NAVAL ACADEMY, AND NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES.
By scraps of laws, regulations, and departmental instructions, a Naval Academy has grown up, and a naval policy become established for the United States, without the legislative wisdom of the country having passed upon that policy, and contrary to its previous policy, and against its interest and welfare. A Naval Academy, with 250 pupils, and annually coming off in scores, makes perpetual demand for ships and commissions; and these must be furnished, whether required by the public service or not; and thus the idea of a limited navy, or of a naval peace establishment, is extinguished; and a perpetual war establishment in time of peace is growing up upon our hands. Prone to imitate every thing that was English, there was a party among us from the beginning which wished to make the Union, like Great Britain, a great naval power, without considering that England was an island, with foreign possessions; which made a navy a necessity of her position and her policy, while we were a continent, without foreign possessions, to whom a navy would be an expensive and idle encumbrance; without considering that England is often by her policy required to be aggressive, the United States never; without considering that England is a part of the European system, and subject to wars (to her always maritime) in which she has no interest, while the United States, in the isolation of their geographical position, and the independence of their policy, can have no wars but her own; and those defensive. On the other hand, there was a large party, and dominant after the presidential election of 1800, which saw great evil in emulating Great Britain as a naval power, and made head against that emulation in all the modes of acting on the public mind: speeches and votes in Congress, essays, legislative declarations. The most authoritative, and best considered declaration of the principles of this party, was made some fifty years ago, in the General Assembly of Virginia, in the era of her greatest men; and when the minds of these men, themselves fathers of the State, was most profoundly turned to the nature, policy, and working of our government. All have heard of the Virginia resolutions of 1798-'99, to restrain the unconstitutional and unwise action of the federal government: there were certain other cotemporaneous resolutions from the same source in relation to a navy, of which but little has been known; and which, for forty years, and now, are of more practical importance than the former. In the session of her legislature, 1799-1800, in their "Instructions to Senators," that General Assembly said:
"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.