanish initially wished to restrict their territorial loss to Cuba, but were quickly forced to recognize that their other possessions would be claimed as spoils of war. McKinley's Cabinet unanimously agreed that Spain must leave Cuba and Puerto Rico, but they disagreed on the Philippines, with some wishing to annex the entire archipelago and some wishing only to retain a naval base in the area. Although public sentiment mostly favored annexation of the Philippines, prominent Democrats like Bryan and Grover Cleveland, along with some intellectuals and older Republicans, opposed annexation. These annexation opponents formed the
American Anti-Imperialist League. McKinley ultimately decided he had no choice but to annex the Philippines, because he believed Japan would take control of them if the U.S. did not. McKinley proposed to open negotiations with Spain on the basis of Cuban liberation and Puerto Rican annexation, with the final status of the Philippines subject to further discussion. He stood firmly in that demand even as the military situation on Cuba began to deteriorate when the American army was struck with
yellow fever. Spain ultimately agreed to a ceasefire on those terms on August 12, and treaty negotiations began in Paris in September 1898. The talks continued until December 18, when the
Treaty of Paris was signed. The United States acquired Puerto Rico and the Philippines as well as the island of
Guam, and Spain relinquished its claims to Cuba; in exchange, the United States agreed to pay Spain $20 million. McKinley had difficulty convincing the Senate to approve the treaty by the requisite two-thirds vote, but his lobbying, and that of Vice President Hobart, eventually saw success, as the Senate voted to ratify the treaty on February 6, 1899, on a 57 to 27 vote. Though a significant bloc of senators opposed the treaty, they were unable to unite behind an alternative to ratification. Cuba came under temporary American occupation, which gave Army doctors under
Walter Reed the chance to implement major medical reforms and eliminate yellow fever.
The new American empire Cuba was devastated from the war and from the long insurrection against Spanish rule, and McKinley refused to recognize the Cuban rebels as the official government of the island. Nonetheless, McKinley felt bound by the Teller Amendment, and he established a military government on the island with the intention of ultimately granting Cuba independence. Many Republican leaders, including Roosevelt and possibly McKinley himself, hoped that benevolent American leadership of Cuba would eventually convince the Cubans to voluntarily request annexation after they gained full independence. Even if annexation was not achieved, McKinley wanted to help establish a stable government that could resist European interference and would remain friendly to U.S. interests. With input from the McKinley administration, Congress passed the
Platt Amendment, which stipulated conditions for U.S. withdrawal from the island; the conditions allowed for a strong American role despite the promise of withdrawal. Cuba became independent in 1902, but the U.S. would
re-occupy the island in 1906. McKinley also refused to recognize the native Filipino government of
Emilio Aguinaldo, and relations between the United States and the Aguinaldo's supporters deteriorated after the conclusion of the Spanish–American War. McKinley believed that Aguinaldo represented just a small minority of the Filipino populace, and that benevolent American rule would lead to a peaceful occupation. In February 1899, Filipino and American forces clashed at the
Battle of Manila, marking the start of the
Philippine–American War. The fighting in the Philippines engendered increasingly vocal criticism from the domestic anti-imperialist movement, as did the continued deployment of volunteer regiments. Under General
Elwell Stephen Otis, U.S. forces destroyed the rebel Filipino army, but Aguinaldo turned to
guerrilla tactics. McKinley sent a
commission led by
William Howard Taft to establish a civilian government, and McKinley later appointed Taft as the civilian governor of the Philippines. The Filipino insurgency subsided with the capture of Aguinaldo in March 1901, and the U.S. maintained control of the islands until the 1946
Treaty of Manila. After Puerto Rico was devastated by the massive
1899 San Ciriaco hurricane, Secretary of War Root proposed to eliminate all tariff barriers with Puerto Rico. His proposal initiated a serious disagreement between the McKinley administration and Republican leaders in Congress, who were wary of lowering the tariffs on the newly acquired territories. Rather than relying on Democratic votes to pass a no-tariff bill, McKinley compromised with Republican leaders on a bill that cut tariffs on Puerto Rican goods to a fraction of the rates set by the Dingley Tariff. While considering the tariff bill, the Senate also began hearings on a bill to establish a civil government for Puerto Rico, which the Senate passed in a party-line vote. McKinley signed the
Foraker Act into law on April 12, 1900. Under the terms of the bill, all revenue collected from the tariff on Puerto Rican goods would be used for Puerto Rico, and the tariff would cease to function once the government of Puerto Rico established its own taxation system. In the 1901
Insular Cases, the Supreme Court upheld the McKinley administration's policies in the territories acquired in the Spanish–American War, including the establishment of Puerto Rico's government.
China Even before peace negotiations began with Spain, McKinley asked Congress to set up a commission to examine trade opportunities in Asia and espoused an "
Open Door Policy", in which all nations would freely trade with China and none would seek to violate that nation's territorial integrity. Secretary of State Hay circulated notes promoting the Open Door to that effect to the European powers. Great Britain favored the idea, but Russia opposed it; France, Germany, Italy, and Japan agreed in principle, but only if all the other nations signed on. to relieve the
Siege of the International Legations, August 1900|alt=painting of U.S. Army soldiers defending a fort in Peking while a zhengyangmen in the background burns American missionaries were threatened and trade with China became imperiled as the
Boxer Rebellion of 1900 menaced foreigners and their property in China. Americans and other westerners in
Peking were besieged and, in cooperation with other western powers, McKinley ordered 5000 troops to the city in June 1900 in the
China Relief Expedition. The westerners were rescued the next month, but several Congressional Democrats objected to McKinley dispatching troops without consulting Congress. McKinley's actions set a precedent that led to most of his successors exerting similar independent control over the military. After the rebellion ended, the United States reaffirmed its commitment to the Open Door policy, which became the basis of American policy toward China. It used the cash reparations paid by China to bring Chinese students to Americans schools.
Planning the Panama Canal Secretary of State Hay engaged in negotiations with Britain over the possible construction of a canal across Central America. The
Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which the two nations had signed in 1850, prohibited either from establishing exclusive control over a canal there. The Spanish–American War had exposed the difficulty of maintaining a two-ocean navy without a connection closer than
Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America. With American business, humanitarian and military interests even more involved in Asia following the Spanish–American War, a canal seemed more essential than ever, and McKinley pressed for a renegotiation of the treaty. The British, who were distracted by the ongoing
Second Boer War, agreed to negotiate a new treaty. Hay and the British ambassador,
Julian Pauncefote, agreed that the United States could control a future canal, provided that it was open to all shipping and not fortified. McKinley was satisfied with the terms, but the Senate rejected them, demanding that the United States be allowed to fortify the canal. Hay was embarrassed by the rebuff and offered his resignation, but McKinley refused it and ordered him to continue negotiations to achieve the Senate's demands. He was successful, and
a new treaty was drafted and approved, but not before McKinley's assassination in 1901. McKinley also appointed the
Isthmian Canal Commission, which would eventually play a large role in selecting
Panama over
Nicaragua as the site of the Central American canal. The
Panama Canal would eventually be completed in 1914. ==Election of 1900==