[{"command":"add_css","data":[{"rel":"stylesheet","media":"all","href":"\/sites\/default\/files\/css\/css_veuEhhb1658wti0_ZAig66JOyixENU-N9zhjLQSLfOQ.css?delta=0\u0026language=en\u0026theme=heritage_theme\u0026include=eJwrTi1LzdNPzkksLq7Uy8tPSQUAPMsGtA"}]},{"command":"invoke","selector":null,"method":"openEssay","args":["10000052","\n\n\u003Carticle about=\u0022\/constitution\/articles\/1\/essays\/53\/navy-clause\u0022 class=\u0022node node--type-constitution-essay node--promoted node--view-mode-embedded clearfix\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Ch1 class=\u0022title\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan\u003ENavy Clause\u003C\/span\u003E\n\u003C\/h1\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-location\u0022\u003E\n      Article I, Section 8, Clause 13\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-context\u0022\u003E\n      \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Congress shall have Power To ...provide and maintain a Navy....\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-body\u0022\u003E\n    \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 1641, an act of Parliament firmly over-ruled King Charles\u2019s assertion that he had a right under royal prerogative to appropriate funds to develop a navy. The Framers of the Constitution followed Parliament\u2019s example and lodged the power to provide a navy in the legislative branch. But because the Founding generation considered navies to be less dangerous to republican liberty than standing armies, the Navy Clause did not elicit the same level of debate as did the Army Clause (\u003Ci\u003Esee\u003C\/i\u003E Article I, Section 8, Clause 12). Their experience taught them that armies, not navies, were the preferred tools of tyrants. Readers of Thucydides could view a navy as particularly compatible with democratic institutions. As Robert Delahunty has noted, the Framers were extremely well informed, not only about the politics and constitutions of the ancient world, but also about those of modern European history. Thus, they were well aware that the Venetian navy underpinned that city\u2019s republican institutions, much as the Athenian navy had protected rather than threatened the city\u2019s democracy; that the same was true of the navies of republican Holland; and that Britain, though in form a monarchy, was in truth a commercial republic whose liberty and prosperity depended on its fleet. It would not be going too far to say that the Founders came close to the insight of later students of history that the United States, like Britain, Holland, Venice, and Athens before it, is geopolitically an island, and that its insulation from land warfare which this afforded was an important factor in the emergence and survival of its liberal institutions.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Framers were also aware of how much the economic prosperity and even the survival of the country depended upon seagoing trade. Consequently, the Framers imposed no time limit on naval appropriations as they did in the case of the army.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EJohn Adams deserves credit as the great patron of the United States Navy. In October 1775 in the Second Continental Congress, Adams successfully overcame opposition and convinced Congress to begin outfitting ships to defend American interests in the war with Britain. In the 1780s, the United States possessed one of the principal merchant fleets in the world, but it was largely defenseless. In June 1785 Congress voted to sell the one remaining ship of the Continental Navy, a frigate, leaving the fledgling nation with only a fleet of small Treasury Department revenue cutters for defense.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EDuring the contest over the Constitution, both Federalists and Anti-Federalists believed that maritime trade was necessary if the United States was to maintain its independence of action, but they disagreed over how to protect this trade. Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton argued for a federal navy, which \u201cif it could not vie with those of the great maritime powers, would at least be of respectable weight if thrown into the scale of either of two contending parties.\u201d Hamilton maintained in \u003Ci\u003EThe Federalist\u003C\/i\u003E No. 11 that without a navy, \u201c[a] nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.\u201d Anti-Federalists argued that instead of defending American commerce and guaranteeing American neutrality, creating a navy would provoke the European powers and invite war. They were also concerned about the expense of maintaining a navy and the distribution of that expense. In the Virginia ratifying convention, William Grayson argued that, despite the fact that a navy would not appreciably reduce the vulnerability of southern ports, the South would bear the main burden of naval appropriations.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe wisdom of granting Congress the power to provide and maintain a navy became evident during the two decades after the framing and ratification of the Constitution. As Europe once again erupted in war, American merchantmen increasingly found themselves at the mercy of British and French warships and the corsairs of the Barbary States. Only the rapid creation of a navy under John Adams\u2019s brilliant Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Stoddert, permitted the United States to hold its own in the Quasi-War with France (1798\u20131800) and the War of 1812 with the British.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThough Adams and Hamilton disagreed vehemently on the need to raise an army during the Quasi-War with France, they were fully in accord on the value of a strong navy. Adams had long argued that the army was less necessary than the navy, for he believed that the United States was best protected by the \u201cwooden walls\u201d of a well-funded navy. Thomas Jefferson believed differently, however, and under his administration the navy floundered and remained largely unfunded. It was because of the War of 1812 and the extraordinary feats of older American frigates like the \u003Ci\u003EU.S.S. Constitution \u003C\/i\u003Ethat the country came around, beginning\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Ewith the administration of James Monroe, to an unbroken consensus that a strong navy was essential to preserving American liberty.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Navy Clause has changed little, if at all, in practice. Neither have the arguments for and against naval power. Indeed, many of the major debates over foreign policy that have taken place since the middle of the nineteenth century were adumbrated by those between Federalists and Anti-Federalists during the framing of the Constitution.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ESimilarly, despite vast technological changes, the character of the Navy as a service, in contrast to the Army, has not altered much. While the \u201ccitizen soldier\u201d envisioned by the Founders has virtually disappeared from the Army of today, today\u2019s sailor, both officer and enlisted, has much in common with his predecessor who manned the Navy of the Constitution, technical expertise excepted. Although service reforms beginning in the latter decades of the nineteenth century created a powerful Navy, the foundation of this Navy was laid by the likes of Hamilton, Adams, Benjamin Stoddert, and other Federalists who recognized the shortcomings of a navy limited to coastal defense alone.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe main changes affecting the Navy, if not the Navy Clause, have to do with defense organization, primarily the National Security Act of 1947 (and subsequent modifications). These include downgrading the Department of the Navy from a Cabinet department and the creation of the Air Force as a separate branch of the armed forces.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--media\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--photo\u0022 style=\u0022background-image: url(\/sites\/default\/files\/Mackubin_Owens.jpg)\u0022\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--info\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Ch4 class=\u0022con-essay-author--name\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.usnwc.edu\/Academics\/Faculty\/Mackubin-Owens-(1).aspx\u0022\u003EMackubin Owens\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/h4\u003E\n                  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--job\u0022\u003E\n         Professor of National Security Affairs, United States Naval War College\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-tabs\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cul data-tabs class=\u0022tabs\u0022\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000052-taba\u0022\u003EFurther Reading\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000052-tabb\u0022\u003ECase Law\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000052-tabc\u0022\u003ERelated Essays\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n      \u003C\/ul\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv data-tabs-content\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000052-taba\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorge W. Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power (1994)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDemetrios Caraley, The Politics of Military Unification: A Study of Conflict and the Policy Process (1966)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERobert J. Delahunty, \u003Ci\u003EStructuralism and the War Powers:\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003EThe Army, Navy, and Militia Clauses, \u003C\/i\u003E19 Ga. St. U.\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003EL. Rev. 1021 (2003)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp style=\u0022margin-left:16px; text-align:justify; text-indent:-11.95pt\u0022\u003ETHE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: DOCUMENTS ON ESTABLISHMENT AND ORGANIZATION, 1944\u20131978 (Alice C. Cole et al., eds., 1978)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp style=\u0022margin-left:16px; text-align:justify; text-indent:-11.95pt\u0022\u003EMARSHALL SMELSER, THE CONGRESS FOUNDS THE NAVY, 1787\u20131798 (1959, reprint 1973)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp style=\u0022margin-left:16px; text-align:justify; text-indent:-11.95pt\u0022\u003ECRAIG L. SYMONDS, NAVALISTS AND ANTINAVALISTS: THE NAVAL POLICY DEBATE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1785\u20131827 (1980)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp style=\u0022margin-left:16px; text-align:justify; text-indent:-11.95pt\u0022\u003EROBERT W. TUCKER \u0026amp; DAVID C. HENDRICKSON, EMPIRE OF LIBERTY: THE STATECRAFT OF THOMAS JEFFERSON (1990)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000052-tabb\u0022\u003E\n          \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000052-tabc\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000048\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EDeclare War\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000051\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EArmy Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000053\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EMilitary Regulations\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n\u003C\/article\u003E\n"]}]