“Was there ever before such a war with such great results, so short in duration, such wonderful successes, with no reverses?” asked Vermont Senator Redfield Proctor shortly after the Spanish-American War's conclusion in the summer of 1898. For the United States, at least, the answer is assuredly no. Nonetheless, as Lewis L. Gould notes, “the war has not received very much attention as a force for social change at the end of the nineteenth century.” Rather, scholarly attention has focused on the 1896 presidential election and the Progressive movement that followed as purported turning points in American political history.

The 1896 election has played a prominent role in the realignment literature since the theory's inception, and its prominence as a “critical election” that produced a “sharp and durable” realignment has endured through the literature's development. Following on the heels of the panic of 1893, as V.O. Key initially argued, the 1896 election brought the Republican Party to power and the “Democratic defeat was so demoralizing and so thorough that the party could make little headway in regrouping its forces until 1916.” Similarly, James L. Sundquist has asserted that this 1896 realignment set the stage for American politics until World War I. Meanwhile, American political development (APD) scholars have written about the myriad formal and informal changes the political system underwent during the Progressive years.

While the importance of these developments should not be dismissed, the legacy of the Spanish-American War has been unjustly overlooked.