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[–] 1Iron_Curtain ago 

I think that the main problem with America's spread westwards was that it was driven too much by first homesteading and secondly after the Civil War corporate monopolization. Of course, this is not entirely true, but it has had a negative impact in some ways.

I am not suggesting spreading the institution of slavery would have been an antidote. I just think that syndicalism, agricultural co-ops(Granger movement), and the small-scale industrialized society, with strong ties to craftsmen should have had a stronger rule in the flow Westwards. That would have meant that the establishment in Washington D.C. should have not kept those who wanted to undertake commercial activities on the Mississippi River from doing so, which basically was a new "Indian" demarcation line that was meant to keep monied interests within the American government economically empowered, rather than allowing the common man to take part in this enterprise.

Adopting Crittenden's compromise would have helped with establishing a balanced approach to the spread of the American Empire, but then again this was as much a problem with Southerners as it was Northerners.

Proof that the American Empire project was flawed is firstly Reconstruction and secondly the Spanish-American War, which was a war that could have been avoided, and led to the unnecessary spread into the Pacific(I don't even know if Puerto Rico was worth it). William Bryan Jennings FTW.