American Imperialism: Born Hand-in-Hand With the Constitution

Unless otherwise noted, quoted passages come from American Imperialism in 1898, edited by Richard Miller.)

Many look to the time 1898 as the beginning or commencement of the American drive for imperialism; empire. The Spanish – American War, involving the United States in Cuba and the Philippines, is seen as this point – when America began on the road to empire (at least by those willing to recognize the imperial nature of the U.S. Many are not.).

The drive to empire began much earlier than 1898. Justin Raimondo recently wrote an essay on the War of 1812, “1812: The War Party’s First ‘Success’,” in which he describes the war in terms both neocon and imperial:

The two-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the War of 1812 is upon us, and I’m shocked and surprised the War Party hasn’t planned a celebration: after all, as Jefferson Morley points out in Salon, this was the first neocon war, i.e. an unnecessary war of choice.

WHAT IS A WASTED VOTE… (“As John Quincy Adams said, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”")

So, why not (for once in your life, perhaps) cast a vote purely for principle! Vote for someone who is truly pro-life. Someone who would quickly secure our nation’s borders, and end the invasion of our country by illegal aliens.

Someone who would, on his first day in office, release Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean and fire U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton. Someone who would immediately, upon assuming office, begin leading the charge to dismantle the Federal Reserve, overturn the 16th Amendment, expunge the IRS, and return America to sound money principles. Someone who would get the US out of the UN. Someone who would stop spending billions and trillions of dollars for foreign aid. Someone who would prosecute the Wall Street bankers who defrauded the American people out of billions of dollars. Someone who would work to repeal NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and stop the NAFTA superhighway. Someone who would say a resounding “No” to the New World Order.

Cowboy Nation…

…..But that self-image, with its yearning for some imagined lost innocence, is based on myth. Far from the modest republic that history books often portray, the early United States was an expansionist power from the moment the first pilgrim set foot on the continent; and it did not stop expanding–territorially, commercially, culturally, and geopolitically–over the next four centuries. The United States has never been a status quo power; it has always been a revolutionary one, consistently expanding its participation and influence in the world in ever-widening arcs. The impulse to involve ourselves in the affairs of others is neither a modern phenomenon nor a deviation from the American spirit. It is embedded in the American DNA.

Long before the country’s founding, British colonists were busy driving the Native American population off millions of acres of land and almost out of existence. From the 1740s through the 1820s, and then in another burst in the 1840s, Americans expanded relentlessly westward from the Alleghenies to the Ohio Valley and on past the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, southward into Mexico and Florida, and northward toward Canada–eventually pushing off the continent not only Indians, but the great empires of France, Spain, and Russia as well. (The United Kingdom alone barely managed to defend its foothold in North America.) This often violent territorial expansion was directed not by redneck “Jacksonians” but by eastern gentlemen expansionists like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams.

(EXCERPT: Reader Response) The Declaration of Independence beautifies (and beatifies)the Constitution

To: gunnyg; All

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In the Year 1839, John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, and himself a President of the United States, was invited by the New York Historical Society to speak on the 50th Anniversary under the Constitution. His extensive “Jubilee” Address can be read here. The following relatively short review of the history he summarized in the final portion of his Address is excerpted here:

The President himself is no more than a representative of public opinion at the time of his election; and as public opinion is subject to great and frequent fluctuations, he must accommodate his policy to them; or the people will speedily give him a successor; or either House of Congress will effectually control his power. It is thus, and in no other sense that the Constitution of the United States is democratic – for the government of our country, instead of a Democracy the most simple, is the most complicated government on the face of the globe. From the immense extent of our territory, the difference of manners, habits, opinions, and above all, the clashing interests of the North, South, East, and West, public opinion formed by the combination of numerous aggregates, becomes itself a problem of compound arithmetic, which nothing but the result of the popular elections can solve.

It has been my purpose, Fellow-Citizens, in this discourse to show:-

Bachmann stands by claims that ‘Founding Fathers’ ended slavery | Raw Replay

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Bachmann stands by claims that ‘Founding Fathers’ ended slavery

* Posted on 06.28.11

* By Kase Wickman

* Categories: Featured, Say What?

Rep. Michele Bachmann, who officially announced yesterday in Iowa that she is running for president, appeared on “Good Morning America” Monday, where George Stephanopoulos attempted to clarify some of her previous statements.

Among them: Bachmann’s claim that “the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence worked tirelessly to end slavery.”

“Now with respect, Congresswoman, that’s just not true,” Stephanopoulos said. “Many of them including Jefferson and Washington were actually slave holders and slavery didn’t end until the Civil War.”

Bachmann dodged the question, answering, “Well, you know what’s marvelous is that in this country and under our Constitution, we have the ability when we recognize that something is wrong to change it. And that’s what we did in our country. We changed it. We no longer have slavery. That’s a good thing. And what our Constitution has done for our nation, is to give us the basis of freedom unparalleled in the rest of the world.”

She goes on to claim that John Quincy Adams, who was a small boy during the Revolutionary War and did indeed eventually work to abolish slavery, should be counted as a “Founding Father.”

via Bachmann stands by claims that ‘Founding Fathers’ ended slavery | Raw Replay.