Americans divided sharply in 1899 over whether to annex the Philippines as part of the United States. In 1900, Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, running for a second time against William McKinley, made anti-imperialism the central issue of his campaign. McKinley won easily, and historian Walter LaFeber has argued that Bryan’s defeat showed that the American public had reached a fundamental consensus in favor of American expansionism abroad. "By 1899," he concludes, "the United States had forged a new empire." Still, the conflict between imperialists, isolationists, and Filipinos who fought for their nation’s independence would echo in debates over U.S foreign policy fo