Essential Question- First Paragraph

The thought that America had acquired an empire to many, upset them, when truthfully it was inevitable. The American people had made up their minds even before McKinley signed that treaty with Spain. The very first question that we saw this year in the readings was, "How did westward expansion bring power to the United States?" From where we left off last year we just fought the Civil War and has new land gained from the Mexican War. We claimed that Manifest Destiny (or the idea that God wants us to expand) was the reason that we could do this, and now when the expansionists are trying to convince us to create an empire, they use that as an excuse as well. If we as Americans kept on thinking this way, we would of became way too arogant and start to take over many other countries as well. Also, the reason that we wanted to fight this war against Spain was for economic growth with the sugar industry in Cuba, not because we nessicarily wanted to free them from tyranny. Then when we beat the Spaniards in the Battle of Manilla, moral and nationalism was high, and when the United States finally won the war, Americans thought they were on top of the world. The defintion of nationalism is basically thinking that your country is the best and no one else should be anything but Americans. So as you can see, we were just eager about gaining power and wealth and we would even do something that is against our beliefs and american values to achieve that status.