Imperial Control Quotes
The great wall of China was built just as much to keep the Chinese in as to keep the barbarians out.
The Chinese 1st Emperor had unified China by brutal war. His troops and government were more sophisticated than the others and they were particularly sophisticated about drafting soldiers, forcing the civilian population to manufacture weapons for the huge military and to levy and collect taxes. Many people in the conquered provinces fled from China. The Emperor responded to the outside ‘barbarians’ and the fleeing Chinese by connecting the many walls that existed on the Chinese border into one unified wall as much to keep his labor force in China as to keep others out.
The Byzantine emissary had pointed out that Mehmed’s predecessors had signed a treaty agreeing to “consult” with Constantinople before building any fortified structure in the area surrounding Constantinople. Mehmed was only 19 years old at this time. His intention f building a fort was to have a platform from which to attack and capture Constantinople itself which he did 2 years later. Earlier, the Eastern Roman Empire was much stronger and the Ottoman sultans were more cautious in dealing with them. However, the various Christian factions were all feuding with each other, and Mehmed II, despite his youth, was much better organized and was a better leader than his predecessors.
He had concluded that Spain, who then ruled the Philippines, was incompetent, cruel and immoral in its rule, but that the Filipinos were not educated or sophisticated enough to rule themselves. However, he felt that he had to protect our commercial interests in the islands and the region, and was worried that commercial interests of other countries would take over and control the area. Another reason that this is a very important quotation is that it indicates the anti-Catholic bias in America at the time. Note that the President stated that one objective was to “Christianize” them. However, Spain had been in the islands for over 300 years and most Filipinos were already Roman Catholic. However, Roman Catholics were then a much smaller proportion of the American population and many Protestants didn’t think Catholicism was a legitimate Christian Religion. When the majority of Americans thought of Christianizing other people, they thought of Protestant missionaries much like England. At the time there was very little criticism of the President for the “error” of stating that Filipinos should be Christianized when they were so already Spanish Colonial Policy and Practice was generally terrible and particularly so in the Philippines, See {629450}.
English law required equal citizenship for Blacks. However, the Affrikaners—white settlers from Holland were totally opposed. It turned out to be impossible for the English to impose their law upon all of South Africa.
The Punjab, like Afghanistan and some other areas had no real tradition of government. The Sikhs of the Punjab had initiated a war with the British Colonial Empire—The 1st Anglo-Sikh War—which ended with a decisive British victory and a peace treaty where the rulers of the Punjab agreed to keep the peace. However, they really could not control the population and some Sikhs again attacked British and Muslim interests. The Governor-General reported that treaties and commitments with the Punjab leaders really meant little. The British also won the 2nd Anglo-Sikh War-. The Governor-General was determined that there would not be a 3rd war with the Sikhs of the Punjab.
FDR had agreed to send destroyers to help Churchill but to placate Congress he wanted a formal agreement for Britain to lease bases to the United States. Roosevelt wanted the Prime Minister to work out a Lend Lease agreement with the Attorney General. Jackson’s reply was “But Republics do!”
