Did you know that Theodore Roosevelt was an imperialist and Mark Twain was an anti-imperialist? Imperialists were people that would try to spread their power and influence over “weaker” nations. Anti-Imperialists were people that didn’t want to get involved in other countries’ affairs, they were against imperialists. Even though there are many differences between imperialists and anti-imperialists, there is one similarity.

Imperialists thought that they were doing good by spreading their power and influence over “weaker” nations. Asia and Africa were where many imperialists would compete for colonies. They wanted to build a bigger and better military. Imperialists were gaining colonies to build up their naval strength to compete with other nations. An imperialist named Alfred T. Mahan urged the president to increase the United States’ naval strength. Imperialists also had a thirst for new markets. They wanted new raw materials for factories to create new jobs. They believed they were right because they thought they were civilizing the colonies they took over.

Anti-imperialists and imperialists have a  lot of differences. Anti-Imperialists didn’t want to get involved in other countries’  affairs. They were against imperialists spreading their influence on  “weaker” nations. They believed it was against the constitution. They also said that  “just because you have colonies doesn’t mean you can trade with them”(2). They feared higher taxes because they would have to fund multiple countries and build the military. They also thought that by building a better army and navy, it would take away attention from domestic problems because they thought if your focused on war, you won’t be able to deal with problems in your own country.

Both imperialists and anti-imperialists had lots of differences but only one similarity. The similarity is that they thought they were superior. Imperialists and anti-imperialists thought that other races couldn’t govern themselves. Imperialists believed in changing people of other races to be more Christian. This is similar to anti-imperialists,who also thought they were superior. They wanted to exclude people of color from the U.S. because they wanted to keep only the people they thought were superior in the country.

Imperialists and ant-imperialists were far more different than similar. Yet, they both thought they were superior. Imperialists wanted to spread their power and influence to other countries. Anti-imperialists didn’t want to get involved in other countries’ affairs. Imperialists wanted to change people of color to be more Christian. Overall the, U.S was an imperialist nation during the 19th and 20th century.