The fundamental United States naval policy is "To maintain the Navy in strength and readiness to uphold national policies and interests, and to guard the United States and its continental and overseas possessions." But in 1796, America had no Navy to speak of. After the revolutionary war, congress could not maintain or support a navy and sold it's last... ship in the Continental Navy.
Without a Navy and without protection from the Royal Navy of Great Britain, American merchant ships were unprotected on the seas from Barbary pirates. So, in 1794, Congress acted to provide a permanent standing naval force of the United States and what would eventually become the present-day United States Navy. In January of 1794, a bill was presented to the House of Representatives to construct four Navy battle ships. Opposition to this bill was strong and a clause was added that if peace was established with the Algiers (Barbary pirates) the construction of the ships would cease. Then In 1795, Washington began paying tribute to Algiers to obtain peace, and congress halted the construction of the ships. Perhaps at strong urging from Thomas Jefferson, Washington approached congress to allow construction on the three ships that were nearest to completion, USS Constitution (shown in picture), USS Constellation and USS United States. Washington knew that a strong navy was needed not only during times of war, but as a deterrent to war in the first place. In 1796, Washington addressed congress with these words:
"But besides this, it is in our own experience that the most sincere neutrality is not a sufficient guard against the depredations of nations at war. To secure respect to a neutral flag requires a naval force organized and ready to vindicate it from insult or aggression. This may even prevent the necessity of going to war by discouraging belligerent powers from committing such violations of the rights of the neutral party as may, first or last, leave no other option. From the best information I have been able to obtain it would seem as if our trade to the Mediterranean without a protecting force will always be insecure and our citizens exposed to the calamities from which numbers of them have but just been relieved.
These considerations invite the United States to look to the means, and to set about the gradual creation of a navy. The increasing progress of their navigation promises them at no distant period the requisite supply of sea-men, and their means in other respects favor the undertaking. It is an encouragement, likewise, that their particular situation will give weight and influence to a moderate naval force in their hands. Will it not, then, be advisable to begin without delay to provide and lay up the materials for the building and equipping of ships of war, and to proceed in the work by degrees, in proportion as our resources shall render it practicable without inconvenience, so that a future war of Europe may not find our commerce in the same unprotected state in which it was found by the present?"
Opinion of Thomas Jefferson while still a member of Washington's cabinet
As a member of Washington's cabinet, and even before then Thomas Jefferson had been in favor of a strong navy. While he may have opposed a strong militia, he felt that a strong navy would not endanger our liberties but rather protect it. He believed that the construction of naval ships was ultimately cheaper than the paying of ransom and tribute to the pirates. From an article by Gerald Gawalt:
"Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America's minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, "I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro' the medium of war." Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: "The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both." "From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money," Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, "it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://files.thecobbs.com/
http://www.ibiblio.org/
http://memory.loc.gov/.../jefferson_papers/mtjprece.html
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