Mr. RANDOLPH opposed the motion on the ground of the unfitness of the
situation of Washington, compared with others, for a navy-yard.
Mr. MACON supported the motion; because he was utterly opposed to
a navy, he said he wished that a navy-yard should be kept here, as
members of Congress would be much sooner disgusted by seeing the
expenditures of the Navy system, than by hearing of them.
Mr. DANA, as a friend to a navy, said he wished the amendment not
to prevail. The gentleman from North Carolina, an enemy to navies,
wished to retain the yard at this place; he, Mr. D., a friend to them
generally, wished to dispose of or disuse it. They therefore thought
alike, though they should vote differently.
The motion to insert "Washington" was carried--54 to 42.
The section for reducing the marines was struck out, without
debate--ayes 59.
The committee rose, and reported the bill as amended.
The SPEAKER resumed the Chair, and the House resolved now to consider
the report of the Committee of the Whole.
Mr. MILNOR said the bill had been much amended in committee, and as
the remnant left amounted to very little, and the discussion of that
little would probably cost more than would be saved by passing it into
a law, he moved to postpone the further consideration of the subject
indefinitely.
WEDNESDAY, April 25.
_Loan Bill._
The engrossed bill authorizing a loan for a sum of money, not exceeding
the amount of the principal of the public debt, reimbursable during the
year 1810, was read a third time.
All the gentlemen who spoke against the bill professed to be willing
in a proper manner to authorize a loan of any sum of money necessary
to meet the appropriations made; but they contended that the bill
was objectionable because the sum was not stated in the face of the
bill, because the bill bore a deceptive appearance of borrowing money
to pay the public debt, when, in fact, it was to meet the ordinary
expenses of the Government; because the bill authorized a loan of five
millions five hundred and sixty thousand dollars, more by one million
one hundred and sixty thousand dollars than the Secretary of the
Treasury had declared to be necessary, and because no loan ought to
be authorized until bills now before the House were decided on, which
involved a reduction of the annual expenditure.
In reply to the objections to this bill, it was urged that the amount
authorized (not required) to be borrowed was as definitely expressed
as though in figures; that there could be no deception on the face
of the bill, for, if no debt heretofore contracted was now to be paid
off, there would not only be no occasion to borrow, but there would be
an immense annual surplus in the Treasury; that, since the estimate of
four millions had been reported to the House, various appropriations
had been made, and it was impossible yet to say how much might be
wanted, and no more would be borrowed than actually was wanted; that if
the passage of the bill was delayed but a day or two, it would be very
easy for gentlemen to prevent its passage at all.
The bill was passed--yeas 77, nays 35.
_Reduction of the Navy._
The House then resumed the consideration of the unfinished business of
yesterday.
Mr. MILNOR said when he had made the motion for the indefinite
postponement of the bill, he had supposed that the sense of the House
had been fully expressed on it; but as it appeared that the motion
would occupy much time in debate, and as some gentlemen had thought
proper to insinuate that the motion was made for the purpose of
avoiding meeting a direct question on the bill, he now rose to withdraw
the motion.
The question was then stated on the first amendment made in Committee
of the Whole, viz: to strike out so much as requires the sale of all
the gunboats.
Mr. MUMFORD hoped that the frigates would not be laid up in ordinary.
He said he was no politician by profession; he had been called from
mercantile pursuits against his inclination, but he had always
understood that government was instituted for the protection of the
citizen. He was chagrined when he saw the events unfolding in the Old
World, and witnessed such a paralyzing system going on in his own
country. He had hoped that some system would have been adopted for
the protection of our commerce at sea. If gentlemen were determined
to abandon the ocean altogether, he begged to know it in time before
merchants were totally ruined, for it was impossible at present to
carry on any commerce whatever. The part of the country which he
represented (city of New York) felt it strongly; agriculture would feel
it sooner or later. The enormous captures made of their property had
reduced merchants to the alternative of staying at home, or having no
commerce but with Great Britain. If gentlemen are disposed to surrender
commerce to the discretion of the belligerents and retire from the
ocean, it is time to know it. Mr. M. said he was no _motive-monger_; he
never arraigned gentlemen for their motives. We have heard gentlemen
say, "millions for defence and not a cent for tribute;" and a noble and
popular sentiment it was. It seemed now to be reversed with them, and
a plain translation of their speeches was, "millions for tribute; not
a cent for defence." Various projects had been offered. Some gentlemen
were for putting down the whole Army and Navy; others were for a sort
of snail system, alarmed at the least apprehension of danger. Viewing
the subject as he did, Mr. M. entreated that gentlemen would consent
to protect commerce. The island of St. Domingo now possessed seventeen
armed vessels. They were gaining strength daily, and what was the
situation of our Southern borders? If our naval force was entirely
withdrawn from the ocean, it was impossible for an army of militia to
defend the mouth of the Chesapeake. He understood that two vessels
were now building in Chesapeake Bay for St. Domingo. He knew that the
Haytian agents had been in this country for the purpose of purchasing
vessels. Under all these circumstances was it wise and prudent to
discharge the Navy? He presumed the best course would be to put to sea
what little navy we have to protect our own coasters, for they would
be necessary without any view to commerce in the European seas. Under
every view, instead of laying up those vessels in service, Mr. M. said
he hoped that gentlemen would consent to fit out every vessel in the
possession of the United States, and send them out to protect American
commerce.
A motion having been made by Mr. SMILIE to amend the bill so as to
place the Navy on the footing on which it stood in 1806--
Mr. DANA said he was not for pausing with merely replacing the former
system; he was also for guarding against the waste of public property
and treasure which had taken place in the Naval Establishment. He
believed that for the number of fighting men afloat the United States
had been put to a much greater expense than was necessary. He was not
speaking, he said, of our having few brave men on the water, nor of
the great sums given anywhere to those who give us their blood; but
the system of the navy-yards, he believed, required a thorough reform.
If he was to judge of the general economy on board the frigates and
smaller vessels from the little he had seen of them, he must set it
down for certain that waste did not exist on board the vessels after
they were fitted for service, and manned, and officered. As far as
he had an opportunity to observe, he had marked a strong sense of
subordination, and the practice of command at the same time sustained
with gentleman-like propriety, without any unnecessary torture or
rigor. In all this business, Mr. D. said, where you employ warriors,
whether by land or water, that department called the staff, the agents,
purveyors of supplies, &c., is the branch of the service to which
you most look for waste. On merely casting the eye along the decks
of our vessels, the conduct of the officers, and the manner in which
the men behaved, indicated a sort of conduct which appeared to him
incompatible with waste, laxity of discipline, or want of attention
to duty. Generally speaking, the civil branch of the service was the
reverse of this. Mr. D. adverted to the mode of equipping vessels,
and reprobated the scrambling, which he had understood often took
place for equipments, as incompatible with methodical arrangement, and
correct distribution of supplies. It was wasteful and inconsistent with
regular accountability. It was not the course pursued in the navy-yards
of other nations. The commander of a man of war in other countries was
not permitted to go into a navy-yard; he could not there claim to have
every thing new on board his vessel. When every man was suffered to
manage as he would, there was no security for the economical conduct
of an establishment; for the more anxious was each commander to have
his own vessel exclusively well equipped, the more would the public
suffer. He was, therefore, for adopting some system of rigorous
retrenchment--what it should be he did not know. In the nature of the
thing he was confident it could be done; without it there must be much
waste. At present, therefore, he was against striking out the frigates
from the Naval Establishment. A reform in the expense was the great
desideratum, not the abolition of the Navy.
Mr. D. said he would submit to the House one consideration: the
appearance which the passage of such a bill would present to the
world after the resolutions passed at the commencement of the present
session. For his own part, indeed, he had deemed it useless to
make declarations of national independence, or to resolve against
submission; but at the commencement of the session a resolution had
been passed respecting what had taken place between Executive and
the British Minister, and then Congress had pledged themselves to
call forth the whole force of the nation to stand by and support
the President. He had supposed this unnecessary, improper, and
exceptionable in some respects. But at the same session, when the
controversy was chiefly respecting maritime privileges, if they
should not only reduce but sell the Navy, what would the world say,
when they had seen the beginning and end of the session? Would it be
possible that foreign powers could look up with any reverence to their
acts? We shall, said he, be reduced to such a situation that even
the apprehension of our hatred could not insure respect from foreign
Governments, if we suffer our conduct to be so completely at war with
our own acts. In order to possess some appearance of respectability
in the estimation of others, the most expedient course would be to
establish economy and provide for a less profuse distribution of the
public moneys, but to retain the public armed vessels, that we may be
in the condition for effectual service whenever it is deemed expedient.
By this course we may save more of property as well as character than
by an abolition of the Navy; and if we save both it is better than to
save the one and lose the other.
In allusion to a remark of Mr. MUMFORD against the bill, Mr. D. said
that in regard to what was formerly said respecting millions for
defence and not a cent for tribute, that doctrine was a very good one,
but it had no connection with crawling within ourselves in time of
danger--with the _terrapin policy_--with drawing in head and claws so
that no part of the body should be exposed; and those who were for that
course, (because really they had not provided any shell,) could not
very well appeal for their justification to the doctrine of "millions
for defence and not a cent for tribute," and yet he believed that the
gentleman from New York himself had voted for that system of terrapin
defence. Although, said Mr. D., I was against that thing, yet there
were men distinguished for talents and worth, and who are eminent
in the councils of their country, who entertained sentiments widely
different. This policy was borrowed from the colonial system; we did
not assume the spirit of a nation, perhaps; we recollected what we had
done before when we were colonies, and perhaps gentlemen thought the
efforts of children might succeed when they had attained to manhood.
It was a delusion. If gentlemen, however, now see through their error,
their desire to correct it ought not to be condemned.
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.
Against the administration of Mr. Adams, I, in common with many others,
did and do yet entertain a sentiment of hostility, and have repeatedly
cried out against it for extravagance, and for profusion, and for
waste--wanton waste--of the public resources. I find, however, upon
consideration--whether from the nature of man, or from the nature
of things, or from whatever other cause--that that Administration,
grossly extravagant as I did then and still do believe it to have
been, if tried by the criterion of the succeeding one, was a pattern
of retrenchment and economy; and I ask the House to put the question
to themselves, whether we are likely to see, at any future period,
an Administration more economical than that of which we have just now
taken leave? And this I say, without meaning to cast the slightest
imputation on the present. The person now at the head of affairs, has,
at least in one respect, conducted himself in his high office in a
spirit dear to my heart--it is the spirit of a gentleman. The first
session of Congress under the last Administration was a period of
retrenchment. Throw the session of last summer out of the question,
and this must be the session of reform under the present. Have we any
reason to conclude, from what we have seen or heard, that we can look
forward to any policy more economical than that of the Administration
of which we have just taken leave? I wish it to be clearly understood,
that in the year 1800, in which our expenses amounted to $3,448,060, we
had three 44-gun frigates; six frigates, from 44 to 32; two of 32, of a
large size; four of 32, smaller; eight from 32 to 20; three sloops of
war and four brigs, from 18 to 16; and five brigs and schooners, from
14 to 12 guns--employing a total of 7,296 seamen. This Administration,
too, it should be remarked, not only built every frigate, every vessel
of respectable force--yes, sir, built them from the stump--which the
United States now have, but many others, which have been since sold,
and the proceeds of which have gone into the Treasury. At this time,
then, when the United States had this formidable force afloat; when
nearly 8,000 seamen were employed; (I know the documents only state
7,300, but I am told from the best authority there were nearly 8,000;)
when our flag at least triumphed in our own seas; when we had nothing
of that system of drawing within our shell, which the gentleman from
Connecticut so justly derides; when we had not reached the soft-shelled
state in which we were placed by the non-intercourse law;--at that
time, the Navy of the United States cost nearly three millions and
a half, making for each seaman about $472. I know, sir, that these
statements are dry, but they are useful in proportion as they are dry.
According to the statement which my colleague (Mr. BASSETT) has made,
and which he has told you not only came from the Secretary of the
Navy, but was in the Secretary's own handwriting, the number of seamen
which he had last year in employ was 2,723, which cost the nation
$2,427,000--for each man employed, within a trifle of $900! Now, sir,
if every seaman under the last Administration cost double the expense
which was incurred for the same man under the preceding one, if the
same system is continued, we have no reason to doubt that the seamen
next year will cost double of their present expense. But, even suppose
the expense to remain the same as it now is, will the Representatives
of the American people agree to maintain a naval force which costs us
$900 (within $13) per man, the use of which no man has attempted to
guess, much less to demonstrate!
I wish to be indulged in a little further comparative political
economy. I believe, sir, that the same good results in politics from
comparing the merits of different Administrations, that results in
medicine and surgery from the dissection of the human body--that they
are fairly to be tried by the same rules. I find, then, that in the
year 1800 the estimated pay of the officers is $391,000, and that the
estimated pay of the seamen in the same year is $818,000. And yet,
sir, by the estimate now before me, and which any gentleman can turn
to, made for the year 1800, the subsistence of the officers, their
pay, and that of the seamen, amounts only to $296,000--a sum less,
by nearly $100,000, than the estimated pay alone of the officers in
1800--while the expense of the whole Establishment approach for the
last year within $1,000,000 of the expense of the year first mentioned.
I am at a loss to account for these manifest inconsistencies, and I
might say solecisms, in our political arithmetic. We have a Navy which
we are told employs 2,700 men, which costs within a third as much as a
Navy employing nearly 8,000 men, and yet, when we come to compare the
great objects of expense--to wit: pay and subsistence of the officers
and seamen, the reward of valor and merit--we find a contrast which I
believe no man in this House is prepared to explain.
Now, sir--for the whole subject, thank God, is now before us--let us
look at the expenses of the Marine corps. I have always understood that
marines were necessary in proportion to the extent of the Navy--that
such a force is put on board of every ship of such a number of guns. I
find that in the year 1800, when we had nearly forty ships of war in
commission, manned with nearly 8,000 men, the expenses of the Marine
corps amounted to $162,000; and in 1809, when we have ten or fifteen
vessels of all sorts, manned with 2,300 seamen, the expense of the
Marine corps amounts to $211,000. And yet, sir, if we look at the
items, there does not seem to be a very great variation between some of
the most important--for instance, I find that the clothing in 1800 was
estimated at $33,000, in 1809 at but $32,000--and yet, the troops whose
clothing costs $1,000 less, cost in the aggregate $50,000 more. But,
if we look at some of the items of this account, we shall be struck at
once with the difference. The pay and subsistence for instance in 1800
was $102,000, in 1809 it was $160,000. I have been at the pains even to
note the prices of the most material articles of provision, and find
that in the old estimate beef is rated at $13, pork at $14, and flour
at $10 per barrel; while in the last year the same articles stood in
the estimate of $14, $18, and $8. The material article (flour) being
much lower than in 1800, and the market value of the others also, I
believe the inference would necessarily follow, that the subsistence
ought to have been cheaper. But, sir, look at their establishment at
the navy-yard, and I believe we shall want no ghost--certainly no
argument of mine--to show the cause of this difference of expense.
Then comes the navy-yards. Of these, that of Washington alone has
cost nearly one-half of the sum expended on them all. Well might my
colleague say it was worth as much as the whole, when it had cost as
much; when, indeed, we have witnessed a considerable town--and the
most flourishing town, too, in this wide region called the City of
Washington--built out of the public treasury.
Yes, sir, we have economized until we absolutely have reduced the
annual cost of a seaman from $472--as it was under the very wasteful
expenditure of Mr. Adams's administration--down to the moderate sum of
$887! We have economized until a paltry fleet, consisting of vessels
built to our hand--to say nothing of those that have been sold, and the
warlike stores of which have been retained and preserved; which fleet
was built, equipped, and every cannon and implement of war purchased
under the old Administration--has cost us $12,000,000, when it cost
the preceding Administration but $9,000,000! Is this no argument for
reduction? The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. DANA) tells you he does
not wish an annihilation, but a reform of the Naval Establishment.
Sir, as long as a single chip remains in that navy-yard, you will
never see any thing like reform; as long as you have a chip of public
property--one chip of live oak belonging to the United States--you
will have a man riding in his carriage, with a long retinue and
deputies and clerks to take care of it. And, sir, if the gentleman
from Connecticut does not mean utterly to disgust the people of the
United States against a navy--if in truth he is a friend to a navy--he
ought to join and put down this navy-yard, and not, with my friend
from North Carolina, (Mr. MACON,) keep it up, in hopes the enormity
of the evil will at some time or other correct itself. Among the many
reasons offered to this House for retaining the various parts of this
Establishment, no one said a word in favor of the Marine corps--that
went _sub silentio_--but a great deal was said in favor of Washington.
We were told that our fleet might be _Copenhagened_, and that it was
therefore necessary to stow it away here. We also heard of the great
press of work in the large towns--of the mercantile employ which there
came in competition with that of the United States. I believe, sir,
that our workmen, and men of all descriptions, from the highest to the
lowest--I speak of subordinates--have long ago found the truth of the
old proverb, that "The King's chaff is better than other men's corn."
But it seems, that in order to get a commodity cheap, we are not to
go where it is to be had--oh no, _there_ is competition!--but we must
bring workmen here in the mail-coach, by which conveyance I understand
not only _live stock_ for the navy-yard but copper bolts, and such
_light articles_, are sometimes brought, I suppose, to get out of the
way of competition--competition in the markets of Philadelphia and
Baltimore, where they are bought at private sale. In this way have
seamen, in some instances, been conveyed; and unquestionably every
material of ship timber and naval store has been repeatedly brought
from Norfolk to this place at an immense cost, worked up here by men
collected from Baltimore, Philadelphia, &c., in order that, so worked
up, it might go back to Norfolk, there to remain. But, sir, if our
object really be to prevent our fleet from being _Copenhagened_, we had
better put it above the Falls of Niagara. There it would unquestionably
be most secure, unless the party on the other side of the lake should
fit out a fleet to attack it; in which case, I suppose, we must resort
to another series of measures similar to those lately adopted for the
protection of commerce and the Navy. An embargo to protect ships of
war! This is, indeed, putting the cart before the horse. We are to have
a navy for the protection of commerce, and all our measures in relation
to it are calculated on the basis of keeping it (poor thing! like some
sickly child) out of harm's way! On the same principle of economy on
which the navy-yard is kept up here, viz: for fear that merchants and
others should come into competition with the Government, I presume, we
have sent abroad for workmen to carry on the public buildings. If the
navy-yard is to be kept up here merely that it may be under our eye, I
would humbly suggest, sir, that we first pluck out the beam that has so
long blinded us. We need only to do that to see this building falling
to pieces over our heads; and yet an enormous appropriation is called
for towards finishing it, which I have no doubt my worthy colleague
(Mr. LEWIS) will press very strongly before the close of the session.
I had forgotten the gunboats; and perhaps the best notice which can
be taken of them, is that which is taken on some occasions of other
things--to pass by them with contempt. They are not worth bringing into
account, except for their expense. Children must have toys and baubles,
and we must indulge ourselves in an expense of many millions on this
ridiculous plaything!
But, sir, the sale of our superfluous vessels met with the high
objection that they were to be purchased up by Christophe and Petion,
and that the constituents of my colleague (Mr. BASSETT) are to be
terrified, if not into bodily fear, at least out of their peace of
mind, by these vessels; and, at the same time, we are told that
Christophe was in such good credit, only forty miles off, that vessels
are building at Baltimore for his use; and yet, sir, no gentleman has
brought forward a bill making it penal to supply these barbarians
with ships of war and warlike stores. In other words, sir, to avoid
the possibility of Christophe and his seamen foundering on board
these rotten hulks, my colleague would much rather drive him into
Baltimore, where he can purchase good vessels, which will answer his
purpose much better than these frigates, which the barbarians would
not know how to manage, and which are not calculated, from their great
draught, for predatory warfare in the West India seas. My worthy
colleague has given us a curious illustration of the superiority of
naval over military force, by comparing the navy of Great Britain with
her army. I suppose, if the argument were retorted on my colleague
by a comparison of the army of Bonaparte with his navy, he would say
that the same amount was not there expended upon the navy as upon the
army; whereas in England, the amount of money expended on each is
equal. But, does not my colleague know that one and the chief cause
of the superiority of the British navy over the army, is, that in the
navy men rise by merit--that they do not get in, to use a seaman's
phrase, at the cabin windows--and that the army, if we give credit to
the Parliamentary investigation, is a mere sink of corruption--a mere
engine of patronage--a place in which a corrupt commander-in-chief
acts according to his vile pleasure, and the pleasure of all the pimps
and parasites and harlots who environ him. This, sir, is the cause of
the superiority of the naval over the military force of Great Britain.
But, when the British navy shall have effected what the armies of other
nations from time immemorial have done--when it shall have subjugated
whole continents--then will I agree in the superior power of naval over
military force. I have no hesitation in saying that I would rather vote
for naval than military force, and it is because a naval force has not
the same power as a military one. I have never heard of a despotic
power created by a naval force, unless perhaps in the chieftain of a
band of pirates.
But it would appear that the politics of my unfortunate friend from
North Carolina, (Mr. STANFORD,) who sits near the Speaker, are a mere
counting-house business of pounds, shillings, and pence, or dollars
and cents; that, in fact, the spirit of lucre is transferred from the
warehouses and counting-rooms of the merchants to the tobacco-fields
and cotton plantations of the Southern planters; and that, to such a
pitch has the patriotism of the mercantile class risen, that they are
really ready to sacrifice one-half of their property for the protection
of the Government of their country. If the gentleman from New York
(Mr. MUMFORD) will permit me, I will protest against this idea. I
have once before protested in company with that gentleman, and I hope
he will permit me to protest, even when I have not the sanction of
his respectable authority. With regard to the politics of my worthy
friend from North Carolina, I recollect very well, in the days which
were called the days of profusion, patronage and terror, his politics
were not of that minute and microscopic grade that no scale could be
graduated sufficiently low to measure them; that, if his republicanism
was a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, then and now, it was
not that sort of republicanism which was too cheap to be measured by
the value of the smallest known coin, even by a doit. I really feel
something like sympathy with the gentleman from North Carolina--and
it is not at all to be wondered at; for the republicanism of that
gentleman used to be that which I always have professed--and if the
remark applied to the gentleman from North Carolina, who I believe is
not yet quite out of the pale of the political church, how much more
forcibly did it apply to an unpardonable political sinner like myself!
With respect, sir, to this patriotism, or this republicanism, that
has left the tobacco fields and cotton plantations, and taken up its
dwelling in the counting-house, I beg leave to express my doubt of
the fact. I never have had that high opinion of the mercantile class
expressed by some gentlemen in this House. I think of them as of other
men--that in proportion to the temptations to which they are exposed,
so are they virtuous or otherwise. But, sir, I have not and cannot have
confidence in a man to whom the great Emperor has given a paternal
squeeze, whose property is sequestered at Bayonne or St. Sebastian--I
disclaim any thing like personal allusion; I speak of a class--I cannot
have the confidence, on the subject of our foreign relations, in a man
so situated, that I can have in the planter or farmer whose property is
growing on his land around the house in which he nightly sleeps--and
why? Because, _mutatis mutandis_, I should not have the same confidence
in myself. I should not believe it possible, if I had rich cargoes
under sequestration in France, that I could vote free from the bias
which the jeopardy of that property would throw on my mind.
Sir, I have been very irregular, because I have been compelled to
follow, not the current of my own ideas, but the objections started
by gentlemen in different quarters, and (as it is the fashion to
express it) on different sides of the House, whom I have found united
against the bill as reported by myself. I would ask, in a few words,
if we ought to continue this establishment in its present state? I
ask if it is necessary? For the expense of a navy has been proved to
be in inverse ratio to its utility. To what purpose do we keep up
the Marines, another branch of the Establishment? If I am correctly
informed, these men are willing to run away whenever they have a chance
to desert--if they can get an opportunity--and I am willing that they
shall quit the service without being exposed to be brought to a court
martial for desertion. Nothing, indeed, was said on the subject of
the Marine corps, when the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. KEY) moved to
strike out the whole section of the bill. Fertile as the gentleman may
be in reasons, he did not offer one. He must have supposed it to be
perfectly correct that a Marine establishment should be kept up for a
navy employing 2,700 seamen, more expensive than the same establishment
for a navy employing 8,000. It was, indeed, facetiously urged in the
select committee, as a reason why these men should be retained, that
they came to this House regularly on Sundays to serve the Lord--to
assist at the weekly pageant here performed. Sir, far be it from me
to say, or even to think, with the Protector Cromwell, that this is a
House where the Lord has not been served for many years. But, permit me
to state, that in our country, it is the practice to pay no man out of
the public purse, even for advocating the cause of other people with
the Most High, much less for advocating his own. In other words, that
when men with us serve the Lord, they do it at their own expense.
We have heard to-day, sir--and I hope the report of Congress at
their next session will verify it--that a grant of power to the
Executive in relation to any subject--say borrowing of money--does
not necessarily imply an exercise of that power. We have heard, too,
that notwithstanding the power devolved on the President of the United
States, by the bill authorizing him to borrow to an amount of upwards
of five millions of dollars, which this day passed this House, to
enable the Government to get along, we shall at our next session
probably be presented with the joyful tidings that it is not necessary
to make use of the power, at least in its full extent; but it depends
upon our own act, whether this expectation be realized or not. We
are, in this instance at least, of that description of prophets who
have it in their power to bring about the event they predict. And I
do earnestly hope that the House will not, by a disagreement with the
report of the select committee, insure the defeat of their hope--the
nonfulfilment of the prediction. I hope we shall take up the subject,
and go through with it; that we shall account, and account rationally
too, for some of the facts at least which I have presented to the
House this day, in terms extremely defective, I know; but the time was
short--now or never--and I presented them in the only mode in which I
could possibly do it.
In the course of my observations, I think I forgot to mention that when
the United States kept forty sail of armed vessels afloat, and employed
8,000 seamen, we had no navy-yards at all. If we had, there must have
been some extraordinary oversight committed by the then Secretary of
the Treasury; and I believe politicians were not any more apt then
than now to omit any items of public expense; they crowded in all they
could. In the estimate which I hold in my hand, there is no item of
that expense. I hope, if the House agree (which God forbid!) to so much
of the report of the Committee of the Whole as retains the frigates and
ships of war, that they will at least consent to put down the navy-yard
at this place, and break down the supernumerary Marines. Really,
sir, I am fond of music, but I do not mean to grant $211,000 of the
people's money annually for a song. I hope at least that the Marines
will be reduced, and that we shall retain at least not more navy-yards
than ships. What would an honest Dutchman in the West think of a man
who kept as many stables as horses, and those of the most expensive
construction, too?
I have done, sir. I have endeavored to discharge my duty. No man is
more sensible of a failure in the manner than I am; but I will thank
any one to convince me of the utility of a navy, according to the
doctrines and practice of the new school, and to facts, as far as they
have been stated.
Mr. BASSETT said that his colleague could not always adhere to the
principle that it was his duty to ferret out every error. Error is the
lot of human nature, said Mr. B., and no one is infallible. Give a
small authority to-day, and it will increase to an unexpected amount
before to-morrow. I am authorized to state that such has been the case
in the Navy Department; that under the late Secretary of the Navy
large expenses had been incurred; and that before he left his office
he commenced a reduction of them. Since the present Secretary (Mr.
HAMILTON) has been in office, the expenditures have been much reduced.
In the navy-yard at this place, for example, a permanent reduction has
been made in the expenses to the amount perhaps of 30 or 40 per cent.,
and a very considerable reduction also as to immediate disbursements.
It is nevertheless our duty, after the suggestions that have been made,
to commence a thorough investigation, and I can only regret that the
subject has been introduced to our attention at so late a period of the
session. Instead of regretting what has been said, I am glad of it, and
hope that at an early period in the next session an investigation will
be made. Without any particular direction of the House, the committee
of the Naval Establishment thought it their duty to examine the whole
establishment at the navy-yard in this city. All the good expected
from doing so was to convince them that the eye of the Government was
upon them. I am proud to say that not only myself, but every gentleman
of the committee with me, was much pleased with the appearance of
things as they stood. It was not in our power to investigate minutiæ.
On visiting the establishment of the Marine corps we saw every thing
in order; we saw the armory establishment, wherein we discovered that
arms which had been injured were usefully and handsomely repaired. As
well as we could discover by the eye, every thing was pleasing to my
mind--and one innovation in discipline in the Marine corps gave me
very great satisfaction, viz: the substitution of solitary confinement
for personal chastisement. In the navy-yard, the expense of which has
been much complained of, we saw great piles of useful buildings. These
were not constructed without cost. The present establishment there,
in addition to store-houses, &c., consists of an extensive forgery,
where all the iron work for the navy is done, a lead foundry, a
brass foundry, where articles are made out of worn-out old metals,
which otherwise would be of no use. I was desirous, both for my own
information as well as that of the House, to procure an account of the
work done at the navy-yard, to compare it with the expense--for that is
the only way of fairly estimating the value of the establishment; but
the time allotted to us during this session is not sufficient to attain
that object.
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.
Mr. D. said he did not feel disposed to diminish the number of fighting
men afloat at the present time; though he was not influenced at all
by the resolution which the House had passed not to submit. He had
sometimes thought that they had passed too many resolutions to be
resolute. No, sir, said he, if, when we were insulted on the water;
if, when a British squadron remained in our waters in defiance of our
laws, we had made use of our navy, our officers and men would have done
their duty; but it was then deemed more expedient to deal in paper than
in powder and shot. I feel that we have gone far enough, and too far,
in the downhill course of debasement; by much too far. I would dismiss
all this parade of words. I really would cease to think to terrify
the French or British nation by them. Although those nations have
hated each other for years, they look up to each other with reverence,
because they know that victory would be glorious. I wish, too, that we
should proceed in such a manner as that our actions should not wear
the appearance of gasconade, and that we should march up to the works
with a steady eye. I think, sir, that the population and strength of
the United States and their commercial capital being augmented, it may
be proper, after a lapse of ten years, to have a Peace Establishment
somewhat extended beyond the former; and I am therefore against so
great a reduction as is proposed.
On motion, the House then adjourned--41 to 38--at six o'clock, after a
sitting of eight hours.
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 Boeuf._
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 Boeuf, 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.
SATURDAY, April 28.
_Reduction of the Navy._
The House resumed the consideration of the bill for reducing the Naval
Establishment of the United States.
Mr. SMILIE'S amendment was modified so as to fix the number of
officers, &c., to be retained in service, as follows: thirteen
captains, nine masters commandant, seventy-two lieutenants, ----
midshipmen and ---- seamen, ordinary seamen and boys.
Mr. MUMFORD again moved to postpone the further consideration of the
subject indefinitely--lost, yeas 40, nays 54.
Mr. RANDOLPH moved to strike out the numbers thirteen, nine, and
seventy-two, in the amendment, being desirous of reducing the officers,
if any part of the establishment. Motion lost, ayes 40, noes 46.
Mr. N. R. MOORE called for a division of the question on Mr. SMILIE'S
amendment.
And the question was taken on that part of it which authorizes the
President to keep in service so many of the armed vessels as he may
think proper, and to lay up the rest in ordinary in convenient ports.
This part of the amendment was agreed to--yeas 61, nays 38.