been expended upon
the Navy, our ships would have covered every sea, and the Navy would
have grown of itself. Instead of that, we have been constructing the
navy as an exotic, forcing it to grow without a favoring atmosphere,
establishing it with officers and not with men, educating cadets on
land, and not educating sailors on the ocean.

The Democratic party in Congress was hostile to every movement for the
encouragement of our carrying trade, and the Republican party was
fatally divided. The men who had earnestly attempted to do something
were therefore constantly defeated and compelled to abandon the effort.
Following this came the demand for the ships, which meant simply that
American capitalists might secure the registry of the United States
for vessels built in English ship-yards and manned with English
sailors. This is the last movement necessary to complete the dominion
of Great Britain over the sea, to complete the humiliation of the
United States as a commercial country. It would abolish the art of
ship-building on this side of the Atlantic, would educate no American
sailor, except in the coasting trade. As a result, our naval vessels,
if a Navy should be maintained, would necessarily be constructed where
the merchant vessels were constructed; and the last point of absurdity
in this policy would be reached when, in case of possible conflict with
a European Power, we should be dependent for naval vessels upon a
foreign country from which we could be cut off by the superior strength
of our opponent on the sea.

With a more extended frontage on the two great oceans of the world than
any other nation; with a larger freightage than that of any other
nation, it will be a reproach to the United States, more pointed and
decisive every year, if it neglects to establish a policy which shall
develop a mercantile marine, and as the outgrowth of the mercantile
marine, a Navy adequate to all the wants of the Republic. If Congress,
in the sixteen years following the war, had given a tithe of
encouragement to the building and sailing of ships, that it has wisely
given to manufactures, to the construction of railways, and to every
industrial pursuit on land, our flag would before the close of that
period have stood relatively on the ocean as strong and permanent as
it stood before steam was applied to the carrying trade of the world.
In those sixteen years the Government expended more than three hundred
millions on th