But by taking over the Spanish empire, America had become the kind of imperial power it had once denounced.
Woodrow Wilson had initially cheered the American takeover of the Spanish empire, although not as lustily as Roosevelt and McKinley.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic supporter not only of the Spanish-American War, in which he enlisted, but of the subsequent American takeover of the Spanish empire.
He was born just before the start of the 16th century, a turbulent age which embraced the origins of Protestantism, the decline of Venice and the rise of the Spanish empire.
This small town in the middle of an arid, barren region but right in the middle of Philip's Hispanic territories soon became the critical political hub not just of the peninsula but the rapidly expanding Spanish Empire.
And, although the Spanish empire was clearly not the power it had been in the 16th Century under Philip II, her monarchs continued expanding territorially until it reached its greatest extent at the end of the 18th Century.
The nation's oldest city was founded more than 400 years ago, and its Colonial Spanish Quarter Museum gives visitors the opportunity to see what life was like in the city when it was still an outpost of the Spanish empire.
"Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War" combines historical footage, crisp narration by Edward James Olmos and interviews with a well-balanced group of historians.
The enduring taboo subject is skin color, whether an individual's complexion betrays an allegiance to the Spanish who conquered the Aztec empire in 1521 or the Aztecs who were conquered.
At the start of this year, it was thought that 1998 would be a year of massive Spanish soul-searching reflecting on the defeat of the empire.
But while the empire in the south waned, that in the north, especially in the Yucatan, flourished until the Spanish conquests of the 16th century AD.
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