The Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban
    independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for
    discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed
    and undertaken by the Government of Cuba.

In order to end the occupation of Cuba, the Cuban government had to insert the Platt Amendment into its constitution.  They however did not want to as they felt, similar to how Adams felt in 1796, that it allowed the US government to govern them, rather than allowing the Cuban people to govern themselves.

Very clearly the US government played a two-faced game with Cuba.  The Senate which passed the resolution which recognized Cuba’s government and that Cuba “[was], and of a right ought to be, free,” and the Senate which passed the Platt Amendment had not changed composition greatly in the three-year interim.  In fact, 16 senators who had voted for the Cuban independence measure before the compromise with McKinley which eliminated recognition of the Cuban government as constituted, also voted for the Platt amendment.  An additional 16 voted for the Cuban independence measure and abstained from the Platt Amendment.  These votes from the hypocritical members of the Senate would have defeated the Platt Amendment had they not changed their position so drastically.

The US intent to use the Platt amendment as the means to legitimize control over Cuba was not a hidden agenda.  Congressman Corliss of Michigan stated: “I am construed to vote for the amendment with reference to the island of Cuba, because I believe that the adoption thereof will insure the continuance of our sovereignty.  I am unalterably opposed to the surrender of the sovereignty of the United States over the island of Cuba.”  Congressman C. E. Littlefield of Maine opposed the Platt Amendment.  He stated that:

    The Cuban amendment, which is said to contain our ultimatum to Cuba, does not in my opinion, contemplate surrendering
    ‘exclusive control’ of Cuba to the ‘inhabitants of Cuba,’ for whom the territory is now ‘held in trust,’ ‘when a stable
    government shall have been established by their voluntary action;’ but on the contrary, it seems to me that it clearly intends
    to perpetuate our control over the island and its inhabitants.

Historian Louis A. Pérez, Jr. stated the result of the Platt Amendment best,

    During the decades following the Spanish-Cuban-American War], the Platt Amendment served as the principle
    instrument of hegemony.  Immediately through direct rule during the occupation and subsequently through indirect rule under
    the Platt Amendment, the United States exercised authority over Cuba not unlike sovereignty.  The Platt Amendment was
    an organic document—evolving and changing as circumstances dictated.  It opened Cuba to the expansion of U.S. capital
    and held the republic to its continued defense.  It was a pursuit that required increasingly deeper involvement in Cuban
    internal affairs, and the amendment served this purpose too.  Indeed, in the end there was little in the exercise of hegemony
    that did not find sanction in the Platt Amendment.
  In 1905 insurgents in Cuba were poised to begin conflict once again.  The Cuban government, under Thomas Estrada Palma that the US allowed to take office abused its powers and fraudulently swept all elections.  The populist military (largely of Afro-Cuban descent) which had been pushed out during the previous US occupation were ready to take control of the government by force of arms.  Although the US government admitted serious problems with the Cuban government Roosevelt and his party felt that they could not allow Cuba to fall into anarchy as that would harm US interests in Cuba.  Thus, once again the US occupied Cuba with its military in 1906.  They stayed three years and in that time they removed Cubans from positions of municipal authority.  The US never occupied Cuba again militarily.  The mere threat of that possibility was enough to scare the Cubans into compromises with one another.  When they did finally throw off the yoke of the Platt Amendment it was in 1934 and the US had enough of its own problems in the depth of the Great Depression to ignore such Cuban effrontery.
Many historians have argued that US imperialism began with Cuba.  Others contest this citing the Mexican-American War of 1848 and the continuous exploitation of the Native Americans, particularly in the nineteenth century.   Both are somewhat correct.  Manifest Destiny is clearly imperialistic.  But, the US treatment of Cuba  as shown by the Platt Amendment shows a different type of imperialism.  This new “empire” controlled areas without deluging them with US citizens.  It controlled countries and people through military and economic hegemony.
 

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