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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: us in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty that both should build and run the canal.
Vagueness about territory near by raised further trouble, and there we
were in the right. England yielded. The years went on and we grew, until
the time came when we decided that if there was to be any canal, no one
but ourselves should have it. We asked to be let off the old treaty.
England let us off, stipulating the canal should be unfortified, and an
"open door" to all. Our representative agreed to this, much to our
displeasure. Indeed, I do not think he should have agreed to it. Did
England hold us to it? All this happened in the lifetime of many of us,
and we know that she did not hold us to it. She gave us what we asked,
and she did so because she felt its justice, and that it in no way
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