The American Empire

by Scott Nearing

The United States has followed the path of empire with a facility unexampled in recent history. When has a people, caught in the net of imperialism, encountered less difficulty in making its imperial dream come true? None of the foes that the American people have encountered, in two centuries of expansion, have been worthy of the name. The Indians were in no position to withstand the onslaught of the Whites. The Mexicans were even less competent to defend themselves. The Spanish Empire crumpled, under attack, like an autumn leaf under the heel of a hunter. Practically for the taking, the American people secured a richly-stocked, compact region, with an area of three millions of square miles—the ideal site for the foundation of a modern civilization.

The area of the United States has increased with marvelous rapidity. At the outbreak of the Revolution (1776) the Colonies claimed a territory of 369,000 square miles. The Northwest Territory (275,000 square miles) and the area south of the Ohio River (205,000 square miles) were added largely as a result of the negotiations in 1782. The official figures for 1800 give the total area of the United States as 892,135 square miles. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) added 885,000 square miles at a cost of 15 millions of dollars. Florida, 59,600 square miles, was purchased from Spain (1819) for 5 millions of dollars; Texas, 389,000 square miles was annexed in 1845; the Oregon Country, 285,000 square miles, was secured by treaty in 1846; New Mexico and California, 529,000 square miles, were ceded by Spain (1848) and a payment of 15 millions was made by the United States; in 1853 the Gadsen Purchase added 30,000 square miles at a cost of ten millions of dollars. This completed the territorial possessions of the United States on the mainland (with the exception of Alaska) making a continental area of 3,026,798 square miles. Between 1776 and 1853 the area of the United States was increased more than eight fold. What other nation has been in a position to multiply its home territory by eight in two generations?

These vast additions to the continental possessions of the United States were made as the result of a trifling outlay. The most serious losses were involved in the Mexican War when the casualties included more than 13,000 killed and died of wounds and disease. The net money cost of the war did not exceed $100,000,000. In return for this outlay—including the annexation of Texas—the United States secured 918,000 square miles of land.[48]

There is no way to estimate the loss of life or the money cost of the Indian Wars. For the most part, the troops engaged in them suffered no more heavily than in ordinary police duty, and the costs were the costs of maintaining the regular army. The total money outlay for purchases and indemnities was about 45 millions of dollars. Within a century the American people gained possession of one of the richest portions of the earth's surfaces—a portion equal in area to more than three times the combined acreage of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the British Isles[49]—in return for an outlay in money and life that would not have provided for one first class battle of the Great War.

Additions to the territory of the country were made with equal facility during the period following the Civil War. Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7,200,000; from Spain, as a result of the War of 1898, the United States received the Philippines, Porto Rico, and some lesser islands, at the same time paying Spain $20,000,000; Hawaii was annexed and an indemnity of $10,000,000 was paid to Panama for the Canal strip. During the second half of the nineteenth century, 716,666 square miles were added to the possessions of the United States. The total direct cost of this territory in money was under forty millions. These gains involved no casualties with the exception of the small numbers lost during the Spanish-American and Philippine Wars.

One hundred and thirty years have witnessed an addition to the United States of more than two and a half million square miles of contiguous, continental territory, and three-quarters of a million square miles of non-contiguous territory. The area of the United States in 1900 was four times as great as it was in 1800 and more than ten times as great as the area of the Thirteen Original Colonies. For the imperialist, the last century and a half of American history is a fairyland come true.

Other empires have been won by the hardest kind of fighting, during which blood and wealth have been spent with a lavish hand. The empire of the French, finally crushed with the defeat of Napoleon, was paid for at such a huge price. The British Empire has been established in savage competition with Holland, Spain, France, Russia, the United States, Germany and a host of lesser powers. The empires of old—Assyria, Egypt, Rome—were built at an intolerable sacrifice. So terrible has been the cost of empire building to some of these nations that by the time they had succeeded in creating an empire the life blood of the people and the resources of the country were devoured and the empire emerged, only to fall an easy prey to the first strong-handed enemy that it encountered.

No such fate has overtaken the United States. On the contrary her path has been smoothed before her feet. Inhabiting a garden spot, her immense territory gains in the past hundred and fifty years have been made with less effort than it has cost Japan to gain and hold Korea or England to maintain her dominion over Ireland.

Once established, the old-world empire was not secure. If the territory that it possessed was worth having, it was surrounded by hungry-eyed nations that took the first occasion to band together and despoil the spoiler. The holding of an empire was as great a task as the building of empire—often greater because of the larger outlay in men and money that was involved in an incessant warfare. Little by little the glory faded; step by step militarism made its inroads upon the normal life of the people, until the time came for the stronger rival to overthrow the mighty one, or until the inrushing hordes of barbarians should blot out the features of civilization, and enthrone chaos once more.

How different has been the fate of the people of the United States! Possessed of what is probably the richest, for the purposes of the present civilization, of any territory of equal size in the world, their isolation has allowed them more than a century of practical freedom from outside interference—a century that they have been able to devote to internal development. The absence of greedy neighbors has reduced the expense of military preparation to a minimum; the old world has failed to realize, until within the last few years, what were the possibilities of the new country; vitality has remained unimpaired, wealth has piled up, industry has been promoted, and on each occasion when a greater extent of territory was required, it has been obtained at a cost that, compared with the experience of other nations, must be described as negligible.