If Brazil, or the Argentine, or Chile, had been in possession of the Isthmus, doubtless the canal would have been built under the governmental control of the nation thus controlling the Isthmus, with the hearty acquiescence of the United States and of all other powers.

But in the actual fact the canal would not have been built at all save for the action I took.

If men choose to say that it would have been better not to build it, than to build it as the result of such action, their position, although foolish, is compatible with belief in their wrongheaded sincerity.

But it is hypocrisy, alike odious and contemptible, for any man to say both that we ought to have built the canal and that we ought not to have acted in the way we did act.
After a sufficient period of wrangling, the Senate ratified the treaty with Panama, and work on the canal was begun.

The first thing that was necessary was to decide the type of canal.