Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (Charles City, Iowa) 1861-1864, 1862-04-03
NUMBER Ia.

. l.. hts ol Ie navy, Wherever, perform
ed, are their exploits, that its glory is
tn IL glory, and that while they are
taxing themselves to support it, they
are supporting the right arm Of the
national defence. / desire the citizen
OF the most remote frontier to feel thas
he is equally protected and equally
honored 10y the brave deeds of our ma.
val officers with the citizen of the
Atlantic coast. wish the men of
Iowa and Minnesota to know that they
are as effectually defended in their lib.
critics at home, as well as their honor
abroad, by the achievements of Dupont
and Goldsborough, Stringham and
Foote, on the water, as they can be by
any victories won by our armies on the
land.
Mr.. President, ours must be great
maritime nation. Heaven has ordain-
ed that it should be such, and we
could not make it otherwise if we
would We have a coast both on the
Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, which
with its numerous indcntations is ma
ny thousand miles in extent, occupied
10y a hardy martial population, and
fianked on either side by soils aud cli-
mates that furnish the most valuable
productions of the globe, which must
be supplied to other nations. On the
north we have a succession Of great
lakes bearing upon their bosoms
registered commercial tonnage Of
nearly half million, and navigatcd
10y race Of daring, Industrious West
ern seamen. Unlike any other mari
time nation, ours is traversed by nav
igahle rivers, thousands of miles in
length, floating an inland commerce.
unequalled by any other country in
the world, except possibly China, and
capable of navigation by armed ves-
sells of great capacity. With coun-
try of such extent, Il soil and climate
furnishing such productions, and a
population along our ocean, gulf, bay,
and river coasts accustomed to navi-
cation, who does not see that ours
must, from the very nature of our
gcogra phical position and the confor-
nation OF our continent, become y
great commercial people? Our pro-
ducts must be borne TO remote nations
in our own ships navigatcd 10y our own
scamcn, and protected wherever they
go 10y our own vessels of war.
| know not with whom originated
the phrase 4" the navy is the right arm
of the public defence" but | know
that truer sentiment was never ut
tered. In my conviction it will al
ways be in this country the most efii-
cicnt and far the least dangerous arm
of the public service by which to
maintain the national integrity and
defend the national honor. History
teaches us that every nation that has
depended upon navy for protection
has been comparatively free by the
side of those which have placed their
reliance upon armies. | need not 60
back to antiquity to prove this. I
point TO Holland and England in mod
crn times. The former, while she con-
tinued to be the power on earth, was
the ircest Government on earth, and
only began to he shorn of her liberties
and of her territory when she neglec-
ted to maintain her fleets. England.
the most liberal of all Governments
save our own, is in no small degree
indebted for her present position to-
the fact that she maintains only a
small military force on the British ISL
aIds, and relies upon her wooden
walls as means Of attack and defence.
She puts no faith in large standing
armies, and will not until her people
shall be prepared to surrender their
frc edom. With her garrisoncd pos
sessions encircling the globe her en-
tire military establishment does not
exceed 10000 men. France, Aus
tria, Russia, and Prussia, maintain
large standing armies on their own
soil, and in those countries the liberty
of the people is measured 10y the will
of the sovereigns. The freedom they
enjoy is gratuity of Emperors and
Kings ; the servltude they endure is
enforced by the presence of standing
armies. The people Of this country
can never accept the rights which they
enjoy as the gift Of any being inferior
To their Creator. | do not believe that
anybody but the public enemy has had
anything to fear from the numerous
and well appointed armies we have
raised, yet no one Of us is prepared
to say that with an army much longer
isolated from home scenes and home
ideas. concentrated in large bodies
and taught the most implicit obedi-
ence, danger TO our free Institutions
might not arise.
No such danger can arise from tie
existence of IA navy, however large or
however commanded. Seamen are
cosmopol;tans. Always employed and
generally afioat they never become as
armies sometimes do, as dangerous to
friends in time of peace as to ene-
mics in time of war.
! might so on to show that, situat-
cd as all our large cities are upon
arms of the sea or upon navigable
rivers, the navy might be made more
efficient in suppressing domestic in
surrection as well as repelling foreign
invasion, than the army. might
show too that, Notwithstanding much
that has been said by professed statis-
ticians, the support of a navy is much
less expensive in comparison with the
service it renders to maritime ma
tion, than that Of an army. but | shalt
not detain the Senate by entering up.
on such an exposition at this time.
As | said at the outset, my purpose
in rising to address the Senate at this
time was TO call the attention of the
country to the successful operations
ef the Western fotilla, but cannot
refrain from alluding for one moment
to the successes Of our navy else.
where. The whole southwestern At
lantic coast has been swept by the
feet of the gallant Dupont. and is
now efl'ectually held by both an inside
and an outside blockede. The enemy
have been driven from the waters Of
North Carolina by Goldsborough and
their coast towns occupied and !