Read the book: «Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.)», page 50

Thursday, April 26

Reduction of the Navy

The House resumed the consideration of the unfinished business.

Mr. Smilie moved the following as a substitute for the sections stricken out:

"And further, that the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, authorized to keep in actual service as many of the frigates and other public armed vessels as in his judgment the nature of the service may require, and to cause the residue to be laid up in ordinary in convenient ports; Provided, the whole number of officers and seamen shall not exceed that fixed by the act 'in addition to the act, supplementary to the act, providing for the Naval Peace Establishment, and for other purposes,' passed the 21st day of April, 1806."

Mr. S. spoke in support of his motion, and remarked that it would produce a saving in the next year's expenditure of near a million of dollars.

Mr. Bacon, after observing that the amendment now offered would go to reduce the number of seamen in service to two hundred and ninety-five, a number smaller than that authorized by the bill as originally reported, as it would not man more than one frigate, three armed vessels, and the twenty-two gunboats at New Orleans, moved to amend the section by including also the seamen (five hundred additional) authorized by the act of the 3d day of March, 1807.

Mr. Rhea said that this proposition amounted to just the same as the original bill, as respected the number of men to be employed. He asked whether it was proper to ask this House to do (in other words to be sure) that which they had the day before refused to do. This was no time for those who voted to increase the Navy to vote to reduce it. What reason had been given for such a course? Gentlemen had said that they believed if nobody attacked us, we should attack nobody, and that, therefore, we should have no war. Gentlemen might have some internal evidence, incomprehensible to him, that we should continue in a state of peace, or might have some reasons evident to themselves; but unless these reasons were communicable, Mr. R. said he could not consent to the amendment. They had been told that there was no such thing as a disposition in this House to go to war. How had this indisposition for war got into the House? Mr. R. could not account for this dread of war. He said he had not the least disposition to give evidence of submission to foreign powers by putting down the small naval force we have; for doing so would evince our apathy and indisposition to protect our rights. If we go on in this manner, said he, we shall be the prey of every picaroon on the ocean. We shall become a prey to our black neighbors of St. Domingo. For what reason are we to subject even our coasters to plunder and abuse? To save money! Why, sir, if we do it we shall be plundered to an amount sufficient to fit out a little navy. At least let us defend ourselves against these black people of St. Domingo. We shall have nothing to prevent the barbarian cruisers from coming on our coast, and there is hostility enough in Europe against us to set those people, as well as the cruisers from St. Domingo, against us. The reduction will not comport with the safety of the nation. The House has already declared by its vote that it will not sell any of the frigates. Will it contradict itself by taking away the seamen? Now that our naval force consists of picked men and the very best officers, I am unwilling to disband them and pick up men just as they are wanted. I am utterly against any reduction now, when we have no evidence of better times; for we have no official information before us to that effect.

Mr. Bassett said he was about to have proposed an amendment, but was prevented from so doing by Mr. Bacon's. He wished to retain the first part of Mr. Smilie's amendment, and to add to it a proviso that the number of seamen should not exceed two thousand seven hundred and twenty-three, (the number now in service.) The effect of the amendment thus amended would be to give to the President an authority which he has not now, to cause the frigates to be laid up at any time he thought proper.

Mr. Tallmadge spoke of the obscurity in which the amendment was involved by a reference to so many different laws. He could not vote for it, he said, unless he could understand it.

On the suggestion of Mr. Bacon, Mr. Smilie modified his motion by making the proviso to read as follows: "Provided, That the number of seamen and boys to be retained in service shall not exceed – ." This blank Mr. Bacon proposed to fill with one thousand five hundred.

Mr. Randolph said he was afraid, after the pledge that this House had given to reduce the Naval Establishment, that that pledge was not to be redeemed; that the whole business was to end in smoke, unless some pitiful, paltry retrenchment, to the amount of a hundred thousand dollars, was made to enable them to swear by – to say here and out of doors, and to enable the public prints to say, that they had reduced the Naval Establishment. It is a matter of fact, said Mr. R., that when the Administration of Mr. Adams went out of power, they made the only reform which has ever taken place in the Naval Establishment of the United States, and that at the succeeding session no reform was made. The act of the 3d of March, 1801, authorized the President, when the situation of public affairs in his judgment should render it expedient, to cause to be sold all the vessels of the Navy except the frigates of the United States, Constitution, President, Chesapeake, Philadelphia, Constellation, Congress, New York, Boston, Essex, Adams, John Adams, and General Greene; and of that number the President was further authorized to lay up all except six. To the vessels laid up were attached one sailing master, one boatswain, one gunner, one carpenter, and one cook, one sergeant or corporal, and eight marines, and from ten to twelve seamen, according to the size of the frigate. This was the act which we found already passed when we came into power – I do not wish to be arrogant, but say we to save circumlocution. By the same act were retained in service – mark that, sir – nine captains, thirty-six lieutenants, and one hundred and fifty midshipmen, to receive only half pay when not in actual service; and the officers dismissed under that act (and a very considerable number they were) received four months' pay in addition to their other emoluments as a gratuity on quitting the public service. This is the act on which we proceeded; and under that act you will find that the expenses of the Navy amounted, in 1802, to $915,000. Well, sir, it seems we were then of opinion that even our predecessors had in one branch of reform gone far enough. It was not my opinion; but it was the opinion of a majority of this House and of the other. In 1803 the President was authorized to buy or build four vessels, to carry not exceeding sixteen guns each, for the protection of our commerce in the Mediterranean, and towards this object $96,000 were appropriated. It was not until 1803 that any increase took place in the naval establishment left us (if the expression may be pardoned) by the Federalists. We had slept long enough, I suppose, on reform, and we made this little addition. But, sir, in the unfortunate year of 1806, the memorable year of the schism, as it is called, the year of non-importation-act memory, in that year when we had a war message against Spain on the table, and a message of a different character locked up in the drawer – in that year we passed an act which has been quoted, by which we repealed the second and fourth sections of the act to provide for the Naval Peace Establishment; that is to say, we undid the reform which had been carried into execution by our predecessors – with a very ill grace, I acknowledge, and at the very last time of asking, on the 3d of March, 1801, late at night – it was a forced put, no doubt of it – we passed an act in which we repealed the second and fourth sections of that act, and added to the officers of the Navy as follows: instead of nine captains, to which number the Federal Administration had reduced them, and which number we believed for four years to be amply sufficient, we added five new captains – and yet we ought to recollect that in the interim between these two acts the frigate Philadelphia had been wholly lost, and another frigate (the General Greene) retained in the service by the act of the 3d of March, 1801, worse than totally lost, as any one may see who will go and look at her remains in the navy yard – so that the number of officers made by Congress in 1806 was in the inverse ratio to the number of ships, and, with two frigates less, we determined to have five captains more. This same act of April 21st, 1806, only doubled the number of lieutenants. The act of the 3d of March, 1801, reduced the number to thirty-six; the act of 1806 repealed that reduction and authorized the appointment of seventy-two lieutenants – it is true, sir, that the same act made no addition to the number of midshipmen, nor to the number of ordinary seamen then in service. Then again the act of the 3d of March, 1807, added to that number five hundred seamen, making the whole number of seamen 1,425. Subsequently they have been increased by the act of January 31, 1809, as the House knows, to 2,700 – and an increase is authorized to the number of 5,000, with 300 additional midshipmen. I do hope that the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and the gentleman from Massachusetts, will be prepared to give this House some reason, when we have not added a single frigate to the number retained by the act of 1801, when we have even lost two of those retained by that act, when several others are almost in the last stage of decay, why we should require five captains more than the Federal Administration required for a greater number of vessels, and why we should double the number of lieutenants? In other words, why the number of officers should now be fixed agreeably to the act of April 21, 1806, rather than that of the 3d of March, 1801? Sir, the gentleman from Massachusetts has already demonstrated to the House, and I am thankful to him for it – I know with what authority any statement comes from that gentleman – that the real protection afforded to the constituents of my worthy colleague by the bill, as reported by the select committee, is greater than that afforded by the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania – that is to say, that it would keep a greater number of seamen employed, with fewer officers to be sure, because we retain only as many as we want. The efficient protection afforded by the bill as it originally stood is greater at a less expense – because that branch of the naval service of which I have been compelled to present so hideous a picture to this House is left by the amendment untouched. My worthy colleague (Mr. Bassett) stated yesterday – and I confess it was quite novel to me; I felt so astonished at it as not only to be unable but absolutely to forget to reply to it – that before he left the Department, the ex-Secretary of the Navy had commenced a system of economy, which system it seems is now prosecuting with renovated vigor by the present Secretary – the mantle of Elijah has descended on the shoulders of his successor. I am sorry, sir, to differ with my worthy colleague on so many points; but I am really not sorry that circumstances have put it in my power to prove, from the most incontestable authority, that where I have the misfortune to differ from him, I am most indubitably supported by facts. Now, sir, the first year's expenditure under the late Secretary of the Navy was $915,000. Even in that year the appropriation was exceeded, and we had to pass an appropriation bill to make up the deficit; and from that time to his going out of office, the expenditure of that department has regularly increased. The second year, the expenditure was $1,246,000; the next year, $1,273,000; the next year (and this was the year the Philadelphia was taken – she was taken about December, 1803, and that year, I believe, was about the most vigorous of the war) the expenditure was $1,597,000; the next year, $1,649,000; the next year, $1,722,000; the next year, $1,884,000; the next, two millions and a half within a trifle. Now, sir, this is a specimen of such economy as does not suit my taste, nor, I believe, the taste of the people of this country. I believe it is in proof and in the recollection of every member of experience on this floor, that that Department has long ago passed into a proverb of prodigality and waste; and if my honorable colleague will give himself an opportunity to probe it, he will find such was the fact. With respect to the present Secretary of the Navy, I have the best reason to believe that, on his coming into office, he did take various steps to introduce reform into the civil branch of the department – in regulating and checking the pursers, for instance.

Sir, a few days ago a bill was before this House for appropriating a small sum of $20,000 to prevent the most precious archives not only that this country but that any other country possesses, the evidence of the titles of our political independence, the title-deeds of the great American family, the great charters of our liberty, from destruction. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smilie) did on that occasion vehemently oppose this bill, and on this ground – (the bill was brought in by a gentleman from Massachusetts – Mr. Quincy) that though there was no impropriety perhaps in gentlemen on that side of the House voting for unnecessary expenditures of the public money, which in the present unexampled state of the Treasury, might tend to embarrass the Government – a strange doctrine to be sure – yet it did not become him to do it. I do hope that the worthy gentleman from Pennsylvania, who could not find it in his heart to loosen the purse-strings of the nation for the purpose of preserving the valuable archives of the country, and which, if another fire should break out in the building at the other end of the palace, between this time and the next session of Congress, might be irredeemably destroyed, for which those who were the cause of the destruction would have been answerable – if he would not vote money for this object, I hope he will not insist upon exceeding, in point of expense, as relates to the Navy, the reform which our predecessors, the Federalists, made before they went out of office, which we accepted at their hands and were contented to practise on for four years, and not compel us to go into unnecessary and wanton expenses authorized by the act of April, 1806 – when, I have no hesitation in making the assertion, and am prepared to prove it, a material change was effected in the principles of those in Administration, such as I knew them, and such as they were practised upon for about the term of four years, when we began to find that patronage was a very comfortable thing, that office was desirable, that navies were not the bugbear we had thought them, and that armies were very good depositaries for our friends and relatives and dependents who had no better resource. I, therefore, move to amend the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania so as to reduce the Navy to the standard of the act of 1801.

This is indeed, said he, a novel situation in which I find myself – it is unprecedented. Little did I believe that the time would ever come when it would be my lot thus to press economy upon a Republican majority – to intreat that they would come down, not to any ideal imaginary standard of perfection – not to any theoretical proposition of mine – but that in practice they would come down, on the subject of naval expenditure, to the standard established by their Federal predecessors: and that too when we have lost, as I stated before, the Philadelphia and General Greene, and when, I believe, the John Adams is in a condition that I will not attempt to describe – I understand this vessel is so cut down and metamorphosed that nobody knows what to make of her; that she retains nothing of her former character. When I make this motion, sir, I do it with an intention of moving other amendments to other sections of the bill, so as to make the service of the United States in relation to the navy-yards and marine corps comport with the reduction which will have taken place, provided I have the good fortune to succeed.

Mr. R. then moved to amend Mr. Smilie's proposition by adding the following:

"And that the President shall retain in the Navy service of the United States nine captains, thirty-six lieutenants, and one hundred and fifty midshipmen, including those employed on board of the frigates and other armed vessels to be kept in service; and that he be authorized to discharge all the other officers in the Navy service of the United States; but such of the aforesaid officers as shall be retained shall be entitled to receive no more than half their monthly pay during the time when they shall not be under orders for actual service. And provided further, That all the commissioners and warrant officers who shall be discharged as aforesaid shall be entitled to receive – months' pay over and above what may be due to them respectively at the time they were discharged."

Mr. Johnson expressed his hope that the House would come to some decision, without consuming more of the time of the House in debate.

Mr. Smilie said he was seriously in favor of a reduction in the Navy, and was therefore opposed to Mr. Randolph's amendment to his amendment.

After some further remarks of Messrs. Randolph and Dana in favor of a reduction, and Messrs. McKim, Boyd, and Rhea of Tennessee against it, the question was taken on Mr. Randolph's motion to amend Mr. Smilie's amendment, and negatived – yeas 36, nays 67.

Mr. Newton then said he was anxious to do his duty; but could not consent to stay here when one-third of the House at least had deserted their seats and fatigue oppressed the remainder. He therefore moved to adjourn. – Carried – yeas 60, after seven hours' sitting.

Friday, April 27

Mortality of the Troops at Terre aux Bœuf

Mr. Newton, from the committee appointed to inquire into the causes of the mortality which prevailed in the detachment of the army ordered for the defence of New Orleans, made a long report, accompanied with various depositions and other papers. The report concludes as follows:

"The committee, from a knowledge which they have acquired of the climate of New Orleans and of the country surrounding it, and from the facts stated in the depositions, are of opinion that the mortality in the detachment ordered to New Orleans is to be ascribed to the following causes:

"1st. The detachment consisting of new levies.

"2dly. The insalubrity of the climate, the summer and autumn of the year 1809 being unusually sickly.

"3dly. To the nature of the ground on which the detachment was encamped at Terre aux Bœuf, and the detention of it at that place during the whole of the summer, contrary as the committee conceive to the instructions contained in the letter of the Secretary of War bearing date the 30th of April, 1809.

"4thly. To the want of sound and wholesome provisions and of vegetables – the want of an hospital and of hospital stores and medicines.

"5thly. The excessive fatigues to which the troops were subjected in clearing, ditching, and draining the ground on which they were encamped.

"6thly. To the want of repose during the night, owing to the troops not being provided with bars and nets to protect them from the annoyance of mosquitoes.

"7thly. The want of cleanliness in the camp, the nature of the position rendering it almost impracticable to preserve it.

"8thly. The sick and well being confined to the same tents, which neither protected them sufficiently from the heat of the sun, nor kept them dry from dews and rains."

The report and documents were ordered to be printed.