stationed on their soil or American administrators in charge of their country, yet there they were, taking over the functions of government and national defense that should've been carried out by native Filipinos themselves.

In denying Filipinos the right to determine their own future, the Americans were showing contempt for the basic principle of democracy, a principle that had been at the very heart of the American system of government ever since the United States finally broke free from Great Britain.

There were several reasons why people were against imperialism. In the United States, some people were against imperialism because the Americans had fought for their independence against an imperial power. The Americans felt that the British government was violating their rights and ruling the people against their wishes. These people believed it was wrong for the United States to do the same thing to other people that they didn’t want for themselves.

Another argument against imperialism is that it would entangle a country in the affairs of other people. There were some people who felt that an isolationist foreign policy was the way to go for the United States. By getting colonies or new lands, the country would be an active player in world affairs. This could entangle the United States in situations that could become very sticky. To some degree, this is what President Washington cautioned against in his farewell message to the American people.

A third concern dealt with the morality of imperialism. Some people believed it was immoral to rule people against their will. They believed it was undemocratic and violated religious principles of treating others with dignity and respect. These people believed that forcibly ruling other people was not a proper way to treat people.

Finally, some people initially believed an imperialistic policy was unconstitutional. These people, who often believed in a strict interpretation of the Constitution, felt that imperialism was unconstitutional because the Constitution didn’t specifically state that the government could acquire and rule new places.

This answer will focus on American anti-imperialism, though anti-imperialists in other countries held many of the same convictions. People were opposed to imperialism for a very broad array of reasons, some of which may seem contradictory to modern students. Let us look at a few. 

Many argued that imperialism was contrary to American democracy. For most, this was because the United States had its origins in gaining independence from an empire, and having been a colony, it had no business trying to take colonies of its own. In its platform of 1899, the United States Anti-Imperialist League said that "the subjugation of any people is 'criminal aggression' and open disloyalty to the distinctive principles of our Government." 

Another claim often made by anti-imperialists was that imperialism would involve the United States in foreign wars, wars which the nation had been able to keep out of (more or less) for the last century. They watched with unease as European nations built up large navies and armies even as they gobbled up territories around the world, especially in Africa. The connection between imperialism and militarism was strong in the minds of many Americans.

Still others decried the brutality exercised by imperial powers over those they claimed to be helping. Reports of atrocities in the Philippines were read by many Americans, and rather than holding individual American soldiers accountable for them, they tended to view these crimes as endemic to imperialism itself. "We regret," said the Anti-Imperialist League, "that the blood of the Filipinos is on American hands." Mark Twain bitterly satirized the brutality of King Leopold's rule over the Belgian Congo in an imaginary soliloquy that underscored this belief especially well.

Finally, many Americans argued that empire would lead to the absorption of more non-White peoples into the United States. The period of American imperialism also witnessed the advent of Jim Crow in the South--it was a time of extraordinary racism. As South Carolina Senator Ben Tillman, a virulent racist put it, "why do we as a people want to incorporate into our citizenship ten millions more of different or of differing races?" 

So anti-imperialists could oppose the acquisition of colonies for many different and sometimes contradictory reasons.