President Theodore Roosevelt oversaw the realization of a long-term objective of the United States: a transistor channel. During the 1800s, American and British leaders and businessmen wanted to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Today, as the Panama Canal celebrates its anniversary, the audacious act of a president of the United States still resonates as a stroke of political genius or a major expansion of executive power. On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened during the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.
But it was Wilson's archrival who promoted the channel. In 1911, former President Theodore Roosevelt told an audience in Berkeley, California, that he had decided, as executive director, to guarantee access to the Isthmus of Panama, which was then part of the nation of Colombia, to build a canal that would be the centerpiece of the growing world power of the United States. Roosevelt was a firm believer in the “stewardship theory” of the presidency, which held that “the executive branch was limited only by specific restrictions and prohibitions contained in the Constitution or imposed by Congress by virtue of its constitutional powers.”In his first State of the Union address in 1902, President Roosevelt made it clear that the channel was one of his administration's top priorities. When the Colombian government sent troops to quell the rebellion, an American warship, the Nashville, appeared off the Panamanian coast with a contingent of marines, along with other Americans.
The next day, Panama declared independence and Roosevelt quickly recognized Panama as a Republic and offered protection. Colombia did not recognize Panama as a republic until 1921, when the United States signed the pact in 1914 and ratified it by the Colombian government, but the United States Senate at first refused to ratify the treaty, as Roosevelt's supporters saw it as an insult to the former president. Explore our new 15-unit core curriculum with educational videos, primary texts and more. Find and explore videos, podcasts, and blog posts on constitutional issues.
Discover the major historical texts and documents that encompass American history and that have shaped the American constitutional tradition. On November 6, 1903, the United States recognized the Republic of Panama, and on November 18, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty with Panama was signed, granting the United States exclusive and permanent possession of the Panama Canal Zone. The problem was how this achievement was achieved, which essentially consisted of subordinating a part of its territory to an extraterritorial power, through a treaty that no Panamanian has signed. In Panama, he asserted his power over the republic and dominated the country's history for 100 years.
The Panama Canal was first built after the failure of a French construction team in the 1880s, when the United States began building a canal across a 50-mile stretch of the narrow Isthmus of Panama in 1904. Panamanians also believed that their strategic location guaranteed them a bright future and were reluctant to share their potential abundance with distant Bogotá. What they are doing is building another set of basins and they have designed it in a very ecological and environmental way. In 1901, the British agreed to revoke the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and grant the United States the exclusive right to build and operate a canal and defend it with military force. However, thousands of workers died during its construction, and its history has not been without controversy, including a controversial transfer of authority from the United States to Panama in the 1970s.
Between 1903 and 1904, President Roosevelt signed a treaty with the new nation of Panama that granted the United States the right to build and fortify a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Their conversation was cautious, but Loomis wanted to know how the United States would react if Panama declared independence. The neutrality clause of the Torrijos-Carter treaty states that the United States has the right to intervene in Panamanian internal affairs if the security of the The channel is under threat. The construction and then the opening of the Panama Canal gave additional weight to the preservation of the Monroe Doctrine.
This eased many tensions, not only in Panama, but in all of Latin America, since it had been the example of American colonialism in Latin America...
