[RKV]

“Taftian isolationism has no basis in U.S. Constitutional law, either....” Nor in the history of the early Republic either. Shores of Tripoli anyone? Quasi-war with France? War of 1812 (including the invasion of Canada)? War with Mexico later and on the Indian Nations? Isolationist? Not bloody likely.

[Alberta's Child]

There is a major flaw in your comparisons to those previous "non-isolationist" campaigns by the U.S. government. The vast majority of those campaigns involved military action in support of expanding the sovereign territory of the United States (in other words -- with the intent of adding stars to the U.S. flag).

Tripoli was the lone exception, and I'd make the case that the protection of U.S. shipping from foreign predation on the "high seas" (this term had a strict legal definition that is a very important consideration here) is hardly incompatible with an isolationist philosophy.