The following is William McKinleyís address asking Congress to declare
war on Spain. As you read, think carefully about what it suggests
about the immediate and underlying causes of the Spanish-American War.
Did the U.S. enter the war out of altruism or self-interest?
It becomes my duty to now address [Congress] with regard to the grave crisis that has arisen in the relations of the United States to Spain by reason of the warfare that for more than three years has raged in the neighboring island of Cuba....
The present revolution is but the successor of other similar insurrections which have occurred in Cuba against the dominion of Spain, extending over a period of nearly half a century...[which has] caused enormous losses to American trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoyance, and disturbance among our citizens, and, by the exercise of cruel, barbarous and uncivilized practices of warfare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the humane sympathies of our people...
Our people have beheld [on Cuba] a once prosperous community reduced to comparative want, its lucrative commerce virtually paralyzed, its exceptional productiveness diminished, its fields laid waste, its mills in ruins, and its people perishing by hundreds of thousands from hunger and destitution....
Our trade has suffered, the capital invested by our citizens in Cuba has been largely lost.... Issues wholly external to our own body politic engross attention and stand in the way of that close devotion to domestic advancement that becomes a self-contained commonwealth whose primal maxim has been the avoidance of all foreign entanglements. All this must needs awaken, and has , indeed aroused the utmost concern on the part of this government....
It appeared to be my duty, in a spirit of true friendliness, no less to Spain than to the Cubans... to seek to bring about an immediate termination of the war [between Cuba and Spain]. To this end I submitted.... propositions to the Spanish Government looking to an armistice....
With this last overture [of the United States to promote a peaceful end to hostilities in Cuba]... and its disappointing reception by Spain, [the President] is brought to the end of his effort....
The grounds for... [United States military] intervention may briefly be summarized as follows:
First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and which parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop.... It is no answer to say that this is all in another country, belonging to another nation, and is therefore none of our business. It is especially our duty, for it is right at our door.
Second. We owe it to our [U.S.] citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection... for life and property which no government there can or will afford... and to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal protection.
Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island.
Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance. The present condition of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace to our peace and entails upon this Government an enormous expense. With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us and with which our people have such trade and business relations; when the lives and liberty of our citizens are in constant danger... where our trading vessels are libel to seizure and are seized at our very door by war ships of a foreign nation... all these... with the resulting strained relations, are a constant menace to our peace and compel us to keep on a semi-war footing with a nation with which we are at peace....
In view of these facts and considerations I ask Congress to authorize
and empower the President to take measures to secure a full and a final
termination of hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people
of Cuba, and to secure in the island the establishment of a stable government,
capable of maintaining order and observing its international obligations,
insuring peace and tranquillity and the security of its citizens as well
as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of the United States
as may be necessary for these purposes....