To What Extent Was Late Nineteenth-Century and Early Twentieth-Century United States Expansionism a Continuation of Past United States Expansionism and to What Extent Was It a Departure?

There were many similarities in the United State’s expansion during the late nineteenth/twentieth century compared to the beginning of the United States early expanding. Among similarities of expansion include the way they did; force (war), purchases, benefits of resources, also the reasoning of God’s will. Differences though were mainly for expanding, as well as where they tried to expand.

One of the continuations, was the idea that God had given us this divine right to expand whether moving west of to other places, ideas related to John O’Sullivan’s “Manifest Destiny” and then the New Manifest Destiny, as well as the idea of social Darwinism, which gave excuse for taking lands from the Filipinos or Native Americans based on racial superiority. Josiah Strong based part of his belief on America’s superiority on them being the “purist Christianity the highest civilization.” And led to the statement of America being the fittest in the western hemisphere. This all leads to America forcing its way, by taking lands from Native Americans and war with Mexico to acquire Texas and the Mexican Cession, similar to America taking the Philippines after defeating Spain, although the Philippines in end chose to be its own independent nation once given the choice. Plus the benefits of resources were both present in expansion. Another similarity was expanding by purchases; examples are the acquisitions of Florida, Louisiana, “Gadsden Purchase,” also the ten million dollar purchase of Alaska.

Differences in expansion of early United States history compared to the late 19th and early 20th century was reason for expansion. After expanding all the way to California, Americans became paranoid; the 1890 census said that there was no longer frontier, which clashed with Frederick J. Turner’s idea that America’s success had been directly linked to its ability to expand west into frontier, (as in “The Significance of the Frontier in America”), this gave way to the idea of looking elsewhere to expand America,