On the 4th of July, Americans will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and the founding of the nation.
Ink & Time is celebrating this historic milestone by publishing a new anthology of Anti-Imperialist writings, titled:
Against Empire: Patriotic Dissent for America's 250th
Most Americans forgot.
In 1898 when the United States defeated Spain in a war ostensibly to liberate Cuba, but finding itself as an occupying force in the Philippines, the nation stumbled into a formative decision:
Would it remain a continental republic, or would it follow in the imperial footsteps of the European powers?
The decision was not a foregone conclusion. It was indeed hotly debated.
The Anti-Imperialist League emerged as a motley assemblage of public intellectuals, statesmen, business leaders, social workers and satirists to fight the nascent empire-builders who they believed were un-American, on the basis that:
The American Declaration of Independence was based on the principle that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The Declaration's assertion that "all men are created equal" and entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was not geographically limited.
Empire would undermine the Republic itself: militarism, censorship, and executive overreach used to manage an empire would erode the constitutional order at home.
Those were the patriotic aims of the League writing 122 years after the Declaration of Independence, and 128 years before today.
So, where is the nation today? That is the question worth reflecting upon at 250.
Over the next month we will be publishing excerpts from the forthcoming book, in the spirit of broadening perspectives, fostering critical thinking, and providing context for those who are celebrating this historic anniversary and remembering the meaning of true patriotism.
Against Empire will be released in late June as a collectable hardback edition, in time for July 4th celebrations.
Features curated anti-imperialist readings from 22 leading voices of the day including:
Mark Twain, the greatest satirist in American letters
Andrew Carnegie, steel industry leader and richest man in America in 1901
William James, philosopher, psychologist and Harvard University Professor
W.E.B. Du Bois, founder of NAACP, author of The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, one of the first settlement houses
David Starr Jordan, inaugural President of Stanford University (1891-1913)
William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1915)
Of course many of the anti-imperialists were themselves racists, or eugenicists, or social darwinists, or otherwise not altogether wonderful people.
But many of their arguments were sound.
Reading them now provides multifaceted insight on the state of the nation, collective consciousness and globalization from a century ago. It provides a counterpoint to where we are now, understanding that the march of time and progress is never fixed.
Uniquely, the anthology also includes a special section featuring the works of Filipino leaders providing rare insight into the reactions from those on the receiving end of empire, including:
Emilio Aguinaldo, first President of the Philippine Republic
Apolinario Mabini, Prime Minister & Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippine Republic
Clemencia López, activist & first Filipina to visit the White House
I encourage you to get interested in this brief but brilliant period in the evolution of the United States, if you are not already, and to consider its relevance to the events we are all living through today.
If you wish to order the book when it is released in late June, Ink & Time will be offering the first 100 copies at our base printing cost, expected to be in the range of about $10-12.
Reserve your copy by clicking here. We will send you an advanced order link when the book is released.
Quotes from anti-imperialist voices featured in Against Empire:
"We have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest... we have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world.
[...]
"The game was in our hands. If it had been played according to the American rules, Dewey would have sailed away from Manila as soon as he had destroyed the Spanish fleet—after putting up a sign on shore guaranteeing foreign property and life against damage by the Filipinos, and warning the Powers that interference with the emancipated patriots would be regarded as an act unfriendly to the United States."
— Mark Twain, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," February 1901
"A democracy cannot so deny its faith as to the vital conditions of its being—it cannot long play the king over subject populations without creating within itself ways of thinking and habits of action most dangerous to its own vitality."
— Carl Schurz, "The Issue of Imperialism," January 4, 1899
"Is the Republic, the apostle of Triumphant Democracy, of the rule of the people, to abandon her political creed and endeavor to establish in other lands the rule of the foreigner over the people, Triumphant Despotism?"
— Andrew Carnegie, "Distant Possessions: The Parting of the Ways," North American Review, August 1898
"We have beaten Spain in a military conflict, but we are submitting to be conquered by her on the field of ideas and policies. Expansionism and imperialism are nothing but the old philosophies of national prosperity which have brought Spain to where she now is."
— William Graham Sumner, "The Conquest of the United States by Spain," Yale University, January 16, 1899
"Was it for this our fathers kept the law? / This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? / Are we the eagle nation Milton saw / Mewing its mighty youth, / Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth . . . / Or have we but the talons and the maw, / And for the abject likeness of our heart / Shall some less lordly bird be set apart?"
— William Vaughn Moody, "An Ode in Time of Hesitation," The Atlantic Monthly, May 1900
"The country has once for all regurgitated the Declaration of Independence and the Farewell Address, and it won't swallow again immediately what it is so happy to have vomited up. It has come to a hiatus. It has deliberately pushed itself into the circle of international hatreds, and joined the common pack of wolves."
— William James, Address on the Philippine Question, New England Anti-Imperialist League, November 28, 1903
"If the Americans truly wish to teach the Filipinos the art of civilization and of good government, they ought to implant in the Philippines the government they themselves know, in which they have been educated, and which the islanders desire to learn; otherwise, if they persist in maintaining a government they have not practiced and which the islanders reject, they must place at its head men of extraordinary ability, who are scarce in the United States as elsewhere."
— Apolinario Mabini, "La Verdadera Revolución Filipina: Conclusión," 1903
“School Begins,” Louis Dalrymple, from Puck magazine, vol. 44, January 25, 1899.
Above: U.S. imperialism after the Spanish–American War. The cartoon shows Uncle Sam as a schoolteacher instructing newly acquired or occupied territories labeled Cuba, Porto Rico/Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Philippines, with other U.S. territories or states shown as earlier “students.”
Ink & Time is committed to resurfacing long lost or forgotten books that provide powerful insight into the world we live in today.