political or geographical, in any way resembling the times of Jefferson, and that from the changed conditions may result to us a dilemma similar to that which confronted him and his supporters?  Not only have we grown,—­that is a detail,—­but the face of the world is changed, economically and politically.  The sea, now as always the great means of communication between nations, is traversed with a rapidity and a certainty that have minimized distances.  Events which under former conditions would have been distant and of small concern, now happen at our doors and closely affect us.  Proximity, as has been noted, is a fruitful source of political friction, but proximity is the characteristic of the age.  The world has grown smaller.  Positions formerly distant have become to us of vital importance from their nearness.  But, while distances have shortened, they remain for us water distances, and, however short, for political influence they must be traversed in the last resort by a navy, the indispensable instrument by which, when emergencies arise, the nation can project its power beyond its own shore-line.

Whatever seeming justification, therefore, there may have been in the transient conditions of his own day for Jefferson’s dictum concerning a navy, rested upon a state of things that no longer obtains, and even then soon passed away.  The War of 1812 demonstrated the usefulness of a navy,—­not, indeed, by the admirable but utterly unavailing single-ship victories that illustrated its course, but by the prostration into which our seaboard and external communications fell, through the lack of a navy at all proportionate to the country’s needs and exposure.  The navy doubtless reaped honor in that brilliant sea struggle, but the honor was its own alone; only discredit accrued to the statesmen who, with such men to serve them, none the less left the country open to the humiliation of its harried coasts and blasted commerce.  Never was there a more lustrous example of what Jomini calls “the sterile glory of fighting battles merely to win them.”  Except for the prestige which at last awoke the country to the high efficiency of the petty force we called our navy, and showed what the sea might be to us, never was blood spilled more uselessly than in the frigate and sloop actions of that day.  They presented no analogy to the outpost and reconnoissance fighting, to the detached services, that are not only inevitable but invaluable, in maintaining the morale of a military organization in campaign.  They were simply scattered efforts, without relation either to one another or to any main body whatsoever, capable of affecting seriously the issues of war, or, indeed, to any plan of operations worthy of the name.