They did want to be imperial
Lincoln was trying to appeal to Southern voters by picking Andrew Johnson as his running mate. These two men were actually very different politically speaking. Lincoln was a Republican, Andrew Johnson was a Democrat. Lincoln was from the Midwest US, Andrew Johnson was from Tennessee.
Lincoln knew that having a Democratic Vice President who once represented a Confederate state (Tennessee) would allow his presidency to appeal to a wider range of voters.
Answer:On June 15, 1898, the Anti-imperialist league formed to fight U.S. annexation of the Philippines, citing a variety of reasons ranging from the economic to the legal to the racial to the moral.
