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Few Americans in the 1790S Would Have Predicted That the Subject Of AMERICAN NAVAL POLICY IN AN AGE OF ATLANTIC WARFARE: A CONSENSUS BROKEN AND REFORGED, 1783-1816 Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jeffrey J. Seiken, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2007 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor John Guilmartin, Jr., Advisor Professor Margaret Newell _______________________ Professor Mark Grimsley Advisor History Graduate Program ABSTRACT In the 1780s, there was broad agreement among American revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton about the need for a strong national navy. This consensus, however, collapsed as a result of the partisan strife of the 1790s. The Federalist Party embraced the strategic rationale laid out by naval boosters in the previous decade, namely that only a powerful, seagoing battle fleet offered a viable means of defending the nation's vulnerable ports and harbors. Federalists also believed a navy was necessary to protect America's burgeoning trade with overseas markets. Republicans did not dispute the desirability of the Federalist goals, but they disagreed sharply with their political opponents about the wisdom of depending on a navy to achieve these ends. In place of a navy, the Republicans with Jefferson and Madison at the lead championed an altogether different prescription for national security and commercial growth: economic coercion. The Federalists won most of the legislative confrontations of the 1790s. But their very success contributed to the party's decisive defeat in the election of 1800 and the abandonment of their plans to create a strong blue water navy. Republican control of the government enabled Jefferson to implement what he called his “system”: commercial sanctions for deterrence; gunboats, fortifications, and the militia for coastal defense; and the commissioning of privateers and the raising of volunteer armies for offensive warfare. ii The Jeffersonian system received its trial run from 1807 to 1812 and was ultimately judged a failure. Far from averting war, the use of commercial retaliation escalated the confrontation with Great Britain while also depleting the treasury and leaving the nation poorly prepared for the looming conflict. On the very eve of the war, an influential clique of young Republican politicians argued for the abandonment of Jefferson’s system and the building of a strong fleet. Their endorsement of naval expansion both before and during the War of 1812 proved instrumental in rebuilding a national consensus on the navy that transcended political divisions. iii Dedicated to Liz, Abby, Amanda, and Mikhail iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not have been completed without the advice and assistance of many individuals and institutions. Support of the financial kind was provided by several summer fellowships from the graduate history program at the Ohio State University and by a small travel grant from the university’s Graduate Student Alumni Research Award program. The bulk of the archival research on this dissertation was made possible by a generous fellowship from the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C. My appreciation also goes out to members of the center’s Early History Branch for welcoming me into their offices and giving me free run of the many file cabinets’ worth of documents and microfilm they had collected for their stellar War of 1812 documentary project. Thanks are due to my advisor, John F. Guilmartin, Jr., for his encouragement in the early going and for his confidence that I would finish the dissertation and do a credible job in the process. The members of my committee, Margaret Newell and Mark Grimsley, also stood by patiently waiting for the manuscript to be completed while always serving as a source of inspiration through their own high standards of scholarship and teaching. Over the years, a number of fine historians both inside and outside the university have had a hand in the shaping of this undertaking. Christopher McKee, Craig Symonds, v David C. Skaggs, Geoffrey Parker, and Allan Millett among others gave generously of their time and expertise to comment on parts or aspects of my work. Finally, my deepest and most heartfelt appreciation is reserved for my family: my wife Liz, my two daughters Abby and Amanda, and the newest member, Mikhail. They have been a constant source of love and delight in my life. Liz, especially, exhibited endless patience while expressing a boundless faith in my abilities that helped sustain me through the many years it took to see this project through to fruition. vi VITA March 27, 1962........................................ Born—Perth Amboy, New Jersey 1984.......................................................... B.A. English, The University of Virginia 1996.......................................................... M.A. History, The Ohio State University 1996 - 2002.............................................. Graduate Teaching Assistant The Ohio State University 2003 – 2004.............................................. Lecturer The Ohio State University—Newark 2005 - present........................................... Historian United States Air Force PUBLICATIONS 1. “Battle of Lake Erie” in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, Richard Sisson, et al., eds. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 1754. 2. “Colonial Wars” in Dictionary of American History, Stanley I. Kutler, ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003), 1:293-96. 3. "To Strike a Blow in the World that Shall Resound through the Universe: American Naval Operations and Options at the Start of the War of 1812" in New Interpretations of Naval History: Selected Papers from the Fourteenth Naval History Symposium, Randy Balano and Craig L. Symonds, eds. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001), 131-46. 4. "To Obtain Command of the Lakes: The United States and the Contest for Lakes Erie and Ontario, 1812-1815" in 60 Years' War for the Great Lakes, 1754-1814, David C. Skaggs and Larry L. Nelson, eds. (Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, 2001), 353-71. vii 5. “John F. Williams” and “Amos Rusie” in American National Biography, John A. Garraty, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 19:80-81; 23:476-77. 6. “Stephen Decatur,” “Thomas Macdonough,” and “Norfolk, Virginia” in Encyclopedia of the War of 1812, David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds. (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1997), 147-50, 311-13, 391-92. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Areas of Emphasis: Military History, Early American History, World History viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Dedication...........................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments...............................................................................................................v Vita....................................................................................................................................vii Chapters Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 1. The Navy and the New Nation: Federalist Prescriptions and the Jeffersonian Alternative, 1789-1796........................................................................9 2. The Quasi-War and the Triumph of Federalist Naval Policy, 1797-1801.............56 3. The Jeffersonian Navy: Retrenchment, Reform, and the Reality of Another Naval War, 1801-1805.........................................................................................108 4. The Jeffersonian System in Action, 1801-1811...................................................177 5. The Naval Policy Debate on the Eve of the War of 1812....................................226 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................291 Bibliography....................................................................................................................296 ix INTRODUCTION In his seminal work The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, the famed naval scholar Alfred T. Mahan set forth a simple proposition that has had a lasting impact on the thinking of subsequent generations of American naval historians. Mahan embarked on the study in the hopes of deducing from the historical record certain immutable principles governing the conduct of war at sea. He ended up discerning several, but the one that took primacy over the others was the idea that naval supremacy could only be achieved by a battle fleet. To Mahan, a concentrated force of capital ships was the ultimate embodiment and expression of sea power, and the nation that could use its fleet to vanquish the enemy’s would secure a potentially decisive advantage over its adversaries. He summed up the advantages to be gained by command of the sea in one of the book’s most quoted passages: It is not the taking of individual ships or convoys, be they few or many, that strikes down the money power of a nation; it is the possession of that overbearing power on the sea which drives the enemy’s flag from it, or allows it to appear only as a fugitive; and which by controlling the great common, closes the highways by which commerce moves to and from the enemy’s shores. This overbearing power can
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