our favor the scale of negotiations and the general current of events.

If the decision of the nation, following one school of thought, is
that the weaker we are the more likely we are to have our way, there
is little to be said. Drifting is perhaps as good a mode as another to
reach that desirable goal. If, on the other hand, we determine that
our interest and dignity require that our rights should depend upon
the will of no other state, but upon our own power to enforce them, we
must gird ourselves to admit that freedom of interoceanic transit
depends upon predominance in a maritime region--the Caribbean
Sea--through which pass all the approaches to the Isthmus. Control of
a maritime region is insured primarily by a navy; secondarily, by
positions, suitably chosen and spaced one from the other, upon which
as bases the navy rests, and from which it can exert its strength. At
present the positions of the Caribbean are occupied by foreign powers,
nor may we, however disposed to acquisition, obtain them by means
other than righteous; but a distinct advance will have been made when
public opinion is convinced that we need them, and should not exert
our utmost ingenuity to dodge them when flung at our head. If the
Constitution really imposes difficulties, it provides also a way by
which the people, if convinced, can remove its obstructions. A
protest, however, may be entered against a construction of the
Constitution which is liberal, by embracing all it can be constrained
to imply, and then immediately becomes strict in imposing these
ingeniously contrived fetters.

Meanwhile no moral obligation forbids developing our navy upon lines
and proportions adequate to the work it may be called upon to do.
Here, again, the crippling force is a public impression, which limits
our potential strength to the necessities of an imperfectly realized