ABSTRACT
The Fourteenth Amendment was a significant force in determining the ultimate shape of the United States' geographic empire. Its influence provides a partial answer to Bernard DeVoto's two major questions about the shape of the American empire: (1) Why was the American political regime the same size as its empire and (2) Why was the country of continental size? First, republican egalitarianism required that the political regime be basically the same size as the empire. Second, the country stopped expanding its official boundaries because of the nature of the people it would have to conquer or purchase land from. Racial homogeneity prevailed over relentless formal expansion. The victorious Spanish-American War forced the country to choose between humane constitutional principles and the further growth of its empire. The basic structure of the republican empire had been redefined to meet immediate felt needs. The United States would now have Athens's imperial structure of perpetually subordinate colonies.
