1823, Monroe Doctrine
- no European colonialism in the Americas, would be perceived as a hostile act to the US
1845, “Manifest destiny”
coined by journalist in 1845 regarding annexing Texas and claiming Oregon (from the British)
- Texas “[it is] our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions”.
- Oregon “And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us”
1870, Annexation of the Dominican Republic
President Grant’s attempt to annex the DR, vote failed to pass in the Senate… There was widespread opposition in the Senate to absorbing a nation with so many black and mixed race inhabitants.
- The Picky Eagle: How Democracy and Xenophobia Limited U.S. Territorial Expansion, 23 case studies between 1775 and 1898 examining US foreign policy
- Grant’s World Tour, which put the US on the map
- Controversy ensued when Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli believed that Grant was officially just a commoner.
1913, Woodrow Wilson and race, president 1913-1921
- grew up in the South, apologist for slavery and supporter of the lost cause mythology, president of Princeton 1902-1910
- In 1909, Wilson received a letter from a young African-American man interested in applying to attend Princeton; Wilson had his assistant write back promptly that “it is altogether inadvisable for a colored man to enter Princeton.”… Princeton would not admit a single black student until 1947, becoming the last Ivy League institution to racially integrate.
history USA