A large portion of the war party, Western and Southern men, insisted upon confining the conflict with England to operations on land. The navy was not popular with them. They denounced navies generally as curses to the countries which possessed them; as very dangerous to popular liberty; as sources of endless expense without corresponding benefit; as nurseries of debt, corruption, demoralization, and ruin. Especially in the war then in prospect a navy would be absolutely useless, — a curious prediction in the light of subsequent events. Cheves and Lowndes spoke with ability in favor of a maritime armament, but Clay's speech took a wider sweep. He easily disposed of the assertion that a navy was as dangerous to free institutions as a standing army, and then laid down his theory upon which the naval force of the United States should be organized. It should not be such “a force as would be capable of contending with that which any other nation is able to bring on the ocean, — a force that, boldly scouring every sea, would challenge to combat the fleets of other powers, however great.” To build up so extensive an establishment, he admitted, was impossible at the time, and would probably never be desirable. The next species of naval power, which, “without adventuring into distant seas, and keeping generally on our coasts, would be competent to beat off any squadron which might be attempted to be permanently stationed in our waters,” he did deem desirable. Twelve ships of
