Naval Armament

Monday, March 10.

Algerine War.

Mr. Giles observed, that, from the sense of the House several times manifested on this subject, there remained no doubt but that the bill would pass. In that event, he most earnestly hoped that the success of the measure would, at least, equal the expectations of its advocates. Indeed, he hoped that their expectations would be disappointed and exceeded; for it did not seem to him that even they were very positive as to its full competency to the end proposed. He even wished that every ship could be furnished with the cap of Fortunatus and the shield of Hercules; for he was persuaded that, in the present state of things, some magical influence would be found essential to enable them to effect their undertaking. He observed, that, at present, the wisdom or folly of the proposed measure was mere matter of opinion; that the passage of the bill will furnish futurity with a complete experiment of its true character.

He intended to offer his reasons against the passage of the bill, not with a hope of making proselytes, but as a testimony of the real motives which influenced his opposition. With this view, he should only mention some of the general impressions produced on his mind by this subject, without fatiguing the House with minute exemplifications of them.

The subject had presented itself to him in two points of view—1st, as affording a protection to our commerce against the Algerine depredations; 2d, as the foundation of a permanent naval establishment.

He could not help premising that, in the course of discussion, the advocates of the bill had censured its opponents with a want of disposition for the protection of commerce, whilst they claimed a monopoly of all good intention towards this object. He did not mean to derogate from the good intention of the favorers of the bill, but he believed its opponents possessed as pure a zeal for the protection and due encouragement of commerce as its advocates. It is not a question whether commerce is, or is not, to be protected; but whether the plan proposed be the most effectual and the least exceptionable that can be devised for that purpose? The difference of opinion does not consist in the end to be produced, but in the means proposed to effect the end.

The first objection he should make to the bill would be, the obvious inadequacy of the means contemplated to effect the end proposed by them. The object proposed is an effectual resistance, not only to the whole present naval force of Algiers, but to their whole naval ability. The bill contains, in itself, essentially a declaration of war. Our calculations, therefore, should be extended to the utmost limit of the naval ability of the hostile nation. The means to be employed consist of four frigates of forty-four guns each, and two ships of thirty-six guns each. To decide with propriety upon the objection, this force should be compared with the naval ability of Algiers. He did not mean to go into a minute history of Algiers. He should only observe, in general, that it was a populous country; that it had furnished at one time one hundred thousand fighting men; that its power at this day was as great as at any preceding period; that they were a warlike people, accustomed to naval enterprises and desperate in naval engagements; that, for some time past, they had been subsidized for peace by almost every European nation. He could not help concluding, from these circumstances, that the naval ability of the nation either was or might, without any uncommon exertions, he rendered superior to four forty-four gun frigates and two thirty-six gun ships, the force contemplated by the bill; and, if the conclusions were just, the bill is unwise.

Mr. G. proceeded to consider the bill as the foundation of a permanent naval establishment. He said there was a clause in the bill authorizing the President to suspend all proceedings in the equipment of the armament, in case of a peace with Algiers, which gave him some consolation; but it did not altogether relieve his apprehensions from this operation of the measure, because he knew that a permanent naval establishment was a favorite policy with some gentlemen, and because the argument had been urged in favor of the present bill.

He observed that a permanent naval establishment could be recommended to the United States but from one or both of the following considerations: either upon the principle of entering into a competition for naval power with the Powers of Europe; or as affording security to the collection of our own revenue.

He thought the question of a permanent naval establishment was one of the most important which could be presented to the consideration of the House, and that the most serious consequences were necessarily connected with it. In the first place, he viewed the establishment of a navy as a complete dereliction of the policy of discharging the principal of the public debt. History does not afford an instance of a nation which continued to increase their navy and decrease their debt at the same time. It is an operation exceeding the ability of any nation. The naval competition of the Powers in Europe has produced oppression to their subjects and ruin to themselves. The ruin of the French Monarchy, he believed, might be ascribed very much to that cause. A navy is the most expensive of all means of defence, and the tyranny of governments consists in the expensiveness of their machinery. The expensiveness of the French Monarchy is the true cause of its destruction. The navy of France furnished the principal item of that expense. The navy produced expense, the expense exceeded the revenue, new contributions became necessary, the people saw the tyranny, and destroyed the tyrant. The same effect, by the same policy, will probably be produced in great Great Britain. The Government is not yet destroyed, but the people are oppressed, liberty is banished. The extensiveness of the Government is the true ground of the oppression of the people. The King, the Nobility, the Priesthood, the Army, and, above all, the Navy.

All this machinery lessens the number of the productive and increases the number of unproductive hands of the nation in Great Britain. The operation has been extended so far that the poor rates alone probably afforded a greater tax per capita than the whole taxes paid in the United States. He was astonished with these fatal examples before our eyes, that there should be any gentlemen who would wish to enter into this fashionable system of politics. He said the United States had already progressed full far enough into this system; for, exclusively of the ordinary expense of the Civil List, a debt had been funded upon principles of duration. An army had been raised, at an immense expense, and now there was a proposition for a navy. He observed that, for several years past, the appropriations for the support of the Military Establishment had exceeded a million of dollars per annum—from one million to one million and a half annually. He believed that, if the expense had been foreseen, there would have been more active efforts to have avoided it. It was a policy, at this day, very generally condemned; yet we are now to exhibit a counterpart of this policy upon the ocean, with this aggravation—that it will commence with greater certain expense, and with a more uncertain object. The system of governing by debts he conceived the most refined system of tyranny. It seems to have been a contrivance devised by politicians to succeed the old system of feudal tenures. Both systems were tyrannical, but the objects of their tyranny were different. The system of feuds operated upon the person of the individual—the system of debts operates upon the pockets of the individual. In the feudal system, the tenant often received some indulgence and lenity from the martial generosity which generally characterized the lord. The lord was gratified with the acknowledgment of the tenant that he was a slave, and the rendition of a peppercorn as an evidence of it. The product of the tenant's labor was left for his own support. The system of debts affords no such indulgences. Its true policy is to devise objects of expense, and to draw the greatest possible sum from the people in the least visible mode. It boasts not of economizing in calls upon the people for contributions. It boasts not of economizing in the objects of expenditure. It consults the obedience, and not the happiness of the people. There is no device which facilitates the system of expense and debts so much as a navy. And he declared, from that consideration, he should value his liberty at a lower price than he now did, if the policy of a permanent Naval Establishment should obtain in the United States.

Mr. W. Smith remarked, that though it was not probable any proselytes were to be expected at this late period of the business, and after so ample a discussion as the question had received in its different stages, yet he considered it necessary to make a reply to some of the various objections which had just been made to the passing of the bill. Many of those objections appeared to him totally inapplicable to the subject, which he should pass over in silence. If it were the design of the House to incur a vast expense in the establishment of a navy, merely for the idle purposes of vain parade, there would be force in some of the objections; but, as this was not the case, and as the measure was a measure not of choice, but of necessity, extorted by the pressure of unavoidable events, he did not feel their force in any respect. The question was, simply, whether our commerce required protection against the Algerine corsairs, and whether this was the best mode of protection. The first part of the question was admitted on all sides. For himself, he had always considered the second equally clear. But in the course of the discussion, various difficulties had been started against the mode of protection, and various substitutes had been proposed, as offering a remedy more prompt, more effectual, and less expensive. He would first consider the proposed substitutes for a naval armament, and then answer the objections to it. The substitutes were: 1st. To purchase a peace of the Algerines. 2d. To depend on Portugal breaking her truce with Algiers, and shutting up their cruisers within the Straits. 3d. To pass commercial regulations against Great Britain. 4th. To subsidize other nations to protect our commerce.

To these several substitutes, he might, in a few words, object that the first was impracticable, the second precarious, the third inoperative, and the fourth dishonorable.

Mr. S. next reviewed the principal objections to the bill. These were, he said, 1st. That the force contemplated was incompetent. 2d. That sending an armed force on the ocean would be the means of involving us in a war with some of the maritime powers. 3d. That we had no friendly ports in Europe, which our frigates could resort to for supplies or refitment. 4th. That the expense would exceed the object to be protected. 5th. That our trade would be deprived of the seamen required to man the frigates. 6th. That it was now so late in the season we could not protect our vessels the ensuing summer, and that some favorable events might occur before the frigates could be equipped, which would render them unnecessary. 7th. That this was the beginning of a Naval Establishment, which would hereafter involve this country in immense debts and maritime wars.

[To the arguments against a Naval Establishment, Mr. Smith answered:]

The dangers resulting from a large Navy Establishment, and the immense debts they have created in other countries, had been depicted, and the House had been warned against such evils. How a bill providing six frigates, which were to exist only during the war with Algiers, could excite an apprehension of a large and permanent navy, and an enormous debt, Mr. S. said he was at a loss to discover. The clause which authorized the President, in the event of a peace with the Regency of Algiers, to discontinue the armament, was a complete answer to all the reasoning which had been indulged on the subject of navies and debts. Admitting there had been no such clause, he did not feel the weight or applicability of the reasoning.

This country is peculiarly fitted for a navy: abounding in all kinds of naval resources, we have within ourselves those means which other maritime nations were obliged to obtain from abroad. The nature of our situation, and the navigating disposition of a considerable proportion of our citizens, evince still more the propriety of some Naval Establishment. Perhaps the country is not yet mature for such an establishment, to any great extent; but he believed the period was not far distant, when it would be. Sweden, with a population not greater than that of the United States, and with more slender resources, maintained a large navy. He saw no reason why the United States, with an increasing population, much individual wealth, and considerable national resources, might not, without ruin, do as much, or why the equipment of a squadron, inferior to that of any of the petty nations of Italy, should involve us in an insupportable expense.

The question was then taken on the passage of the bill, and it was resolved in the affirmative—yeas 50, nays 39, as follows:

Yeas.—Messrs. Fisher Ames, John Beatty, Elias Boudinot, Shearjashub Bourne, Benjamin Bourne, Lambert Cadwalader, David Cobb, Peleg Coffin, Joshua Coit, Henry Dearborn, George Dent, Samuel Dexter, Thomas Fitzsimons, Dwight Foster, Ezekiel Gilbert, Nicholas Gilman, Henry Glenn, Benjamin Goodhue, James Gordon, Samuel Griffin, George Hancock, James Hillhouse, William Hindman, Samuel Holten, John Wilkes Kittera, Amasa Learned, Richard Bland Lee, William Lyman, Francis Malbone, Peter Muhlenberg, William Vans Murray, Josiah Parker, Thomas Scott, Theodore Sedgwick, Jeremiah Smith, Samuel Smith, William Smith, Thomas Sprigg, Zephaniah Swift, Silas Talbot, George Thatcher, Uriah Tracy, Jonathan Trumbull, John E. Van Allen, Peter Van Gaasbeck, Peleg Wadsworth, Jeremiah Wadsworth, Artemas Ward, John Watts, and Richard Winn.

Nays.—Messrs. Theodorus Bailey, Abraham Baldwin, Thomas Blount, Thomas P. Carnes, Gabriel Christie, Thomas Claiborne, Isaac Coles, William Findlay, William B. Giles, James Gillespie, Christopher Greenup, William Barry Grove, Carter B. Harrison, John Heath, Daniel Heister, John Hunter, William Irvine, Matthew Locke, Nathaniel Macon, James Madison, Joseph McDowell, Alexander Mebane, William Montgomery, Andrew Moore, Joseph Neville, Anthony New, John Nichols, Nathaniel Niles, John Page, Francis Preston, John Smilie, Israel Smith, Thomas Tredwell, Philip Van Cortlandt, Abraham Venable, Francis Walker, Benjamin Williams, Paine Wingate, and Joseph Winston.