Rough Waters. Rodney Carisle
the earliest days of the republic, the application of the honor code and its language to maritime and international affairs became embodied in treaties, public pronouncements, founding documents, political disputation, and presidential statements. When the United States obtained its independence, almost its only contact with the other nations of the world was by sea.16 If U.S. merchant ships were recognized and treated at sea with the same respect as ships from other independent nations, that respect would represent the world’s acceptance of the United States’ equal status as a sovereign state. If U.S. merchant ships and seamen were not extended the rights and status on the high seas that went with sovereignty, that disrespect would represent both a failure to treat the United States as a sovereign nation and a failure to accord the U.S. ships the freedom of the seas. In territorial waters, diplomatic recognition and respect were not the only concerns; treatment of ships engaged in mundane practices—such as entering and leaving harbors, discharging and receiving cargoes, paying port and harbor charges, and being subject to quarantine in times of plague or contagion—was also important. Recognition of and respect for the U.S. merchant flag was both a matter of honor and a matter of practical importance.
These practical matters were regulated by amity, commerce, and navigation (ACN) treaties, which defined exactly how U.S. honor was to be protected and respected. Such treaties, later called friendship, commerce, and navigation (FCN) treaties, were signed by the United States and dozens of other countries.17 One of the first of these treaties, which served at least as a partial model for later such treaties, was Jay’s Treaty with Great Britain, signed in 1794. Jay’s Treaty used vocabulary common in the honor code.
The ACN treaties of the era all reflect similar language, and all were intended to record other nations’ obligation to treat U.S. merchant ships with the proper expected courtesies and procedures, under the principle of freedom of the seas propounded by Grotius. The use of terms such as “word of honor,” “respect,” “insult,” and “outrages,” and the courtesy that small boats be used when a crew approached another ship to avoid giving offense—all suggest the degree to which the code of honor carried over to the relations between states on the high seas and in ports. The language was not merely a colorful reminder of the internationally understood honor code or a common maritime rhetoric; it created a set of practical, functioning arrangements designed to facilitate commerce and to ensure that U.S. merchant ships were treated equally with those of other recognized nations.
The honor code and the maritime side of it, with its focus on the flag as the emblem of national identity, thus applied to the merchant flag. A series of clashes between the United States and foreign powers over the treatment of U.S. merchant ships abroad characterized the diplomatic issues of the first few decades of the nation’s existence. The Quasi War with France of 1798–1799, the Barbary Wars of 1803–1808, and the War of 1812 all grew out (wholly or in part) of the failure of foreign nations to extend to U.S. merchant and naval ships the respect or deference consistent with the treatment by one gentleman of the prerogatives and status of another gentleman or the treatment of one recognized sovereign state by another.18
Notably, the rhetoric used in discussing the merchant marine and naval skirmishes that engendered these military clashes was used not only by the gentleman class of the South but also by journalists, politicians, and public assemblies found throughout the fledgling nation. In that era, gentlemen frequently made it clear that they did not regard any journalist as a gentleman; when insulted in an editorial, the proper response was to horsewhip or thrash the offender. Nevertheless, the rhetoric did not simply reflect the elite that dominated the Navy. Nor was it simply a carryover of that language from personal and naval circles to diplomacy. Rather, the rhetoric and the set of values it represented were part and parcel of all national discourse over international affairs.
Honor Code Rhetoric in International Affairs
The use of this language by people other than naval officers, including northern civilians and political leaders of various persuasions, was common throughout the period from the ratification of the Constitution to the War of 1812. Selections from the vast public literature and journalistic comment of the period concerned with maritime issues and foreign policy reflect this theme.
Guadeloupe Incident, 1786
In 1786, during the period of the Articles of Confederation, eighteen U.S. merchant ship masters signed a petition complaining of indignities suffered in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. The complaints indicated a rising demand for a more effective national identity embodied in a national constitution and a national government. In part, the ship masters said, “The little respect that is paid to the American flag and the repeated insults which subjects of the United States meet with in foreign ports, must convince the good people of this continent, that it is absolutely necessary we should invest Congress with a power to regulate our commerce and to support our dignity as free and independent states; without which, we must soon become a reproach and bye-word among the nations.”19
Ratification of the Constitution
A review of the 1787–1788 debates over ratification of the U.S. Constitution reveals numerous discussions regarding the establishment of a navy. Antinavalists argued that a navy would impose a burden on an essentially agricultural and isolated people, that it would favor New England and other coastal regions engaged in maritime pursuits, and that it would be an unneeded expense. Navalists argued that a navy would be necessary to protect U.S. commerce in times of American neutrality and the nation itself in time of war.20
While this strategic thinking appears logical enough by modern standards of realpolitik, some of the vocabulary used was based on appeals to honor and respect. For example, at the Pennsylvania constitutional ratifying convention, James Wilson said, “With what propriety can we hope our flag will be respected, while we have not a single gun to fire in its defence?”21 James Madison reflected a similar sentiment in his choice of words: “Weakness will invite insults.”22
In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton logically spelled out the strategic-commercial reasons for having a navy. However, even in his dispassionate analysis, one sees the evocation of some emotional terms that echo the underlying code. Without a navy, Hamilton reasoned, “our commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other; who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations on our property as often as it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.”23
Hamilton was a passionate follower of the honor code in his personal life, although he had objections to killing someone, out of concern with both the law and religious principles. One study shows he engaged in eleven personal “affairs of honor,” that is, duels, and of course, he famously died in the 1804 duel with Aaron Burr.24
John Jay warned that oversensitivity to foreign “insult” could lead to unjust wars, and he thought the moderating influence of a federal government would help temper such excitements.25
Algerine Pirates and Funding a Navy
Thomas Jefferson, who was generally not in favor of a strong navy, advocated the use of force to preserve national honor in the face of demands for ransom from the Algerine (Barbary) pirates in a letter to John Adams on July 11, 1786.26
George Washington, in his last address to Congress in December 1796, alluded to the problems of U.S. captives in Algiers who, despite Jefferson’s arguments, had been ransomed. He went on to recommend that Congress see to the financing of a navy to protect the nation’s ability to carry on foreign trade as a neutral during time of war between two major foreign belligerents. Washington echoed the themes of respect and insult:
To an active external commerce, the protection of a naval force is indispensible. This is manifest with regard to wars in which a State is itself a party. But besides this, it is in our own experience, that the most sincere neutrality is not sufficient guard against the depredations of nations at war. To secure respect to a neutral flag requires a naval force, organized to vindicate it from insult or aggression. . . .