Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

"With respect to the navy, it may be proper to remind you, that whatever may be the proposed object of its establishment, or whatever may be the prospect of temporary advantages resulting therefrom, it is demonstrated by the experience of all nations, which have ventured far into naval policy, that such prospect is ultimately delusive; and that a navy has ever, in practice, been known more as an instrument of power, a source of expense, and an occasion of collisions and of wars with other nations, than as an instrument of defence, of economy, or of protection to commerce. Nor is there any nation, in the judgment of this General Assembly, to whose circumstances these remarks are more applicable than to the United States."

Such was the voice of the great men of Virginia, some fifty years ago – the voice of reason and judgment then; and more just, judicious, and applicable, now, than then. Since that time the electro-magnetic telegraph, and the steam-car, have been invented – realizing for defensive war, the idea of the whole art of war, as conceived and expressed by the greatest of generals – DIFFUSION FOR SUBSISTENCE: CONCENTRATION FOR ACTION. That was the language of the Great Emperor: and none but himself could have so conceived and expressed that idea. And now the ordinary commander can practise that whole art of war, and without ever having read a book upon war. He would know what to have done, and the country would do it. Play the telegraph at the approach of an invader, and summon the volunteer citizens to meet him at the water's edge. They would be found at home, diffused for subsistence: they would concentrate for action, and at the rate of 500 miles a day, or more if need be. In two days they would come from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. It would be the mere business of the accumulation of masses upon a given point, augmenting continually, and attacking incessantly. Grand tactics, and the "nineteen manœuvres," would be unheard of: plain and direct killing would be the only work. No amount of invading force could sustain itself a fortnight on any part of our coast. If hundreds of thousands were not enough to cut them up, millions would come – arms, munitions, provisions, arriving at the same time. With this defence – cheap, ready, omnipotent – who, outside of an insane hospital, would think of building and keeping up eternal fleets to meet the invader and fight him at sea? The idea would be senseless, if practicable; but it would be impracticable. There will never be another naval action fought for the command of the seas. There has been none such fought since the French and British fleets met off Ouessant, in 1793. That is the last instance of a naval action fought upon consent: all the rest have been mere catching and whipping: and there will never be another. Fleets must approach equality before they can fight; and with her five hundred men-of-war on hand, Great Britain is too far ahead to be overtaken by any nation, even if any one was senseless enough to incur her debt and taxes for the purpose. Look at Russia: building ships from the time of Peter the Great; and the first day they were wanted, all useless and a burden! only to be saved by the strongest fortifications in the world, filled with the strongest armies of the world! and all burnt, or sunk, that could not be so protected. Great Britain is compelled by the necessities of her position, to keep up great fleets: the only way to make head against them is to avoid swelling their numbers with the fleets of other nations – avoid the Trafalgars, Aboukirs, Copenhagens, St. Vincents – and prey upon her with cruisers and privateers. It is the profound observation of Alison, the English historian of the wars of the French revolution that the American cruisers did the British more mischief in their two years' war of 1812, than all the fleets of France did during their twenty years' war. What a blessing to our country, if American statesmen could only learn that one little sentence in Alison.

The war of 1812 taught American statesmen a great lesson; but they read it backwards, and understood it the reverse of its teaching. It taught the efficacy of cruising – the inefficacy of fleets. American cruisers, and privateers, did immense mischief to British commerce and shipping: British fleets did no mischief to America. Their cruisers did some mischief – their fleets none. And that is the way to read the lesson taught by the naval operations of the war of 1812. Cruisers, to be built when they are needed for use: not fleets to rot down in peace, while waiting for war. Yet, for forty years we have been building great ships – frigates equal to ships of the line: liners, nearly double the old size – 120 guns instead of seventy-fours. Eleven of these great liners have been built, merely to rot! at enormous cost in the building, and great continual cost to delay the rotting; which, nevertheless, goes on with the regularity and certainty of time. A judicious administrative economy would have them all broken up (to say nothing of others), and the serviceable parts all preserved, to be built into smaller vessels when there shall be need for them. It is forty years since this system of building vessels for which there was no use, took its commencement, and the cry for more is greater now than it was in the beginning; and must continue. A history of each ship built in that time – what the building cost? what the repairs? what the alterations? what the equipment? what the crew? and how many shot she fired at an enemy? would be a history which ought to be instructive; for it would show an incredible amount of money as effectually wasted as if it had been thrown into the sea. Great as this building and rotting has been for forty years past, it must continue to become greater. The Naval Academy is a fruitful mother, bearing 250 embryo officers in her womb at a time, and all the time; and most of them powerfully connected: and they must have ships and commissions, when they leave the mother's breast. They are the children of the country, and must be provided for – they and their children after them. This academy commits the government to a great navy, as the Military Academy commits it to a great army. It is no longer the wants of the country, but of the eleves of the institution which must be provided for; and routine officers are to take all the places. Officers are now to be made in schools, whether they have any vocation for the profession or not; and slender is the chance of the government to get one that would ever have gained a commission by his own exertions. This writer was not a senator for thirty years, and the channel of incessant applications for cadet and midshipman places, without knowing the motives on which such applications were made; and these motives may be found in three classes. First, and most honorable would be the case of a father, who would say – "I have a son, a bright boy, that I have been educating for a profession, but his soul is on fire for the army, or navy, and I have yielded to his wishes, though against my own, and believe if he gets the place, that he will not dishonor his country's flag." One of the next class would say – "I have a son, and he is not a bright boy (meaning that he is a booby), and cannot take a profession, but he would do very well in the army or navy." Of the third class, an unhappy father would say – "I have a son, a smart boy, but wild (meaning he was vicious), and I want to get him in the army or navy, where he could be disciplined." These, and the hereditary class (those whose fathers and grandfathers have been in the service) are the descriptions of applicants for these appointments; so that, it may be seen, the chances are three or four to one against getting a suitable subject for an officer; and of those who are suitable, many resign soon after they have got educated at public expense, and go into civil life. Routine officers are, therefore, what may be expected from these schools – officers whom nature has not licensed, and who keep out of the service those whom she has. The finest naval officers that the world ever saw, were bred in the merchant service; and of that England, Holland, France, Genoa, and Venice, are proofs; and none more so than our own country. The world never saw a larger proportion of able commanders than our little navy of the Revolution, and of the Algerine and Tripolitan wars, and the war of 1812, produced. They all came (but few exceptions) from the merchant service; and showed an ability and zeal which no school-house officers will ever equal.

Great Britain keeps up squadrons in time of peace, and which is a necessity of her insular position, and of her remote possessions: we must have squadrons also, though no use for them abroad, and infinitely better to remain in our own ports, and spend the millions at home which are now spent abroad. There is not a sea in which our commerce is subject to any danger of a kind which a man-of-war would prevent, or punish, in which a cruiser would not be sufficient. All our squadrons are anomalies, and the squadron system should be broken up. The Home should never have existed, and owes its origin to the least commendable period of our existence; the same of the African, conceived at the same time, put upon us by treaty, under the insidious clause that we could get rid of it in five years, and which has already continued near three times five; and which timidity and conservatism will combine to perpetuate – that timidity which is the child of temporization, and sees danger in every change. As for the Mediterranean, the Brazil, the Pacific, the East India squadron, they are mere British imitations without a reason for the copy, and a pretext for saying the ships are at sea. The fact is, they are in comfortable stations, doing nothing, and had far better be at home, and in ordinary. One hundred and forty court-martials, many dismissions without courts, and two hundred eliminations at a single dash, proclaim the fact that our navy is idle! and that this idleness gives rise to dissipation, to dissensions, to insubordination, to quarrels, to accusations, to court-martials. The body of naval officers are as good as any other citizens, but idleness is a destroyer which no body of men can stand. We have no use for a navy, and never shall have; yet we continue building ships and breeding officers – the ships to rot – the officers to become "the cankers of a calm world and a long peace."

The Virginia resolves of 1799-1800 on the subject of a navy, contain the right doctrine for the United States, even if the state of the world had remained what it was – even if the telegraph and the steam-car had not introduced a new era in the art of defensive war. It is the most expensive and inefficient of all modes of warfare. Its cost is enormous: its results nothing. A naval victory decides nothing but which shall have the other's ships.

In the twenty years of the wars of the French revolution, Great Britain whipped all the inimical fleets she could catch. She got all their ships; and nothing but their ships. Not one of her naval victories had the least effect upon the fate of the wars: land battles alone decided the fate of countries, and commanded the issues of peace or war. Concluding no war, they are one of the fruitful sources of beginning wars. Only employed (by those who possess them) at long intervals, they must be kept up the whole time. Enormously expensive, the expense is eternal. Armies can be disbanded – navies must be kept up. Long lists of officers must be receiving pay when doing nothing. Pensions are inseparable from the system. Going to sea in time of peace is nothing but visiting foreign countries at the expense of the government. The annual expense of our navy now (all the heads of expense incident to the establishment included) is some fifteen millions of dollars: the number of men employed, is some 10,000 – being at a cost of $1,500 a man, and they nothing to do. The whole number of guns afloat is some 2,000 – which is at the rate of some $9,000 a gun; and they nothing in the world to shoot at. The expense of a navy is enormous. The protection of commerce is a phrase incessantly repeated, and of no application. Commerce wants no protection from men-of-war except against piratical nations; and they are fewer now than they were fifty years ago; and some cruisers were then sufficient. The Mediterranean, which was then the great seat of piracy, is now as free from it as the Chesapeake Bay is. We have no naval policy – no system adapted by the legislative wisdom – no peace establishment – no understood principle of action in relation to a navy. All goes by fits and starts. A rumor of war is started: more ships are demanded: a combined interest supports the demand – officers, contractors, politicians. The war does not come, but the ships are built, and rot: and so on in a circle without end.

CHAPTER CXXXII.

THE HOME SQUADRON: ITS INUTILITY AND EXPENSE

Early in the session of '43-'44, Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, brought into the House a resolution of inquiry into the origin, use, and expense of the home squadron: to which Mr. Hamlin, of Maine, proposed the further inquiry to know what service that squadron had performed since it had been created. In support of his proposition, Mr. Hale said:

"He believed they were indebted to this administration for the home squadron. The whole sixteen vessels which composed that squadron were said to be necessary to protect the coasting trade; and though the portion of the country from which he came was deeply concerned in the coasting trade, yet he himself was convinced that many of those vessels might be dispensed with. If this information were laid before the House, they would have something tangible on which to lay their hands, in the way of retrenchment and reform. He wanted this information for the purpose of pointing out to the House where an enormous expense might be cut down, without endangering any of the interests of the country. Gentlemen had talked about being prepared with a sufficient navy to meet and contend with the naval power of Great Britain; but had they any idea of the outlay which was required to support such a navy? The expense of the navy of Great Britain amounted to between eighty and a hundred millions of dollars annually. We were not in want of such a great naval establishment to make ourselves respected at home or abroad. General Jackson alone had produced an impression upon one of the oldest nations of Europe, which it would be impossible for this administration to do with the assistance of all the navies in the world."

Mr. Jared Ingersoll was in favor of retrenchment and economy, but thought the process ought to begin in the civil and diplomatic department – in the Congress itself, and in the expenses it allowed for multiplied missions abroad and incessant changes in the incumbents. With respect to abuses in the naval expenditures, he said: —

"He had no knowledge of his own on this subject; but he had learned from a distinguished officer of the navy, that in the navy-yards, in the equipment of ships, by the waste and extravagance caused by allowing officers to rebuild ships when they pleased, and the loss on the provisions of ships just returned from sea, which have been taken or thrown away, the greatest abuses have been practised, which have assisted in swelling up the naval expenditures to their present enormous amount."

Mr. Adams differed from Mr. Ingersoll in the scheme of beginning retrenchment on the civil list, and presented the army and the navy as the two great objects of wasteful expenditure, and the points at which reform ought to begin, and especially with retrenching this home squadron, for which he had voted in 1841, but now condemned. He said:

"The gentleman gave the House, undoubtedly, a great deal of instruction as to the manner in which it should carry out retrenchment and reform, and finally elect a President; but his remarks did not happen to apply to the motion of the gentleman from New Hampshire; for he led them away from that motion, and told them, in substance, that it was not the nine million of dollars asked for by the Secretary of the Navy – and he did not know how much asked for the army – that was to be retrenched. Oh, no! The army and the navy were not the great expenses of this nation; it was not by curtailing the military and naval expenditures that economy was to be obtained; but by beginning with the two Houses of Congress. And what was the comparison, to come to dollars and cents, between the expenses of that House and the Navy Department? Why, the gentleman, with all his exaggerating eloquence, had made the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of the country, to cost at least two millions of dollars; while the estimates for the navy were nine millions, to enable our ships to go abroad and display the stripes and stars. And for what purpose was it necessary to have this home squadron? Was the great maritime power of the earth in such a position towards us as to authorize us to expect a hostile British squadron on our coasts? No; he believed not. Then what was this nine millions of dollars wanted for? There was a statement, two years ago, in the report of the Secretary of the Navy, in which they were told that our present navy, in comparison with that of Great Britain, was only as one to eight – that is, that the British navy was eight times as large as ours. Now, in that year eight millions of dollars was asked for for the navy; the report of the present year asks for nine millions. This report contained the principle that we must go on to increase our navy until it is at least one-half as large as that of Great Britain; and what, then, was the proportion of additional expense we must incur to arrive at that result? Why, four times eight are thirty-two; so that it will take an annual expenditure of thirty-two millions to give us a navy half as large as that of Great Britain. If, however, gentlemen were to go on in this way, $32,000,000 – nay, $50,000,000 would not be enough to pay the expense of their navy. He expressed his approval of the resolution of the gentleman from New Hampshire, and his gratification that it had come from such a quarter – a quarter which was so deeply interested in having a due protection for their mercantile navy and their coasting trade, by the establishment of a home squadron. At the time the home squadron was first proposed, he was, himself, in favor of it, and it was adopted with but very little opposition; and the reason was, because the House did not understand it at that time. It looked to a war with Great Britain. It looked more particularly to a war with Great Britain (the honorable gentleman was understood to say), provided she took the island of Cuba. He saw no necessity for a large navy, unless it was to insult other nations, by taking possession of their territory in time of peace. What was the good, he asked, of a navy which cost the country $9,000,000 a year, compared with what was done there in the legislative department of the nation? He expressed his ardent hope that the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Cave Johnson], and the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. McKay] – now the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means – would persevere in the same spirit that marked their conduct during the last Congress, and still advocate reductions in the army and the navy."

Mr. Hale replied to the several gentlemen who, without offering a word in favor of the utility of this domestic squadron, were endeavoring to keep it up; and who, without denying the great abuse and extravagance in the naval disbursements, were endeavoring to prevent their correction by starting smaller game – and that smaller game not to be pursued, and bagged, but merely started to prevent the pursuit of the great monster which was ravaging the fields. Thus: —

"He believed that the greatest abuses existed in every department of the government, and that the extravagances of all required correction. Look at the army of 8,000 men only, kept up at an expense to the nation of $1,000 for each man. Was not this a crying abuse that ought to be corrected? Why, if the proposition had succeeded to increase the army to 20,000 men, the expenditure at this rate would have been twenty millions annually. If any gentleman knew of the existence of abuses, let him bring them to the notice of the House, and he would vote not only for the proper inquiry into them, but to apply the remedy. In regard to this home squadron, he begged leave to disclaim any of the suspicions entertained by the gentleman from Massachusetts. In offering his resolution he had no reference to Cuba, or any thing else suggested by the gentleman. He wanted the House and the country to look at it as the Secretary of the Navy presented it to their view. As to the pretence that it was intended for the protection of the coasting trade, it was a most idle one. He wished the gentlemen from Maine (the State most largely interested in that trade) to say whether they needed any such protection. He would answer for them, and say that they did not. He himself lived among those who were extensively engaged in the coasting trade, and part of his property was invested in it. He could, therefore, speak with some knowledge on the subject; and he hesitated not to say, that the idea of keeping up this squadron for its protection was a most preposterous and idle one. Sir, said he, the navy has been the pet child of the nation, and, like all other pet children, has run away with the whole patrimonial estate. If it were found that the best interest of the country required the maintenance of the home squadron, then he would go for it; but if it were found to be utterly useless, as he believed, then he was decidedly against it. But he would give this further notice; that he did not mean to stop here; that when the appropriations should come up, he intended to propose to limit those appropriations to a sum sufficient only to support the squadron stationed in the Mediterranean. It was entirely useless for this country to endeavor to contend with monarchies in keeping up the pageantry of a naval establishment."

The proposed inquiry produced no result, only ending in demonstrating what was well known to the older members, namely, the difficulty, and almost impossibility of introducing any reform, or economy into the administration of any department of the government unless the Executive takes the lead. And of this truth a striking instance occurred at this session and upon this subject. The executive government, that is to say, the President and his Secretary of the Navy had made a lawless expenditure of about $700,000 during the recess of Congress; and Congress under a moral duress, was compelled to adopt that expenditure as its own, and make it good. When the clause in the naval appropriation bill for covering this item, was under consideration, Mr. Ezra Dean, of Ohio, stood up and said:

"It was nothing less than a bill making appropriations to the amount of $750,000 which had been expended by the department in virtue of its own will and pleasure, and without the sanction of any law whatever; and the House was called on to approve this proceeding. He had supposed that any department which took upon itself the power of expending the public money, without authority of law, would have been subjected to the severest rebuke of Congress. He had supposed that this would have been a reform Congress, and that all the abuses of this administration would be ferreted out and corrected; but in this he had been grievously disappointed. He had endeavored to get the consent of the House to take up the navy retrenchment bill, which would correct all these abuses, but he had been mistaken; and so far from being able to get the bill before the House, he had been unable even to get the yeas and nays on the question of taking it up. There was great reason for this. This Navy Department had been for the last two years the great vortex which had swallowed up two-thirds of the revenues of the government. In 1840, a law was passed that no money should be expended for the building of ships without the express sanction of Congress; and yet, in defiance of this law, the Navy Department had gone on to build an iron steamship at Pittsburg, and six sloops-of-war; and he was told that part of the appropriations in this bill were to complete these vessels. Mr. D. then spoke of the utter uselessness of these steamships on the western waters, and referred to the number of ships that were now rotting for want of use, both on the stocks and laid up in ordinary; and particularly referred to the magnificent ship Delaware, which had just returned from a cruise, and was dismantled, and laid up to rot at Norfolk, while the department was clamorous for building more ships. There were not only more ships now built and building than could be used, but there were three times as many officers as could be employed. There were 96 commanders, with salaries of $3,500 a-year, while there was only employment for 38 of them; and there were 68 captains, while there was only employment for but 18. He then referred to the number of officers waiting orders, and on leave of absence, and said that the country would be astonished to learn, that for such officers, the country was now paying $283,700 a year; and that, by referring to the records of the Navy Department, it would be found that for the last twenty years, more than half of the officers of the navy were drawing their pay and emoluments while at home, on leave of absence, or waiting orders. Mr. D. spoke of many other abuses in the navy, which he said required correction, and expressed his great regret that he had not been able to get the House to act on his navy retrenchment bill."