ABSTRACT
The United States Senate demonstrated continued interest in a project in 1835 by passing a resolution requesting that the president of the United States consider negotiating treaties as might be necessary to provide for a future canal. In 1900, Secretary of State John Hay and British Ambassador to the United States Lord Pauncefote concluded a treaty that allowed the United States to construct a transisthmian canal without British help or interference. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty gave the United States the right to build a canal and granted in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a ten mile, rather than a ten-kilometer, strip of land and all the water it needed for the construction and use of the Canal. The Neutrality Treaty — officially the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal — took effect simultaneously with the Panama Canal Treaty.
