The proposal for founding a United States Naval Academy is almost without parallel among legislative attempts for repeated failure on the floor of Congress. In the period from 1800 to 1845, the patient friends of the Navy introduced this idea more than twenty times.1
The first proposal for the government to educate naval officers was part of a resolution transmitted to Congress by President John Adams on January 14, 1800. Drawn up by Secretary of War James McHenry, this project is supposed to have been conceived by Alexander Hamilton while he was Inspector General of the Army. Hamilton sent his idea to General Washington, whose reply, dated two days before his death, recommended the Academy in these terms:
... a thorough examination of the subject will evince that the art of war is at once comprehensive and complicated; that it demands much previous study; and that the possession of it, in its most improved and perfect state, is always of great moment to the security of a nation. This, therefore, ought to be a serious care of every government; and for this purpose, an academy, where a regular course of instruction is given, is an obvious expedient. . . .
The original draft of McHenry’s plan called for a national military academy made up of four schools. A Fundamental School was to instruct every potential officer in “All the sciences necessary to a perfect knowledge of the different branches of the military art.” The graduate of this school would transfer to one of three special schools: the School of Engineers and Artillerists; the School of Cavalry and Infantry; or the School of the Navy.
From the Navy’s viewpoint, McHenry’s proposal was a failure; his plan was modified by Congress to exclude the School of the Navy. The United States Military Academy at West Point, however, was established in 1802—a direct result of James McHenry’s efforts.
All of the proposals for a Naval Academy which followed, with the exception of a perfunctory recommendation by President Thomas Jefferson in 1808, were presented with the War of 1812 already a brilliant chapter in the Navy’s history. The competence of the officers who fought in this war lent weight to every argument in the Naval Academy’s favor. In 1827, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs rhapsodized:
. . . from the moment that Captain Hull, in the Constitution, met and captured the Guerriere, up to the final termination of the war, the whole career of the Navy was one of daring enterprise, heroic achievement, and splendid victory. . . . The Navy literally fought itself into favor—it became its own architect.
Those in favor of a Naval Academy took considerable pains to show that the leaders of the Navy during the war were cultured gentlemen possessed of a broad education, including extensive scientific knowledge. It was no longer necessary that “ . . . [a naval officer] should be a profane swearer and a hard drinker; that he should be proud of his ignorance, despise books, and be distinguished by habits, manners, and language different from the rest of the world. . . . these, sir, are the exploded errors of the last century.” Since the heroes of the War of 1812 were found to be so uniformly well- educated, the proponents of a Naval Academy argued that a constant supply of men of comparable education would maintain the standards of battle efficiency established during the war. The surest method of obtaining that constant supply, they argued, was to educate officer candidates within the service—at a Naval Academy.
The opponents of the proposed school fastened eagerly on the glorious records of men like Perry and Decatur and Bainbridge and demonstrated that though they had received practically no formal academic training, they would “grace any drawing room.” Almost every naval commander in the War of 1812, they insisted, was a self-educated man. This point, arising in the debate on the 1827 “Bill for Gradual Improvement of the Navy,” touched off a protracted controversy on the merits of self-education, with the Navy camp maintaining that “there is no mistake, however, greater or more common, than that which condemns education as useless, because eminent men have educated themselves.” The argument was based mainly on the pedagogical theories of the speakers, and some rather bizarre notions turned up, exemplifying the logic upon which important issues are often decided. Senator Smith of South Carolina contributed this:
The fame of Julius Caesar, and his victories, are in the mouths of everyone. Yet Julius Caesar was not reared up in a Military Academy . . . the Duke of Marlborough . . . was not educated in a Military Academy; nor was the Maid of Orleans . . . acquainted with the rules of scientific warfare . . . give me a brave man for the deeds of war, and I care little about his acquirements. Proofs are before your eyes every day, to show that military talent will unfold itself, whenever the opportunity offers, without establishing nursuries for its cultivation. . . . Lord Nelson did not idle away his time at a Naval School, or amuse himself alternately at sea. He was not acquainted with all the abstruse sciences which have now become requisite for a Naval Commander; but he knew what was by far most essential, the science of being victorious. . . . Our Naval officers have thus far gone to sea, and learned their duties there, where they were to be performed, and not by nursing themselves in idleness on shore. . . . The Navy does not want a host of tender youths, carefully nursed and indulged in a quiet life; neither does it stand in need of a troop of silk stocking gentry to lead to battle our hardy seamen, who would look with contempt upon trifling or effeminate leaders.
Remembering Senator Smith’s scholarly and distinctly a propos reference to Joan of Arc, Senator Hayne, also from South Carolina, replied:
To contend that because without science and education, victories have been won, would not be less unreasonable than to declare, because the Maid of Orleans triumphed over the enemies of France, our defense ought to be entrusted entirely to women. ...
Pointing out that “the greatest fool I ever knew was the greatest classical scholar,” Senator Macon, of North Carolina, delivered an eulogy upon the simple, unlettered virtues, contending that Patrick Henry’s genius “would have been trammeled by classical study.” He also intimated that Benjamin Franklin was lucky to have escaped a formal education. Swinging his sights around to a more nautical target, Senator Macon observed that most of the great naval commanders have been uneducated—an excellent justification, we are to infer, for them to remain so. Admiral De Ruyter had been a cabin boy, he noted, and rose to fame by virtue of a somewhat nebulous “thing of which I have been speaking, which God gives to people.” Senator Macon neglected to shed more light on the exact nature of the “thing” of which he spoke, but concluded his remarks by explaining that he was a great believer in gifts, and also believed that heroes as well as poets are born to their trade.
These doubts as to the military utility of scientific studies—or studies of any description, for that matter—were expressed in a day when such arguments sounded not the slightest bit odd or unreasonable. With the advent of steam propulsion in the United States Navy in 1839, however, the question of education in the Navy acquired an entirely new complexion. References to Nelson, Joan of Arc, and Julius Caesar were no longer particularly apt. The increasing complexity of naval ordnance was another factor serving to nullify the arguments of the “learn-at-sea” element in Congress. The opponents of the Naval Academy did not want for other arguments, however.
The next weapon in their copious arsenal was the startling proposition that the Naval Academy would threaten the peace and security of the nation, rather than protect it. Representative Sawyer of North Carolina, arguing for the Naval Academy clause to be stricken from a Navy Appropriations Bill in 1827, makes this ominous prediction:
The temptation to gain admission there will be irresistible. It will pervade every quarter of the Union. The dull pursuits of civil life will be abandoned; labor will be shunned as ignominious, and a general rush will be made by the higher class of our population for the wide opened doors of this school. This must have a tendency to produce degeneracy and corruption of the public morality, and change our simple Republican habits.
This was by no means the only threat which the proposed Naval Academy might pose to the country. The graduates themselves, trained in the arts of war, would be loosed upon our peaceful Republic, to vent their lust for conflict in civil disorders when there were no wars to occupy their energies. Senator Macon, quoted earlier, wailed, “Don’t you see that these men must have fighting to do, to keep them from doing mischief?”
This type of argument seems exaggerated, but it produced the desired effect. As often as any Secretary of the Navy might introduce a Naval Academy clause into a Naval Appropriations Bill—and they did so no less than ten times between 1814 and 1842—so often would that clause be stricken out.
Many eminent legislators believed that there was no danger of our ever becoming involved in another war. This confidence was based on the insular geographical situation of the United States. Senator Smith of South Carolina, quoted earlier, asked, “Who is to come and make war upon us? Will the Holy Alliance do it? . . . it does not appear to me that any other power or combination will attempt it.”
The same view, more speciously tricked out, was voiced by Senator Thomas H. Benton sixteen years later, in 1843. Senator Benton held office on Capitol Hill for thirty years, during more than twenty of which he was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. He was well qualified, therefore, to speak in authoritative tones. Said Senator Benton: “There will never be another naval action fought for the command of the seas.” Dividing the world neatly in to “powers which recognize the laws of nations” and “barbarian or half barbarian powers which are not amenable to the laws of nations,” he stated that the first group will always be found willing to negotiate any difficulties which might arise, and the second group “can only be found by going to the extremities of the globe.” A real ship-of- the-line Navy, therefore, is an anachronism. A moderate force of cruisers would serve to protect us against any minor piratical powers which might attempt to start a commerceraiding career. A Naval Academy would be inimical to this principle of a limited navy, for its graduates “must have ships and commissions, when they leave the mother’s breast. This Academy commits the government to a great navy, as the Military Academy commits the government to a great army.”
Senator Benton, like many of his constituents, coupled a hazy picture of the history of sea power with utter blindness to its potentialities. In 1844 he offered the opinion that sea power had no effect whatsoever upon the outcome of the Napoleonic Wars. His own succinct statement of his position: “A naval victory decides nothing but which shall have the other’s ships.”
The objections cited thus far have been related to naval officers or the naval policy of the United States. Political considerations, however, were another strong influence on the recurrent Naval Academy controversy. The powerful anti-Federalist element in Congress was bitterly opposed to any extension of executive power, and after 1812 an increasingly large group of legislators arrayed themselves against the Military Academy. The anti-Federalists considered West Point to be a plum for government patronage and constantly strove to block the passage of Military Academy appropriations bills. Representative Hawes of Kentucky submitted a resolution in 1836 proposing a committee to investigate West Point. House efforts to thwart the formation of this committee were bitterly criticized by Franklin Pierce, then a Representative from New York.2 Seven years later, another determined attempt was made to throttle the Military Academy. Representative Orlando Ficklin of Ohio did not mince words:
. . . they ought not to vote an appropriation of a single dollar to that institution, unless the same bill contains a provision, in language as emphatic as it can be made, declaring that this odious, detestable, and aristocratic institution shall be brought to a close.
The proposed Naval Academy, this group argued, would extend the President’s power still further. A Senator in 1827 likened a bill proposing a Naval Academy to the Koran: . . . nearly every chapter in it begins this way—God is great, or God is good; and almost every section of this bill begins with “The President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby authorized.’ ” Other senators expressed the same distaste for any further burgeoning of executive authority. This objection, however, was removed in 1845 by allotting to Congress nearly all Midshipman appointments.
Other political difficulties quickly manifested themselves. Where should the proposed school be located? The Maryland House of Delegates communicated a resolution to Congress in 1826 which pointed out “the superior advantages which the city of Annapolis and its neighborhood possess.” Other areas were not silent: St. Louis, Memphis, Norfolk, Washington, Governor’s Island, Perth Amboy, and New London were some of the potential sites which presented their exclusive qualifications. The members of Congress were quite understandably anxious to avoid the sort of sectional melee which would inevitably result were a Naval Academy authorized and a location sought.
A considerable volume of forensic fire was leveled at the Military Academy because of the large number of its graduates who declined to enter the Army, preferring to employ their government-sponsored training in civilian pursuits. Representative Elijah Mann of New York reported in 1836, “not more than two out of five who entered the Academy remained there long enough to graduate; and not two more out of five graduates entered the Army.” This same group of legislators became equally aroused because the number of West Pointers entering the Army yearly prevented a system of field promotions such as existed in European armies of the day. Ohio’s Senator Ficklin declared, “If West Point did not cost the government a single dollar, I would still be unwilling that the door of promotion should be shut against the honest and deserving soldier, and that a few dandies and band-box heroes should enjoy the monopoly of all the offices.” Every word of criticism directed toward West Point, in this matter as well as in every other, was injurious to the cause of the Naval Academy—which was expected to be erected on the model of the older school.
Neglecting minor objections and arguments ad hominem, Congressmen of the period from 1800 to 1845 were opposed to the projected Naval Academy because:
1. They doubted the value of formal academic training to a military officer;
2. They were convinced that the United States was immune from war;
3. They feared any extension of executive power; and
4. Their dislike for the patronage and preferment associated with West Point was transferred to this new project.
These objections—sufficient to thwart the proposed Naval Academy for forty-five years —cannot seem particularly valid in the light of subsequent history.
1. It is ironic that after so many dogged attempts to obtain authorization from Congress, the Naval Academy was established without any form of legislative sanction.
2. Cried Representative Pierce: “If the appropriation for West Point shall, upon due consideration, receive the sanction of Congress and the country, I can see no limit to the exercise of power and government patronage. Follow out the principle, and where will it lead you? You confer upon the National Government the absolute guardianship of literature and science, military and civil; you need not stop at military science anyone, in the range of sciences, becomes at once a legitimate and constitutional object of your patronage; you are confined by no limit but your discretion; you have no check but your own good pleasure. If you may afford instruction, at public expense, in the languages, in philosophy, in chemistry, and in the exact sciences, to young gentlemen who are under no obligation to enter the service of their country, but are, in fact, destined for civil life, why may you not, by parity of reasoning, provide the means of a legal or theological, or medical education, on the ground that the recipients of your bounty will carry forth a fund of useful knowledge, that may, at some time, under some circumstances, produce a beneficial influence, and promote the ‘general welfare’ Sir, I fear that even some of us may live to see the day when this ‘general welfare’ of your constitution will leave us little ground to boast of a government of limited powers."
3. “Appointed cadet by the President, nominated officer by him, promoted upon his nomination, holding commission at his pleasure, receiving his orders as law, looking to him as the fountain of honor, the source of preferment, the dispenser of agreeable and profitable employment—these cadet officers must naturally feel themselves dependent upon the President.” “We see the effects which are produced by our Military Academy; the annual proselytes which it adds to the administration; but when this vast source of promotion and patronage is added, when there is no limit to the number of admissible, we can readily judge what a powerful engine it may prove in favor of the Government.”