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

Some facts I will also mention, which, though not from an official source, are known to me as matter of fact, viz: that the vessels now in service have been lately repaired in so complete a manner that they are worth more than when they were built. The President, the United States, the Chesapeake, Essex, John Adams, and others, were repaired at the navy-yard at this place, besides the Congress, now repairing. There have been several small vessels also built here. In short, I believe that since the establishment of the navy-yard here, there has been but one vessel repaired any where but at this yard. The Constitution was repaired at Boston. When we come to get the account of the expenses of that ship's repairs and compare them with the expenses of repair at the navy-yard in this city, we shall know how to appreciate that object. A full examination of it would, I feel convinced, entirely reconcile us to the great amount apparently expended here. A remark made by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Dana) here applies with great force: that it was indispensably necessary to economy that there should be system and order; and how shall we accomplish that object but by regularly established navy-yards? Can you have economy when you go into market to bid for what you want? Can you expect system and order unless you pay for it? You cannot. Money is well laid out if it be done with honesty and integrity to pay for system and regularity.

I did not yet mention one particular fact on the subject of naval equipments, which I should have done, in the article of sail cloth, making an immense difference in the expenditure of 1799 and 1809. The gentlemen acquainted with the prices at these times could inform the committee that the difference in the prices of sail duck is somewhere about 100 per cent.

I will mention another fact: that although the President has power to employ 5,000 seamen, he has employed but 2,700 men, who have received bounties. Sound economy would authorize the retaining them a few months longer, till we come here again in the fall, till we know whether it be proper to disband them or not.

Although friendly to a naval force, I am not for keeping up any great naval force when there is no appearance of danger. At the present evil time, when every thing is uncertain, I am not for giving up one single atom of defence. If gentlemen will but cast their eyes along our seacoast, and look at our unprotected waters, at the situation of my particular district, they would like me feel the necessity of some floating security; they would feel the value of that peace of mind necessary to me and to my constituents. With these observations I shall dismiss the subject.

Some further remarks were made by Mr. Macon and Mr. Randolph.

The question was stated on concurrence with the Committee of the Whole in striking out so much of the bill as directs the unconditional sale of all the frigates but three.

Mr. Randolph called for the yeas and nays on this question, considering it the pith and marrow of the business; and as the vote would show who were the navy and who the anti-navy men in the House.

Mr. Smilie said it would be remembered that his object in voting to strike out this part of the bill was to introduce the amendment he had offered in Committee of the Whole, viz: to place the Navy on the same footing as in 1806.

The following were the votes on concurrence with the Committee in striking out so much of the bill as relates to the frigates – yeas 76, nays 32.

So that part of the bill was struck out.

The first section, which requires the dismissal of all the seamen in service, except so many as sufficient to man three frigates, &c., was struck out – ayes 60.

The next amendment made by the committee was to insert "Washington" among the navy-yards to be retained.

The yeas and nays on concurrence with the committee – 58 to 46.

So the navy-yard at Washington is among those to be retained.

The next amendment was to strike out the section of the bill which reduces the Marine Corps to two companies.

Mr. Randolph said on recurring to the documents he found the price of the ratio in 1800 to have been 28 cents, whilst in the last year it was put 20; so that rations were now nearly a third cheaper than they were nine years ago, and the difference in the expenses of the Naval Establishment was, therefore, the more unaccountable. I had also taken it for granted, said Mr. R., that my colleague (Mr. Bassett) was right in his statement of the seamen's wages being only eight dollars per month. But, sir, here is a statement on the subject – and I only wish that in the estimate of last year we had had the same valuable details as there are in the estimate of the year 1800 – for the estimate in relation to the Navy Department for the last year is most shamefully deficient, as I could demonstrate if the House had time and patience and I had lungs. I find that there is in this estimate of 1800 a minute and detailed statement of every item of expense. Instead of the wages being eight dollars then and twelve now, as my colleague has been told, the pay was then for able-bodied seamen seventeen dollars per month, ordinary seamen twelve, and boys eight; so that this saving in the pay does not account for the monstrous difference. I have not time to examine into the article of duck, but I believe the gentleman's duck will not swim any more than the rest of his arguments.

I trust, sir, that the House will not agree to the report of the committee for this reason: Referring to these documents, I discover that in 1800, when we had nearly 8,000 seamen, we had 890 marines; and in the year 1809, when we have only 2,700 seamen employed, we have agreeably to estimate precisely the same number of 890 marines. It would appear that something has taken place to render this species of force peculiarly valuable, or that these gentlemen possess a very successful art of keeping in, of not going out with others. And, sir, when I recollect the statements which I have heard on this floor and the sources whence some of them have probably been derived, I am not at all surprised that this navy-yard and this Prætorian camp, and everything connected with it, should keep up to the old height when every thing else has diminished. Eight hundred and ninety men! Call them 900, and you have one mariner for every three seamen. I have no doubt, if the House act on the principle on which they have done heretofore, that we shall have very polite assurances that these men are of the greatest imaginable service and have wrought wonders in defence of the country, but I cannot for my soul understand how this species of force goes to quiet the mind of my colleague or of his constituents on the Chesapeake.

I have done my duty on this subject, sir. From whatever motive, of that motive I am alone the human judge. I have acted the part of a real friend to the Administration of this Government. Like my friend from North Carolina, I belong to that "faction" which brought him from a minority to a majority on the very ground I now occupy. I have heard before of a people being their own worst enemies – but what shall we say to an assertion that persons selected from the people for their wisdom and discretion, should be their own worst enemies? Is it to the interest of the Administration that these abuses should continue, and that loans and taxes should be resorted to to cover them? Who, sir, are the true friends – I do not speak of motives – who in fact are the true friends of Administration? Those who move to abolish and retrench, or those who persevere in keeping up such establishments and resort to loans and taxes to defray the expense of them? Are you willing that any part of the loan authorized by the act which unhappily passed this House this morning should be borrowed for the purpose of keeping up as many marines as were deemed necessary in 1800, for treble the amount of naval force – and we then said it was a Government of profusion and patronage – yes, sir, we heaped a great deal of opprobrium and many hard epithets on it. I am just as tired now of maintaining idlers, and dissolute idlers too, out of the proceeds of my property as I was when I first came into Congress – and I care not whether it be under the Administration of a President called Republican, or of a man called a Federalist. I could repeat the very words then used. I do say that I never see one of those useless drones in livery crawling on the face of the earth that my gorge does not rise – that I do not feel sick. I see no reason why we should not maintain sturdy beggars in rags as well as beggars of another description in tinsel. I have as much respect as any one for the man who risks his life in his country's service – and I have shown it; but the man who has drawn on a livery and quartered himself on the public because he has not sufficient capacity to get a living elsewhere, I will not foster. The change may be rung to the end of time – gentlemen may talk about pounds, shillings, and pence, as long as they please, but these men shall never have a single cent of money with my consent. I wish every ploughman in the country could come and see these people, keeping equipages, living in splendor, in palaces almost – I hardly know five men in Virginia who could afford to live in such a house if their fathers had left it to them, much less if they had it to build, as some of these people occupy at the public cost. But because this proposition for reduction is made by a somebody, the cut of whose face or the cut of whose coat we do not like, we are to go on maintaining these locusts for spite. It is impossible to prevent the people from reading this. It may be said these are Federal lies. Ten years ago the same things were said to be Democratic lies; but they were tested by the most enlightened among the people, and found to be truth – even the story of Jonathan Robbins was then all a Democratic lie. You are to keep up the same number of marines that Mr. Adams kept up, but you maintain them at one-fourth greater expense, when not a man who hears me can pretend to designate the service they perform. I know you may be told these marines may be useful on shipboard, which, however, has not relation to the question before the House. The question is, how many marines are necessary, and in what battles are they employed? Recollect, sir, that in this estimate of the expenses of these marines, the Prætorian camp erected for their accommodation is not taken into question – nor do I believe there is a man in the House who can guess within a hundred thousand dollars what it has cost. I cannot – I do not even know the authority under which it was built. I suppose it was erected, like some other public buildings, without law, by authority unknown to the law. Yes, sir, and this is the place for Aaron Burr and such choice spirits. When they wish to turn us out of the House, where do they look but to men who are incarcerated and would run away at a bare invitation, much more would follow a military leader to plunder, to office, to cordons and legions of honor? I cannot consent to retain them. I feel indignant – I feel mortified at the conduct of that part of the House of Representatives calling itself Republican – because I believe, sir, that the hint given by my worthy friend from North Carolina, has been taken by the gentlemen of another denomination, and they have thrown their weight so equally on both sides as to poise the balance – they have worked a sort of political equation there. Yes, sir, we must have fifty per cent. increase of the present ad valorem taxes, and an additional third upon molasses and brown sugar, upon the articles on which the poorest families on the seaboard make their daily meal – and in return we shall have a man, the texture of whose coat, whether homespun or imported, you cannot tell for the gold lace with which it is covered, and an establishment of marines at an expense of more than two hundred thousand dollars – and whom to protect? To protect the constituents of my worthy colleague, in the enjoyment of their peace of mind? When you consider in what manner every claim of merit is treated in this House – when you consider the poverty and misery in which thousands and tens of thousands of the people of the United States live, from whose earnings you daily take a part, I hope you will pause and reflect before you dispose of one doit of this sum on such objects. Why, sir, should a poor man laboring out of doors not be suffered to take his breakfast or give it to his children without paying a tax to the Government, in order that the man who does not labor, and whose head is of no more use to the community than his arms, should live in idleness?

But, unfortunately for myself, I have been here too long – I have seen the profits made by individuals with no other visible resources than the cheese-parings and candle-ends of the Government; and it has got to that now that every branch of our establishments has become a department – we have almost got a door-keeping department – not only in this House but elsewhere. But all I have said is wrong, very wrong – we are all Republicans, all Federalists – all is right – this is all an idle clamor, made to effect a given purpose. Sir, I might go on and compare these two books of 1800 and 1809 and take up every item of expense, military, naval, or civil – the civil branch of the Army as well as the military, the civil as well as the naval branch of the Navy – they are all, all alike. In this book (the estimate of 1800) is such a detailed statement that the value of every ration is stated, and the amount of force in detail. What have we here, in the estimate of last year? In relation to the Navy you have some three or four pages. I really had not a conception, till I came to examine it, that there could be such a difference between the estimates of 1800 and 1809. But if I am overruled, which I think highly probable from the appearance of things, we shall have the satisfaction, in case I return here next year, and Messrs. Pepin and Breschard give their attendance, of a fine band of music to entertain the audience – and for this undoubtedly the good people, the fishermen of Marblehead, and the planters of Virginia, will be proud to pay $260,000. But this is all right – it is all Republicanism! All Federalism!

Mr. W. Alston spoke in favor of reducing them, and Messrs. Lyon, McKim, Bassett, and Dana, against it.

The question on concurring with the committee in striking out this section was decided in the affirmative – yeas 49, nays 43.

So the section for reducing the marines was stricken out.

A motion having been made by Mr. Randolph to amend the bill so as to disband the master commandants now belonging to the Navy,

Mr. McKim said he should like to know the gentleman's reason for getting rid of them. The gentleman had appealed to the House to know why they would retain them? The onus probandi, however, lays with the gentleman himself. He ought to show why they should be dismissed. Mr. McK. said he did not like to vote in the dark. His vote given without knowledge might derange the whole system. He hoped the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Randolph,) from his extensive knowledge on the subject, would favor them with the reasons why these men should be dismissed.

Mr. Boyd said he did not rise to make a long speech but to tell the House that he felt much imposed upon by the comparisons made between the late and Federal Administrations. If I were to do all this, said he, I might get into the newspapers and make believe that I am the first man in the nation; but I take things as I find them. The former Administration may have acted rightly in their day; but reason is to guide us. Sir, is it parliamentary, is it genteel, or agreeable to common sense, that a hundred and forty men should sit here listening to what one man says, and he having recourse to papers in every one's reach? I had rather consult the papers for myself: for I should not garble them, taking just what suited me, but should read the whole. No doubt gentlemen do what they think answers their own purpose and I what answers mine; and my purpose is the good of the nation. If a larger navy was necessary, I should vote for it; if an army of thirty thousand men was wanted, I should vote for it. Sir, have we no rights to defend? There never has been a time, in my opinion, since the Government was formed, that so preposterous a proposition was offered as this one to reduce the Army and Navy at this time – for what? Are the orders and decrees altered? I understand all Spain is in a state of blockade. For what have you given money to build fortifications? Pounds, shillings, and pence, are the order of the day – we sell a little tobacco, a little cotton – and our independence goes to wreck. But gentlemen even on their own principles go to work the wrong way. If they submit to get a little this year, they will get less the next, depend upon it. I think it my duty to speak in this open manner – not to please gentlemen, but for my country's good.

Mr. Randolph said in reply to the gentleman from Maryland, who wished to know why he wanted to get rid of the masters commandant, that it was because there never had been a reason assigned in this House for their creation. The act which established them had come from the other House at the end of a session; it had not originated in this House, and he had never heard a reason assigned in favor of them – and he had no knowledge that the public service had suffered from the want of them during the whole of Mr. Adams's Administration, and more especially not from the 4th of March, 1801, to April 1806. That gentlemen who voted against the proposition to reduce the Army and Navy, said he, should vote against my amendment is nothing more than natural; and I suppose if those averse to reduction had been put on the committee, we should have had no such bill reported. If gentlemen who voted for the general proposition that it is expedient to reduce the Army and Navy are willing to be held up as bowing the knee to foreign powers, let it be so. They were a large and certainly not disrespectable majority. I feel no sensibility on the subject. The House may act as it pleases; in whatsoever manner it may act, it will not affect my vote or conduct. I stand here, as I always have done, and always will do, on ground independent of all party considerations. If this amendment be submission to the belligerents, what is the proposition of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Smilie,) which is acknowledged to go further in reduction than the bill as first reported? It is in vain to oppose a reduction of the Army and Navy on the ground of submission. Gentlemen should prove that they are resistance. What resistance do they afford against their decrees or confiscation? Have they taken a single man out of a ship of war, or one man out of the dungeons of Paris or Arras? This is as plain a question of expediency as whether you will alter the time of holding the courts of the State of Maryland or any other question. Mr. R. had however some expectations that they should have some war speeches on this occasion, and they had them accordingly. They had heard some on the general proposition for reduction, and one this morning from the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rhea) on the bill. Was it proposed now to declare war? Was it believed that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smilie) was disposed to submit to the belligerents? That the gentlemen on the other side of the House were divided on that subject, as they were upon the question of the reduction of the Navy? Was the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Quincy,) who represented the town of Boston, so strenuous an advocate at this moment for war (and he supposed especially for war with England) that he was obliged to oppose a reduction on that ground? Was the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Key) who represented the adjacent district, in the same belligerent temper? Did he too oppose this proposition on the ground of resisting the belligerents or of making war with England? The very moment any political touchstone was brought to test the objections to the bill which the committee had offered, they dissolved at once, and the opposition to it resolved itself into the principle of old Federalism. It was nothing else. It was office! patronage! expenditure of public money! And hence it was said (and for no other cause whatever) that these strange votes were seen. The gentleman from Connecticut, perhaps the only member or one of the very few on that side of the House who had a seat on this floor during the Administration of Mr. Adams, opposed the bill because, as he had told the house, he preferred his old principles – they had triumphed over his recent disgust, though even he acknowledged that great abuses had taken place. The gentleman had declared that he would stick to his old principles; and I, said Mr. Randolph, am for sticking to mine; and my two friends from North Carolina (Messrs. Macon and Stanford) who were also members under Mr. Adams's Administration, stick to their old principles, and I will venture to say will never relinquish them. It has not effected a change in the gentleman from Connecticut, that he and his friends are out, nor a change in my friends from North Carolina – I will not say that they are in the power, for of that they have not much to boast; but that their friends are in power. And why should this clamor be raised on the question whether you will or will not make a formal renunciation of the old articles of political faith? Although, on reconsideration, perhaps I have no cause to be surprised, and ought to pardon gentlemen. It is a situation in which no man likes to be placed, to be brought up and compelled either to forego present gratification or make a formal renunciation, something like the Christian at Algiers, who hesitates whether he will put on the turban and share the plunder of the day, or consent to abide by those principles which he received from his parents and from heaven. No doubt there are many who would infinitely prefer to slip over or slide under this question; and I am therefore glad, sir, that the decision of the chairman has enabled me to present the chalice to their lips and compel them to swallow it to the dregs.

Mr. Rhea said that the gentleman from Virginia held no obnoxious cup to him; for he should vote against the gentleman with the greatest imaginable pleasure. As to all that had been said about patronage, it had no weight with him. He had no relation in office, nor did he ever expect to have one. He had no object in view but the well-being and safety of the nation. He was unwilling to give the least evidence of a determination to relinquish any kind of opposition (though it was scarcely apparent) to the wrongful doings of other nations against the United States. He had made no war speech; if he had intended that, he should have made rather a different speech from any the House had heard from him yet. If they went on in this way he said they would hold out an inducement to all the marauders in the universe to come and plunder the trade of the United States as they pleased. He repeated that he did not make war speeches; but he thought our situation required a war speech against somebody – he would not say who. We have indeed, said he, had sufficient provocation for war; and I say now, as I have said often before, that had we taken a proper stand at a former time, the United States would have avoided all their present difficulties. But so long as we go on as we have gone, and encourage a peace in war and a war in peace, so long as the Federalists teach us to acquiesce in all the iniquitous decrees of the belligerents, so long will our difficulties continue. I shall vote to continue the Navy, and I hope that this proposition, and any other to reduce the Naval Establishment, will be negatived; for on this establishment depends the protection of our maritime border, and safety of the people upon and near it. It may be said that I and my constituents are safe, but I will act for others who are not so.

Mr. Dana congratulated the House that the only point of controversy now with gentlemen who had heretofore complained so loudly of Federalism, was, that in coming up to the mark of Federalism they should not do it with so much violence as to go beyond it. He thought it would be well if our relative expenditures could be brought back to the worst year of Mr. Adams's Administration, and our measures as to foreign affairs to the first eight years of the Federal Administration, which, when it resolved, did it so sincerely and so unalterably. He congratulated the nation that it was no longer an argument against a measure that it had been adopted by those called Federalists; he rejoiced that this slang of party was scouted from the House – that it was no longer a piece of artillery successfully wielded on all sides. He hoped it would forever be dismissed, and that gentlemen, convinced of their error, would come up and place their recantation on record. If for the same sum as was expended for those objects by the Federal Administration they could obtain the same number of fighting men on land and water, he thought they would make an extremely good bargain, when compared with the state of things which now existed. Until this session he said he had been unapprised of the enormities of expenditure in the Navy Department for so little effect; that there had been so much of waste and so much done instrumental to the extension of patronage. He wished it however to be understood that he deemed it essential that those who compose the main body of the Army and Navy, those on whom the brunt of the battle falls, those who stand in the front of danger, should be well paid, well fed, and well clad, in such a manner that one need not blush to see them on parade appearing like the ragged recruits of Sir John Falstaff. When he saw the soldier placed in this unfortunate situation, and the squalid unfortunate troops pointed at as objects of pity, and when this situation was the result of a want of attention in those who had the care of them, he could scarcely give utterance to his indignation.