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"With respect to the Navy, it may be proper to remind you, that, whatever may be the proposed object of its establishment, or whatever may be the prospect of temporary advantages resulting therefrom, it is demonstrated by the experience of all nations who have ventured far into naval policy, that such prospect is ultimately delusive; and that a navy has ever, in practice, been known more as an instrument of power, a source of expense, and an occasion of collisions and wars with other nations, than as an instrument of defence, of economy, or of protection to commerce. Nor is there any nation, in the judgment of the General Assembly, to whose circumstances this remark is more applicable than to the United States."

These opinions may, now, however, be considered as old-fashioned; but being himself an old-fashioned man, he confessed he was more pleased with them than with the new political doctrines preached by the gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. Cheves) to the House and the nation. It might, however, possibly be the fact, that he (Mr. McK.) was wrong, and only indulged ancient prejudices, and the gentleman from South Carolina right; and if such were the case, he could only say, in his own defence, that, under the influence of those old doctrines, the American people had enjoyed a state of prosperity and happiness unparalleled in the history of man – a state of prosperity which he feared he would never see equalled. He looked back on those days of happy prosperity with the same feelings of mournful regret with which he looked back to the days of his youth, fearing that they, like the days of his youth, would never again return – especially if the Navy mania should prevail.

Establish a navy, said Mr. McK. and this country may bid farewell to peace; because you thereby organize a class of society who are interested in creating and keeping up wars and contention. Officers in the Navy and Army are mere cyphers in society in times of peace, and are only respectable in time of war, when wealth and fame may await their exertions. They are, therefore, interested in keeping up a state of war; and being invested with the management of an instrument of war, it is to be expected that it will be used in some degree to answer their own purposes? No man who will reflect for a moment, but must be satisfied that the disgraceful and lawless conduct of the British naval officers on our coast originated in a desire on their part to bring on a war with this country, in which they looked forward to large dividends of prize money; and these acts were contrary to the wish and expectation of Great Britain; in one instance the act was disavowed; and it may be asked why were the officers not punished who acted contrary to the wishes of the Government? The answer is obvious; because the influence of the Navy in England is so predominant that the Government are afraid to touch the subject, and the consequence is, that the Government are compelled to bear the odium of acts which they disapprove; and the same cause which has produced this effect in England, if permitted to operate, will produce a similar effect in this country.

Our little Navy has already contributed much towards the irritation which exists between this country and England; and under any other President than Mr. Jefferson, it would have brought on a war in 1807. And what real benefit has resulted from it to the Government? Has a picaroon or a buccaneer ever been chastised by them? If they have, he had no recollection of the case; he had seen indeed paragraphs in the newspapers mentioning that the frigate President, or some one of the vessels, had sailed from the navy-yard to Norfolk, from thence to New York, and finally arrived safe at Boston; but for what purpose he was totally ignorant, unless, indeed, it was to sail back again, and furnish the materials for a new article for the newspapers; and for these eminent services, the American people have already paid about $30,000,000.

Tuesday, January 21

Naval Establishment

The House again resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill concerning the Naval Establishment.

Mr. Johnson said: I do not know, sir, why I should regret the discussion of any subject in this place, when I recollect that each member is under the same obligations of duty and responsibility. It has been said that no member would be thanked for his vote in favor of this bill – and, fearless of censure, I shall oppose this attempt to lay the foundation, and to pledge the property of the people for naval systems, as ruinous to the finances of the country, as it will be destructive to the peace of the nation. After every effort in my power, I could not suppress the sensation of sorrow, that Congress should be distracted with a subject that would justly excite alarm throughout the nation, even in the hours of profound tranquillity. I have looked to the Treasury reports, and I see a national debt of about fifty millions of dollars. I look to the aggressions of England, and I find we have been driven to the necessity of creating a great and expensive military force to avenge our wrongs and to expel the enemy from her North American colonies. I look to the arguments of the advocates of this pernicious system, and they acknowledge that we are driven to the brink of a war that will require loans and taxes, and end in a new debt of at least fifty millions of dollars – and under these circumstances, when we are upon the heels of a second revolution, when the people are likely to be most pressed for the ways and means to carry on the war with vigor and certain success, the ruinous system of a great navy is pressed upon us. Upon the return of a second peace, when the British possessions shall be incorporated into the Union, and our army disbanded – when commerce shall be restored, and a surplus of revenue in the Treasury – after meeting the demands of the Government, with more propriety might the question be presented for consideration. I believe, sir, since the political reformation in 1801, the question of building a navy had never been before presented directly to the consideration of Congress. When Mr. Jefferson, that illustrious character, presided over the destinies of the United States, why was not this navy-building proposed? Then we had a revenue of fifteen millions of dollars annually, and a surplus in the Treasury. No, sir, such a system had been put down too recently – the struggles against a navy in '98-9 were not forgotten. I deny the capacity of the United States to maintain a navy without oppression to the great mass of the community in the persons of tax-gatherers; and if a great navy could be maintained, it would be more than useless – it would be dangerous to the peace and tranquillity of this nation. I was in favor of repairing and putting into service the whole of our naval force, consisting of one hundred and sixty-two gunboats and upwards of fifteen frigates and smaller war vessels; because this naval force, united with our fortifications, would give security to our coasts and harbors, protect our coasting trade, and would be important in the present crisis to co-operate with privateers and individual enterprise against the commerce and plunder of Great Britain. But this is not the object of the bill. It contemplates and embraces a navy to protect our commerce in distant seas as well as at home, and which cannot cost less than twenty or thirty millions to accomplish; and, when built, would entail upon the Government of the United States the annual expense of fifteen millions of dollars,²³ equal to the amount of our whole revenue in the most prosperous years of commerce under the administration of Mr. Jefferson, and double the amount of our present financial income. It is the system, as well as the expense, that I object to; and while I am ready as any man to keep a small naval force, to be confined to the protection of our maritime frontiers, as well as I am to keep up a small land force, to protect our territorial frontiers, I will not vote one cent for a system of naval force which is destined to keep foreign nations in check in distant seas, and destined to entail upon this happy Government perpetual taxes and a perpetually-increasing national debt. The people will not support such a Naval Establishment – they have the corrective in their hands; and build this fleet of twenty seventy-fours and forty frigates, and the people will in their turn put them down. But, sir, we are told that we are a commercial people, and that you cannot restrain a spirit of enterprise in our citizens which is limited only by the polar snows to the North and the icy mountains to the South. No person has attempted to damp that gallant spirit, that mercantile enterprise – such adventurous voyages have been fostered and cherished by every means in the power of the Government. But, sir, has this unparalleled enterprise, this gallant spirit, been carried on by a navy? Such a thing has never been thought of, which proves that this question of a navy has no connection with this commercial enterprise; and the existence of one without the other, is positive proof of the fact. But it is also said, that agriculture and commerce are twin sisters, and the learned gentleman from New York (Mr. Mitchill) will not allow a more distant connection. I have no objection to such a union, and I did expect that it would have been demonstrated what was the real relationship between these twin sisters and a permanent navy; whether it is that of cousin-german, brother or husband. As these subjects have not been identified, I must be permitted to say that there is no connection – unless under the disguise of protection, the navy would be the destroyer both of commerce and agriculture – by taxes upon the one and constant war upon the theatre of the other. The advocates of a navy need not expect to cover the deformity and danger of the system by telling the people they are friends to the protection of commerce – and that those who oppose it are ready to relinquish our rights upon the ocean. No, sir, this will not do. They will ask if our commerce, as great as it has been, was ever protected by a navy. They will look at the expenditure of the public money – they will see twenty-nine millions of dollars expended upon our present Naval Establishment; and though they may not complain of that prodigal waste of public money upon so small a naval force, they will look to the effects produced by this power, and they will refuse to augment it, until, indeed, the Peace Establishment shall require augmentation. The people will look to the votes of this House, and they will see the opposers of a navy willing at this moment to avenge the depredation upon our commerce and neutral rights by actual hostility. I am not prepared to give up our rights, whether upon the ocean or upon land, whether commercial or personal; but I may differ in the means of avenging these wrongs, and vindicating those rights, and I shall ever differ from those who wish a navy to ride triumphant in distant seas, and, under a pretext of protection to commerce, doom the nation to galling burdens too intolerable to be borne. But we are told, sir, that this question partakes of the character of a self-evident proposition. Indeed, sir, and in what respect is it entitled to this definition of self-evident? Unless, indeed, from every consideration of history, experience and reason, it is evident that a navy is an engine of power and ambition, calculated to embroil a nation in quarrels and wars, and to fix permanent wretchedness upon the industrious class of the people. When we look to the delegation from each State, we find a difference in sentiment upon this subject, whether lying on the seaboard or distant from it.

The chairman of the Naval Committee has attempted to make us believe that a navy is the anchor of our hopes, and I dare venture to say, his eloquent colleague (Mr. Williams) will in due time denounce it as the most abominable system – always employed in the fell purposes of outrage, plunder, war, and death. The same division of sentiment exists in Massachusetts as to this destructive and expensive establishment. And, sir, let me not omit to mention, the sentiments of the Republicans of '98-9 were not only entitled to the love and confidence of the people, but worthy of our imitation. Nor will I omit the resolutions of the Virginia Legislature in opposition to a navy, when they remonstrated against measures which they considered ruinous to the freedom of the United States – nor is my respect for those opinions lessened, although many Republicans in Congress at this time, and men of talents, have become great advocates for a navy, and I will put it to the people whose opinions are entitled to their approbation, whether a navy beyond the peace establishment is ruinous, or the rock of our safety.

Leaving the division of sentiment in our country, let us advert to ancient and modern history, and search for examples upon this important subject. And here, sir, I will take this position, and defy history for an example, that no great naval power ever confined their naval strength to the legitimate object of protecting commerce in distant seas. I will refer to Tyre and Sidon, Crete and Rhodes, to Athens and to Carthage. No sooner had these nations ceased to confine their naval strength to their maritime defence at home, to the protection of their seacoast, than they were engaged in plunder, piracy, depredations upon other nations, or involved in wars, which certainly accelerated, if it did not produce, the downfall and destruction of those governments. Peace and tranquillity is not the natural state of a great naval power. A disregard of public law, sacred treaties, and bloodshed, would suit it better; and it has been and ever will be, the consequences of such force. These nations furnish another example and instructive lesson to the present generation – that while their commerce and navy furnished a small part of the people with the luxuries of every country at that time known, the great mass of citizens at home were miserable and oppressed. Their rights neglected, their burdens increased, and their happiness destroyed, while their fleets and external grandeur carried astonishment and terror to distant nations. When a nation puts forth her strength upon the ocean, the interior of the country will be neglected and oppressed with contributions. Ancient history does not furnish a solitary instance of any permanent good, or long continuance of peace arising from a great naval supremacy; such overgrown power, such unnatural strength, must feed upon plunder, at home and abroad. When we come to modern nations we have proof before us of the positions I have taken. We have been told of Holland, as a people existing in a most flourishing state of prosperous commerce without a navy to protect it, and we have been told of Spain as a naval power without commerce to protect. But leaving these examples, let us look at France and Great Britain; we here have examples before our eyes; we need no history; the facts are before us.

Admit that Great Britain, with her thousand vessels, could protect her lawful commerce, let me ask, if her navy has ever been confined to that object; whether it is confined to that object at this time; whether her navy has not fattened upon the spoils of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and the commerce of neutral nations, making war equally upon friends and enemies. Her navy, triumphant in every sea, is employed in a system of plunder against the world, and, notwithstanding this supremacy, we see her citizens groaning under a national debt of eight hundred millions of pounds sterling, more than all the nations of the universe could pay. We see her upon the precipice of bankruptcy – we see her people, her numerous subjects, loaded with taxes, that would astonish any man who did not know the fact – notwithstanding this, the public debt is daily increasing, and it is now acknowledged by all the world that she is fighting for her existence – victorious at sea and safe at home from invasion, and still her very existence is at stake. Sir, I never wish to see the liberties of my country afloat upon the ocean and staked upon the strength of a navy. Look at France, separated from her enemy by a narrow channel, without vessels to meet the fleets of England on the water, and still she is unable to burn the seaport towns of France or invade the French territories, or in any way to make an impression upon her. Populous and powerful upon land, nothing but the imperial despotism that exists throughout that vast empire, prevents the country from being the most enviable residence upon the globe, except our own favored land. Let not the Congress of the United States therefore stake their existence upon navies, let us not withdraw the protecting hand of Government from the soil; let us not increase the burdens of the people, and weigh them down with a public debt to support external grandeur. Do not by this system destroy the affections and attachments of the solid and honest part of the community, who support the government of the country.

Sir, the report of the Naval Committee has assumed principles as erroneous as they are novel – that the protection of maritime commerce was, above all other objects, the first and the greatest consideration which laid the foundation for the present constitution. There is nothing to warrant such a position; and no reason does exist why our commercial rights should have been better secured than the other various rights and interests embraced by that charter of our independence. In the specific grants of powers, Congress has the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations, with the several States, and with the Indian tribes; not giving preference in language to foreign over State and domestic commerce. I will admit, sir, that our commercial rights formed one of the primary considerations – not more primary than the rights of agriculture and manufactures, nor the rights of property, the rights of persons, protection from foreign invasion and aggression, or from internal foes. These rights were equally important, and not less the considerations which strengthened the bonds of the Union. And if any consideration had a preference, it arose from considerations of peace and war.

When I look into the preamble of the constitution, which to be sure is no specific grant of power, but is an interpretation of the objects of that great charter of our Union, I find it was to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence and general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty, that the constitution was adopted; and although maritime commerce has only a co-equal right with all others, still, the greatest means and resources of the Government have been directed to its protection. And still it would seem, if we do not ruin the nation by the establishment of a navy, we wish to make encroachments upon commerce, to damp the commercial spirit. And this we are told in the face of facts which appear upon record, and in the face of every expensive war measure now taken and adopted. Sir, in a colonial state, it was a duty upon tea that was the immediate cause of a war, which was bloody indeed, and continued upwards of seven years; a conflict which has no parallel in history as to its beginning and termination. And at this moment, violations of our neutral rights upon the ocean is a primary cause why we are about to wage a second war with Great Britain; and still we are gravely told that we are unwilling to protect commerce, and that we are ready to abandon it, because we will not vote away the substance of the people upon a system of policy which must ruin the nation if not crushed in its infancy. The constitution says, Congress shall have the power to provide and maintain a navy. And this has been read. So has it authorized Congress to raise and support armies, to lay and collect taxes, and declare war; but the constitution does not fix the limit of these powers, and all are liable to abuse. And the convention did not suppose that any Congress would so far abuse these powers as to keep either a standing army in time of peace, which must endanger the liberties of the people, or a permanent navy, that would involve us in continual wars with other nations, and permanent taxes upon the people. A reasonable peace establishment to protect our maritime and territorial frontier, consistent with strict economy, must have been contemplated; and this force, naval and military, we have maintained; and we are as secure as a nation can expect to be from savages or a maritime foe. There would be as much reason why we should keep in pay five hundred thousand regular troops in time of peace, as your twenty vessels of seventy-four guns and your forty frigates, in addition to our present naval force. In every point of view, therefore, a permanent navy is as injurious to the country as a standing army. One will endanger your liberties by conquest, and the other by wars with foreign nations.

But I am asked, how will you contend with a maritime nation, without a navy? Sir, that question is as easily answered as the first. I will ask, how we succeeded in the Revolutionary war? We were without any security upon our seacoast, and still we succeeded. But to be more specific – I would grant letters of marque and reprisal, and authorize privateering. Give scope to individual enterprise, to destroy the commerce of the enemy – which can be done effectually. I would fortify our seaport towns; station our gunboats and frigates along our coast, to protect us at home. And in this way I would in war avenge the infractions of our neutral rights.

Mr. Lowndes. – Mr. Speaker, in one opinion expressed by the honorable gentleman last up, (Mr. Johnson,) I can concur. The constitution was not formed for the exclusive protection of commerce, but for the defence of all the interests of the United States. These are to be protected by the whole force of the nation. If he had adhered throughout his speech to this opinion, the question would have been narrowed to the inquiry, by what means shall commerce be protected? He has asserted the adequacy to this purpose of the naval force which we now possess. This is, indeed, a different view of the subject from that which was taken by his honorable colleague. We were told but yesterday, that the undivided exertions of the United States could not give them a navy large enough to be useful. To-day the five frigates which we have in commission are thought sufficient if properly employed, to redress all our injuries. The death of Pierce might have been revenged, and the disgrace of the Chesapeake obliterated, if these five frigates had been sent a cruising. We did not want force, but spirit to employ it. Can it be necessary gravely to answer these assertions? May I not trust their confutation to that general knowledge of the subject which every member of the House possesses? Must we inquire what number of British vessels have been lately stationed near our coast, or what greater number it is in the power of England to station there?

But, although the honorable gentleman from Kentucky is determined to defend commerce by some method which he will not fully disclose, his arguments like those of my honorable friend from Pennsylvania, appeared designed to show that commerce was not worth defending. After the full discussion of this subject, produced by the report of the Committee of Foreign Relations, and the debates at every stage of the bill for raising an additional army, the House might have supposed that this question was at last dismissed. I hope, however, to be excused for remarking that both these gentlemen have considered the profits of commerce as confined to the merchant. They have forgotten that commerce implies a change of commodities, in which the merchant is only an intermediate agent. He derives, indeed, a profit from the transaction – but so must the seller and the buyer, the grower and the consumer, or they would not engage in it. So must all those who are supported by their own industry in commercial cities – the clerk, the artisan, the common laborer. But my honorable friend from Pennsylvania says that Mr. Pitt estimated the profits of commerce in England at only twelve millions for a year, in which the naval expense was fourteen or sixteen millions. I suppose this estimate to have been made in relation to the income tax, and it obviously must have referred only to the profits of merchants. The profits of merchants may be computed, but no sober financier would attempt to compute the entire profits of commerce. If it be desirable to form, not, indeed, an estimate, but some conception of its importance, let my honorable friend compute the value of New York, where a few square feet of land are an estate, and then compare it with the value of the same extent of ground for the purposes of the plough. But, is it in this nation, and at this time, that it can be supposed that the profits of commerce are confined to the merchant? Your trade was, a few years ago, unrestrained and flourishing – did it not enrich the most distant parts of your country? It has since been plundered and confined. Does not the industry of the country languish? Is not the income of every man impaired? If commerce were destroyed, the mercantile class, indeed, could exist no longer; but the merchant, the rich capitalist, at least, would individually suffer less than any other part of the community, because, while their property would become unproductive, the value of money would rise rather than fall.

The value of commerce, then, has been strangely misunderstood by these gentlemen, who suppose that they have calculated it so very accurately. But whatever may be its value, you have already determined to defend it. Considerations of expense are not, indeed, to be neglected. We must employ, in the prosecution of the war, the cheapest and most efficacious instruments of hostility which we can obtain. But the arguments of the honorable gentlemen on the other side, are almost all of them directed against the war rather than the navy. It would be absurd, say they, to protect commerce by a navy, which should cost more than that commerce is worth. It must yet be more absurd, then, to protect it by an army which costs much more than the navy. In the comparison of the expenses and of the efficiency of an army and navy, instituted by my colleague, there is nothing invidious. The army is acknowledged to be necessary. It has had our votes. But, from the acknowledged propriety of raising the army, was fairly inferred the propriety of employing a navy, if it should be proved to be less expensive in proportion to its probable efficacy. War, and all its operations and all its instruments, must be expensive. It is difficult to determine upon the expediency of employing any of these instruments, except by comparing it with some other. To compute the result of this comparison, the honorable gentlemen on the other side must show, not that it is more expensive to maintain a navy than to be without one – not that it is more expensive to go to war than to remain at peace, (these propositions they, perhaps, have proved,) but that the objects proposed to be attained by the navy may be better or more cheaply attained in some other way. My honorable friend from Pennsylvania, then, in determining not to follow my colleague in the investigation of the comparative expense of different kinds of force, must have determined to avoid the best, and, indeed, the only method of examination from which a just conclusion could be deduced.

The honorable gentleman from Kentucky, however, who spoke yesterday, offered objections to a navy, which, if they were well founded, would supersede all further reasoning and calculation. He opposes a navy now – he will oppose it for ever. It would produce no possible good and all possible evil. It would infallibly destroy the constitution. Will the honorable gentleman tell us why? how? He sees the danger clearly? Will he explain it? An ambitious General might corrupt his army, and seize the Capitol – but will an Admiral reduce us to subjection by bringing his ships up the Potomac? The strongest recommendation of a navy in free Governments has hitherto been supposed to be that it was capable of defending but not of enslaving its country. The honorable gentleman has discovered that this is a vulgar error. A navy is really much more dangerous than an army to public liberty. He voted for the army and expressed no fears for the constitution. But a navy would infallibly terminate in aristocracy and monarchy. All this may be very true. But are we unreasonable in expecting, before we give up the old opinion, to hear some argument in favor of the new one? The honorable gentleman has asserted his propositions very distinctly. We complain only that he has not proved them.

Yet there is a view in which this question of a navy is, indeed, closely connected with the constitution. That constitution was formed by the union of independent States, that the strength of the whole might be employed for the protection of every part. The States were not ignorant of the value of those rights which they surrendered to the General Government, but they expected a compensation for their relinquishment in the increased power which would be employed for their defence. Suppose this expectation disappointed – suppose the harbor of New York blockaded by two seventy-fours? The commerce of that city, which exists only by commerce, destroyed? The protection of the General Government claimed? Your whole navy could not drive these English seventy-fours from their station. Would the brave and enterprising people of New York consent to see their capital emptied of its inhabitants, and their whole country beggared by so contemptible a force? Their own exertions would raise a fleet which would drive off the enemy and restore their city to its owners. But, when a single State shall find herself able to raise a greater fleet than the General Government can or will employ for her defence, can it be expected that she shall consider that Government as essential to her safety – as entitled to her obedience? I repeat that the Federal Constitution was instituted by the States, that the strength of the whole might be combined for the protection of any part which should be attacked. But what is the nature of the defence which one of our large States may be supposed interested to obtain from the General Government? Is it a land force? We can scarcely expect an attack on land, to repel which the militia of New York or Massachusetts would be unequal. Were either of these States attacked, the General Government would protect her by ordering out her own militia. To render the Union permanent, you must render it the interest of all the States, the large as well as the small, to maintain it; you must show them that it will provide, not an army which they can have without it, but what without it they cannot have – an adequate navy.