Ship Building Quotes
Jefferson was worried that the Federal Government would get too expansive and justify almost any activity using the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. In this example, he goes from the responsibility for National Defense which is clearly Federal down to the hiring of the miners to produce the copper to arm the ships and shipbuilding which he thought were NOT legitimate Federal activities. He was right in the sense that the Commerce Clause did justify major Federal expansion, but at the times of the expansions and now most Americans thought that the expansions were useful and necessary. Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were on opposite sides of the degree of expansion that was desirable.
This historical quotation is the “pitch” President Adams made to the Congress to establish the U. S. Naval Academy. It would be 18 more years before the Academy opened. Congress was not very rapid in its decision making even then.
Raiders operating out of the Barbary Coast typically would attack any American shipping seizing the goods and the ship and ransoming the crew or passengers or selling them as slaves. English and French governments had paid the Tripoli tribute for safe passage. The President and Congress sent American ships to in effect blockade the corsairs in their harbors.
The debate was on a bill to provide a 9.5 million pound subsidy to the Cunard company which had run out of money trying to build the first over 1000 foot ocean liner. Like the Hoover administration in the U. S, the idea of government economic development was not approved by the British Government. However, at the urging of Kirkwood. Lord Weir and the Prince of Wales the subsidy was voted. The result of the bailout was The Queen Mary.
