Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 2 (of 16)United States. Congress
History
Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 2 (of 16)
United States. Congress
Law -- United States; United States -- Politics and government
Mr. GALLATIN saw no connection between the two resolutions, which the
gentleman who had just sat down thought it necessary to connect
together. The last resolution proposed the purchase of land clothed with
live oak; the present proposed the appropriation of a sum of money for
purchasing the site of a naval yard, &c., as a foundation for a Navy.
The last went only to the securing of timber for the building of a Navy,
if at any day it should be thought necessary; he believed he should vote
for the last, but certainly against the first.
They had been told that no commerce could exist without protection, and
that that protection must be a Navy; from whence it would follow, that
if a Navy was necessary to protect commerce, it must be a Navy competent
to vie with the navies of other nations. He would here ask, how
gentlemen drew their conclusion, that commerce could not exist without
the protection of a Navy. He wished they would show from the example of
any nation in Europe, or from our own example, that commerce and navies
had gone hand in hand. There was no nation, except Great Britain, said
he, whose Navy had any connection with commerce. No nation, except
England and Holland, had more to do with commerce than this country, and
yet we had no Navy; and though for the four last years this commerce had
been subject to continual depredations, it was not exceeded by any
nation, except the two he had named. And if they looked to Europe, they
would find there was no connection between navies and commerce. Russia
and Sweden had considerable navies, but little commerce; whilst Holland,
whose Navy was by no means large, ranked next to England with respect to
commerce. Hamburg, he said, was one of the first commercial States in
Europe, yet she had no Navy. Navies, he said, were the instruments of
power, more calculated to annoy the trade of other nations than to
protect that of the nation to which they belong.
But there was another position which he should take in opposition to
gentlemen who supported the creation of a Navy, viz: that however useful
or desirable a Navy might be, this country was not equal to the support
of one. We might have two or three frigates indeed, but, when he said we
could not support a Navy, he meant to say we could not support such a
Navy as should claim respect, in the sense which those gentlemen spoke
of it; such as being an object of terror to foreign nations. If they
calculated what the three frigates had cost, considered the scanty
manner in which this country was peopled, our inability to raise any
very large revenue, and the high price of labor, the truth of this
assertion would appear evident.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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