The founding documents of the United States express the high ideals of their day, featuring equality, separation of church and state, freedom of the press, a right to privacy…
Easy to understand why slavery and inequality for women couldn’t stand the test of time, as the USA kept growing, by leaps and bounds. Buying Louisiana from Napoleon was a stroke of genius, amazing how Europe managed to own the place already — the Doctrine of Discovery was a miracle such as only the church could make people believe in.
Many assumed this was all part of God’s plan to bring the USA’s enlightened values to the world at large (Manifest Destiny).
The US Civil War almost ended the experiment. An identity crisis. Are we going to allow slavery or not? After that was over, another lingering question: are we going to vie with Europe and play the game of global empire? How would that be in keeping with core values, eh?
The Anti-Imperialist League (Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie…) expressed natural misgivings about empire, as how could a democracy with such principles be a tyrant overseas? The decision to invade the Philippines was unpopular and the nascent military socialist government (i.e. permanent war machine, later “military industrial complex” or “mickey”) needed a PR empire like Hearst’s to “sell the public” on the Spanish American War.
