our country would harm us.  It would bring a lot of inferior people into the country, creating a burden on us.

These were the major arguments for and against imperialism.

For:

• The advanced civilizations have proved themselves to be culturally superior. It is therefore only right and proper that they should be allowed to conquer those parts of the world that are less advanced.

• Many of these lesser civilizations engage in truly barbaric practices. Hindus in India, for example, require a widow to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband. Western imperialism puts a stop to these practices and subjects the far-flung corners of the globe to more civilized standards of conduct.

• Before the Westerners arrived, many of these colonies were mired in disease, ignorance, and superstition. It is the duty of imperialists to remove these evils, using the latest developments in education and medicine. The West has no right to keep its scientific and technological advances to itself; it must spread them among the poor benighted peoples of the globe.

Against:

• The imperialist venture is inherently exploitative. All rhetoric concerning "civilizing missions" is just so much self-serving cant. The Western powers didn't establish their empires for the good of the indigenous population, but purely to increase their own wealth and power.

• The belief that subject-peoples are somehow inferior to the white man is deeply offensive and based on nothing more than prejudice. There's no scientific evidence whatsoever to suggest that there are superior or inferior cultures; there are simply different rates of development. By all means, Western science and technology should be made available to the developing world, but they should not be forced upon it. If developing countries want to follow the example of the West, then that should be a matter of choice, not compulsion.

• Western powers often preach the importance of sovereignty and self-determination. Yet they seem unwilling to extend this vital principle to the people over which they rule. Surely every nation, every tribe, every community has the right to determine its own future in its own way? As it has been established that there are no truly superior or inferior cultures in the world, there's no good reason why the aspirations of indigenous people should not be treated with the same degree of seriousness as their colonial overlords.

The argument for imperialism largely hinged on the idea that it was beneficial for the United States.  It was seen as something that would help the US militarily and economically.  It would also add to American prestige in the world.  There was also talk of the “white man’s burden” and that the US should help to civilize the rest of the world, but the most important arguments were based on the impact of imperialism on the US.

The argument against imperialism had two foundations.  One argued from a racist point of view.  It said that bringing people like the Filipinos into the US (even as a possessionand not a state) would dilute America in racial terms.  A second line of argument held that imperialism was contrary to American values.  It argued that the US was based on freedom and should not be in the business of taking away the freedom of others.