Answer _ Anti-imperialists _. When the United States legislators decided to annex the Philippines, a great controversy was caused, even in the American people. The American opposition to the US colonial government of the Philippines on the islands was very varied, from those anti-imperialist opponents who thought it morally reprehensible that the United States, after its independence, were also colonialists; to those who feared that the annexation of the Philippine Islands allowed non-white Filipinos to have a chance to participate in the US national government.