Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.)

Mr. Bassett was of opinion with Mr. D. that reform rather than reduction of the Naval Establishment ought to be their object. He was glad to find that when the Navy was brought into view, other ideas than those of mere commerce began to be associated with it. Heretofore it had only been advocated as a means for the protection of commerce. Mr. B. said he lived in a district which was sensibly alive to the benefits of a navy. The district which he represented had within it more water than land. It therefore became essential to the defence of his constituents that they should have a floating protection. It was impossible, in the nature of things, that they could be defended but by a floating defence. Surely there could be no gentleman in the House who was not sensible of the necessity of protection! It might be a favorite point in a monarchy to keep the country unprotected, and thus under the control of the Government, but the motto of Republics should be universal justice, equal rights, and common defence. He asked gentlemen to look at the magnitude of the object of defending our seacoasts, which could not be less than three thousand miles in extent, and, taking into consideration the sides of our navigable rivers, that extent would be doubled. If gentlemen would but for a moment consider the immense space which was exposed, they would see all the importance of securing an adequate defence. The House had been told, and certainly very truly, that there was a maritime force rising in our neighborhood. The House had been told, also, and told correctly, too, that at least two large vessels were building in their own waters for the use of that growing maritime power. At the very moment, said Mr. B., that we know that the blacks of St. Domingo are building vessels, shall we dispose of Our public armed vessels? Let me ask who will buy them when put into the market? Who but Christophe and Petion? It is reduced to a certainty that if we put them now to the hammer, they must go in that direction. I ask gentlemen seriously to weigh that consideration.

The situation of our Navy is at present sufficiently reduced. We have only five frigates in actual service. The Chesapeake, for want of repairs, is now in harbor. If gentlemen are anxious that she should be laid up in ordinary, I would accord in it; but I would prefer to leave this subject entirely to the discretion of the Executive. I know, sir, how apt a proposition of this sort is to be met by a suggestion of Presidential confidence; but when we come to consider our particular situation, that we are putting it into the power of the President, not to add to the burdens of the people, but to relieve them, that will be thought a sound argument to justify the course of leaving the whole matter to the discretion of the President. The wisdom of the last and of the present Congress has kept in service five frigates. We cannot remain in session at all times; and we are at this moment, extremely doubtful as to the aspect our affairs will assume as to foreign nations. I would ask gentlemen if former experience does not warn us that if we have an accommodation with one belligerent, it will but lead to a wider breach with the other? But if this occurrence does not take place, and every thing should turn out happily, my proposition would leave it in the power of the Executive to secure the public against loss. The expense is not drawn upon us by the Executive, but it is such as the wisdom of the National Legislature has thought proper to incur. Therefore I think it fair to consider the subject in this way. As we are about to separate, and as present appearances would not warrant our giving up any species of protection, we shall be justified in giving a discretionary power to the Executive to put down such part of the Naval Establishment as he may in future think it justifiable to part with.

I am not one of those who think the expense of the Navy a sufficient argument for disposing of it altogether. I have been asked what has the Navy done. I can answer for a large portion of my constituents, that it has kept them quiet in mind. Is it not important that the men who live on the seaboard should know that we have a force to repel attack? What sort of attack have we cause to expect? A serious invasion? Certainly not. The sort of attack which we ought to guard against is the predatory attack, made at small expense, to our great injury. If we do away the naval system entirely, our whole seacoast will be liable to be ravaged. A single frigate, a single privateer, a single pirate, might come into your waters and injure your citizens to a considerable amount. It has been mentioned, and I have seen an official intimation of it, that two or three vessels, in the shape of pirates, had stopped vessels at the mouth of the Mississippi. The force now embodied on the ocean is not more than adequate to the security of the nation against predatory warfare. I am willing, notwithstanding this, to leave it to the Executive discretion to lessen the burden.

I regret much that at this period of the session we cannot go into an examination of the expenditures the gentleman from Connecticut complains of. I think it proper to observe that for one I shall be willing to receive his assistance in detecting abuses. I believe the gentleman at present at the head of the Navy Department has every disposition to correct them. But at the same time that is not sufficient for us. I do not know of any unnecessary expenses, or I should bring them to public view; I do believe there is not that want of system which the gentleman seems to suppose. This much I know, that at all the navy-yards are proper officers for distributing stores. There all the rigging, ropes, &c., &c., are kept apart, and, as far as a landsman, a lubber like myself, can judge, appear in great order.

In relation to the smaller vessels it appears by the report of the Secretary of the Navy that they are in perfect repair. The expense of sailing them is the only expense. I cannot but again repeat, because I think it of the last importance, that the security which these small vessels gives us greatly outweighs all disadvantages of expense. If we can lessen the expense, let us do it, in the hope that at another session we shall be able to find out where the evil exists. It is generally said, when this subject is under consideration, that we cannot attempt to cope with Great Britain. Because we cannot, are we to succumb to others? To provide no protection against smaller powers? At this moment the master of an American merchant vessel is employed in the service of the Emperor of China, a country possessing the greatest population in the world, for the purpose of protecting the citizens of the Emperor against some small pirates. Is there a fact can speak more strongly to us, that, without some sort of naval defence, with such a seacoast as we have, (and let it be recollected, sir, that our seacoast is much greater in proportion to our population than the Chinese,) we shall be at the mercy of the worst of the human race?

It was asked what mighty good the Navy has done. Let me ask the gentleman who asked that question, what mighty good our Army has done by land? When we consider the point of expense, let us consider the evils of different sorts. Let me ask gentlemen if the evils depicted to exist in Peru, where gold abounds, do not equal any thing they can imagine to proceed from the want of money? We must forget the evils that force produces in the necessity which exists for having it. We cannot say, because some evil results from force, that we will not have it; for, if you have it not, others will. Our own experience should teach us the necessity of it. What was the effect of our eloquent addresses, when colonies, placed at the foot of the British throne? They (the British) sent a fleet and army to Boston. They did not tell you power was right; but they said it with their fleet and army. Reason will tell us the same now; it is impossible to meet force but by force. The effects of naval force are well remembered. It is well recollected that in the Revolution Cornwallis marched from Charleston to Virginia. When he got there, a French fleet was on the coast. The very moment the fleet advanced by water, Cornwallis surrendered. Here was evidence of the effect of naval force. And it is by its efficiency that we must balance the great objection of expense. I have heard it stated here how much more expense a sailor is than a soldier. If we look to the fact, and contrast the efficiency of the two, we shall find that the superior efficiency of the sailor greatly outweighs the additional expense. There is one fact, very strongly illustrative of this principle, drawn from British history. It is found, by the papers laid before Parliament, that the present naval establishment costs seventeen millions annually. The expense of the army is nearly the same. With seventeen millions of water force, the navy of Great Britain makes her mistress of the ocean; with seventeen millions, the land force of Great Britain is contemptible. As concerns ourselves, all the attack we can expect to receive is on the ocean or on the seacoast, and we can by this fact see demonstrably that we can procure more protection for a certain number of dollars expended on the water than we can from the same number of dollars expended on the land. History shows that Republics are always naval powers; and navies have preserved their existence. The history of England, instead of destroying this argument, is in favor of it; the celebrated exploits of the Dutch confirm it. England, though a monarchy, is the freest in Europe, and all nations have enjoyed the greatest naval celebrity when they have been most free. A navy has no great general at the head of it, wielding an immense body of armed men. The commanders of ships have a very different influence. The admiral himself cannot act on the land. History does not show an instance where an attack was made on the liberty of a nation from that quarter. I am therefore disposed to give my feeble aid to support an efficient force upon the water rather than upon the land; and I believe the present establishment is by no means beyond what ought to exist.

Mr. Randolph said, that as his objections to the Navy went to the whole system, he would make his observations at large, in preference to reserving them in detached parts on the various details of the bill. My object, said Mr. R., is to endeavor to persuade the House that they ought not to concur in the report of the Committee of the whole House. I have ever believed that the people of the United States were destined to become, at some period or other, a great naval power. The unerring indications of that fact were presented to us in a tonnage and number of seamen exceeding those of any other nation in the world, one only excepted. When, therefore, I proposed to reduce the Naval Establishment of the United States, it was not for the pitiful object of putting down some five or seven gunboats and two or three unimportant navy-yards, or of making the mighty reduction contemplated in the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. In other words, it was for the purpose of making barely such a retrenchment in the naval expenditure as might enable Government, after such retrenchment was effected, to go on with the aid of loans and taxes. We had two views of the probable state of the nation presented to us during this session. The first was a view of war, in which case it was agreed on all hands that loans and taxes would be necessary; the next was a view of peace, in which case it was believed that loans and taxes were unnecessary, and was so pronounced from the highest authority in the country on financial concerns. But now it seems to have a view of reduced military and naval expenditure which does not obviate the necessity of loans and taxes. My object in the proposed reduction was not to enable the Government to get on with the aid of loans and taxes, but to make such a reduction as would have enabled the Government to dispense with a recurrence to them.

I have said, sir, that the United States were, in my opinion, destined to become a great naval power; and I have read unerring indications of it in the commercial prosperity of our country, out of which alone it can grow. But I believe, if any thing could retard or eventually destroy it – if any thing could strangle in the cradle the infant Hercules of the American Navy – it would be the very injudicious mode in which that power has been attempted to be prematurely brought into action, and kept in action, during the two last administrations. Again, a naval power necessarily grows out of tonnage and seamen. We have not only driven away our tonnage, but have exerted ourselves with no little zeal, even at this very session, to prevent its ever coming back. We have not been willing to consent that vessels polluted by the unpardonable sin of a breach of the embargo should return. True it is, that we have not made the same provision in relation to seamen: we have conceived the guilt rather to reside in the wood or iron, than in the men who conducted it. But, although we have no provision for the express purpose that they should not return, unfortunately they have not returned; and the proof of this fact is evinced by another, viz: that landsmen are at this moment employed on board our few ships of war, because seamen cannot be procured. Our tonnage and seamen, then – the sinews of naval power – are wounded by our own measures, to a considerable degree. Again: it has always been understood, according to my view of the subject, that one of the principal uses of a navy was to protect commerce; but our political rule for some time past has been that of inverse proportion, and we have discovered that commerce is the natural protector of a navy. The proof of this is found, if not in every act of this House, certainly in most of the speeches delivered on this floor. I need only allude to a speech made by a colleague of mine, (Mr. Gholson,) who usually sits on my right hand, a few days ago, in which he stated that the power to regulate commerce was specially given by the constitution to the United States – not as a means of raising revenue, equalizing duties throughout the United States, and making all in fact one family – but, that it was put into the hands of Congress as a scorpion-whip to bring the other nations of the world to our terms; that, by turning away the light of our countenance – the sunshine of our commercial bounty – they might wither and decay.

I had always thought too, sir, that the revenue which a Naval Establishment naturally calls for was to be founded on commercial greatness; in other words, that commerce was to give us revenue, and revenue was to support a navy, which in return was to protect commerce. But, it seems we have changed all this – we have perverted the whole course of procedure – and why? Sir, shall we keep up an expensive Naval Establishment, necessarily driving us into loans and taxes, for the protection of a commerce which the Government itself says we shall not carry on; and when members of this House tell us that the natural protection of commerce is the annihilation of it? The Navy has now become a sort of fifth wheel to the political coach, and I am unwilling to keep it up, at this expense, on these grounds.

If, sir, the construction which I have taken of the sense of the House and of the Government be not correct, whence comes it that we have such cases before us as that of Daniel Buck? Whence comes it that we hear of Treasury instructions, not issued in the first instance for the purpose of expounding a law touching the clearances of vessels, that uniformity may prevail in the different districts, but supplementary instructions, becoming in practice the actual law of the land? In other words, if my construction be not correct, whence comes it that every principle formerly called federal – every principle of Executive energy and power – has been strained of late to an extent heretofore unparalleled? Whence comes it, that in the archives of this Assembly, we find copies of licenses given by the Executive power of the nation – to do what? To permit one part of this confederacy to supply another part with bread! We have had Executive licenses, graciously permitting that a portion of our citizens should not starve while the rest were revelling in plenty, and suffering for want of a market! Let us suppose, that in the fragments of history of the ancient nations of the earth, of those periods which are most involved in obscurity, we should find an Imperial rescript to this effect, what would be the inevitable conclusion of the historian? That, if the Chief Magistrate of the Government could at pleasure starve one part of the people while another was rioting in plenty, that the individual who held this power was the greatest despot on earth, and the Government a purely unmixed despotism. But, sir, it would be improper to draw any such conclusion here, because we are the most enlightened people on earth – I believe we have placed that on record. It was nothing but the protection of the Navy of the United States, and a desire of avenging the attack on the Chesapeake – for, among all the causes of the embargo, we hear of none oftener than the attack on the Chesapeake; – it was nothing but a defence, not only of the commercial interests, but of the naval strength of the nation, which created this dictatorship in the person of the Chief Magistrate. It was not that we are naturally more prone to slavery than others, but it was for the preservation of our national defence, (if that be not positively opposed to national defence which costs four millions, and which, when Greek meets Greek, and the tug of war comes, must take refuge under such measures as those I have mentioned.) No, sir; my object in the bill which I presented to the House was a great one: it was to enable us to dispense with a loan to the acknowledged amount of $5,150,000 – to enable us to dispense with taxation, to an amount which no man can calculate, (if, indeed, the system which passed this House was constructed to bring in revenue at all). It was not a little, paltry affair of reducing a couple of navy-yards; not to bury the dead, who have been already interred in the marshes of the Mississippi; not twice to slay the slain: it was for a great public object. Really, sir, the reduction of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smilie) reminds me very forcibly of an incident which is said to have taken place at the discovery of the gunpowder plot. When commissioners were sent into the Parliament vaults, to examine into the situation of the gunpowder and combustibles collected together for the purpose of blowing up the King, the Parliament, and the whole constitution, they returned and reported that they had found fifty barrels of gunpowder; that they had removed five-and-twenty barrels, and humbly trusted that the remaining five-and-twenty would do no harm! This is precisely the reduction which the committee and the gentleman from Pennsylvania have agreed to make. It is a reduction which will not do any effectual service, and I therefore hope the House will not accord in it.

But, we are told that great and gigantic events in Europe are to be arrested. That which the British navy cannot do, I suppose, or that which the combined Continental forces opposed to her cannot effect, is to be decided here by three frigates; for that is precisely the extent to which, if I understand him, he is willing to go. It seems, we are also to suffer a total loss of the ships to be sold, they being unfit for every other purpose. Are they unfit for the East India trade? Was not the first vessel which ever doubled the Cape of Good Hope, under the flag of the United States, the old frigate Alliance? And would not these vessels, if sold, be purchased for that and for other purposes; more especially when we consider the immense loss of tonnage which the United States have sustained – I will not say how, but when – within the last two years? But this, if well founded, would be no objection with me to the reduction of the Navy. I am willing to put a clause in the bill to authorize the President to give the frigates away, if he cannot sell them. My objection to the expense is not merely to pounds, shillings, and pence – not merely to the counting-house calculation – but to expenses utterly incommensurate to the object to which those expenses profess to go, and to a system of organized public plunder. If we agree to make this reduction, however, according to the statement of the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Bassett,) foreigners will purchase from us ships of the best construction in the world, on the best terms. I believe, if the gentleman's knowledge on the state of our public ships was as accurate as perhaps it is on other subjects, he would hardly suspect foreigners of coming to our markets for the purpose of buying those ships to annoy our commerce. Who will become the purchasers – Great Britain? After having given her hundreds of thousands of tons of your shipping now sailing under the British flag, and manned her navy with your seamen driven from your employment, do you believe the Admiralty will send across the Atlantic to buy the hulks rotting at the navy-yard; or would it be a formidable accession to the British navy, especially when four of these vessels are absolutely unfit for any purpose whatever? I presume that even the Emperor of France, if it were an object with him to have these famous models of naval architecture at Antwerp, would hardly venture to purchase them, and run the risk of getting them across the ocean. I conceive you could hardly get insurance done on them at Philadelphia or Baltimore. The idea of keeping these vessels is absolutely idle, unless gentlemen are disposed to send their commerce on the ocean, and employ force in the protection of it.

Sir, I am extremely exhausted already – and I presume the House are fully as fatigued with me as I am with myself – but I will endeavor to go along with my loose remarks. The panegyric which the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Dana) has been pleased to bestow on the American naval officers, I have not the least indisposition to subscribe to, so far as my knowledge will permit me to go. As far as my information extends – as far as I have the pleasure, and I may add the honor, of being acquainted with those gentlemen – there is no class in society whom I think more highly deserving. And I did hope, when the gentleman went into this eulogium on the one hand, and inference at least of censure on that which he has been pleased to term "The Staff of the Navy" – but which I suppose I may as well call the civil branch, who have the control and management of the civil service; not the men who fight the battles, but who pocket the greatest part of the emolument – that he would have been more particular. Sir, I do know that comparisons are extremely unpleasant, and no consideration would induce me to go into them, especially after the observation of my friend before me, (Mr. Macon,) but the discharge of an imperious public duty. I can have no hopes of deriving any thing further than experience from the past Administrations. It is to make use of this experience that I call the attention of the House to the comparative expenses of the Navy under the several Administrations.

I find, from the Treasury statement in my hand, made on the 5th of this month, that the Navy under General Washington's administration, cost $1,100,000; that during the four years of Mr. Adams's administration, it cost $9,700,000, in round numbers; that, in the eight years of the succeeding Administration, it cost $12,700,000. I make these remarks, because the statement differs from that made by the worthy gentleman from Connecticut in this respect; that, when he made the expenditure under the last Administration to amount to fourteen millions, he did, in my opinion, improperly saddle that Administration with the expenditure of the year 1801, viz: $2,111,424, authorized and voted under Mr. Adams's administration. From the mere glance at this paper it will be seen, that from 1801 to 1802, the expenditure fell from the above sum of $2,000,000, to $900,000, marking distinctly the retrenchment at the period of Mr. Jefferson's accession. The first year properly chargeable to the last Administration is that succeeding the one in which they came into office, viz: 1802. I find, also, from a comparison of the statements in the same document, that the most extravagant year of the second Administration was the year 1800 – the year after I first had the honor of a seat in this House – when the expenditure amounted to $3,448,716. The most extravagant year of the last Administration was the year succeeding its going out of office, the expenses of which were incurred and voted by it, viz: to the amount of $2,427,758.