Evaluate the extent of U.S. support for overseas expansion 1890-1908.

Document 1
[The war with Spain will result in a] quickened sense of our duty toward one another, and a loftier conception of the obligations of government to its humblest citizen... [Black participation in the war will bring about] an era of good feeling the country over and cement the races into a more compact brotherhood through perfect unity of purpose and patriotic affinity [where White people will]...unloose themselves from the bondage of racial prejudice.

Document 2
The Americans have been committed from the outset to the doctrine that all men are equal. We have elevated it into an absolute doctrine as a part of the theory of our social and political fabric... It is an astonishing event that we have lived to see American arms carry this domestic dogma out where it must be tested in its application to uncivilized and half-civilized peoples. At the first touch of the test we throw the doctrine away and adopt the Spanish doctrine. We are told by all the imperialists that these people are not fit for liberty and self-government; that it is rebellion for them to resist our beneficence; that we must send fleets and armies to kill them if they do it; that we must devise a government for them and administer it ourselves; that we may buy them or sell them as we please, and dispose of their “trade” for our own advantage. What is that but the policy of Spain to her dependencies? What can we expect as a consequence of it? Nothing but that it will bring us where Spain is now.

Document 3
When next I realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps, I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides—Democrats as well as Republicans—but got little help... I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came: 
(1) That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; 
(2) That we could not turn them over to France or Germany, our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable. 
(3) That we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government, and they would soon have anarchy and misrule worse than Spain’s was; and
(4) That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them…
 And then I went to bed and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our mapmaker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States [pointing to a large map on the wall of his office], and there they are and there they will stay while I am president!

Document 4
Some of us were beginning to hope that...we were ready to accept the peace ideal...to recognize that...the man who irrigates a plain [is] greater than he who lays it waste. Then came the Spanish war, with its gilt and lace and tinsel, and again the moral issues are confused with exhibitions of brutality. For ten years I have lived in a neighborhood which is by no means criminal, and yet during last October and November we were startled by seven murders within a radius of ten blocks. A little investigation of details and motives...made it not in the least difficult to trace the murders back to the influence of the war... The newspapers, the theatrical posters, the street conversations for weeks had to do with war and bloodshed. The little children on the street played at war, ...killing Spaniards. The humane instinct...gives way, and the barbaric instinct asserts itself.

Document 5
The Philippines offer a [grave] problem…. Many of their people are utterly unfit for self-government and show no signs of becoming fit. Others may in time become fit but at present can only take part in self-government under a wise supervision, at once firm and beneficent. We have driven Spanish tyranny from the islands. If we now let it be replaced by savage anarchy, our work has been for harm and not for good. I have scant patience with those who fear to undertake the task of governing the Philippines, and who openly avow that they do fear to undertake it, or that they shrink from it because of the expense and trouble; but I have even scanter patience with those who make a pretense of humanitarianism to hide and cover their timidity, and who can’t about 'liberty' and the 'consent of the governed,' in order to excuse themselves for their unwillingness to play the part of men... Their doctrines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever having settled in these United States.

Document 6
Imperialism is the policy of an empire. And an empire is a nation composed of different races, living under varying forms of government. A republic cannot be an empire, for a republic rests upon the theory that the government derive their powers from the consent of the governed and colonialism violates this theory. We do not want the Filipinos for citizens. They cannot, without danger to us, share in the government of our nation and moreover, we cannot afford to add another race question to the race questions which we already have. Neither can we hold the Filipinos as subjects even if we could benefit them by so doing... Our experiment in colonialism has been unfortunate. Instead of profit, it has brought loss. Instead of strength, it has brought weakness. Instead of glory, it has brought humiliation.

Document 7