Before the Roosevelt Corollary: Colombia and the Nineteenth-Century Panama Canal Treaty Debates.

This article argues that nineteenth-century debates about the Panama Canal are crucial for understanding how U.S. foreign policy towards the Americas transitioned from the 1823 Monroe Doctrine to the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary. He thought that a private company could build the canal only if it had the support of a maritime power and that power "could not be other than the United States."[14] Regarding a Colombian alliance with the United States, the treaty stated that the canal would be closed to any nation at war with either the United States or Colombia. Although it might be difficult to imagine today, we have to remember that it was possible in 1870 for a Colombian senator from the Liberal Party (the party of abolition) to think that the United States, led by President Ulysses S. Grant, a Civil War hero, could ally itself with Colombia in a continental struggle against conservative values.[25] And that the United States would treat Colombia as an equal partner, who would keep sovereign control over the canal and its zone. 28 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 9-10. 29 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 9-10. 30 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 10. 31 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 27. 32 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 13. 33 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 19. 34 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 12, 24-26. 35 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 23. 36 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 21-22. 37 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 30-35. 38 Martín, I Canal Interoceánico i , 37. [Extracted from the article]