Marc Liebman's Blog, page 10

Author Ecke features Marc Liebman – Moscow Airlift and many, many more books

Marc talks about his childhood as well as the books he’s written. Both are authors and they discuss some of the issues in writing historical fiction, what they have learned in the process and how they work.

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Rules of Engagement for Statehood

In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Great Britain ceded an enormous amount of land to the new United States. One way to describe the area is that it was all British territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River south of the Canadian border and north of the British colony of Florida.

Another way to describe it would be to list the 10 states that it contains that were not members of the Thirteen Colonies. They are, in alphabetical order, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Immediately, as shown in the map accompanying this post, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia claimed all the land from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Connecticut claimed a sliver of land west of Pennsylvania. There was still some disputed land on the border of the U.S. and Canada and the southern border of Georgia north of western Florida, which would be resolved over time.

Members of the Continental Congress saw the lines drawn on a map as blatant land grabs by the individual states. So, what could the Continental Congress do?

Under the Articles of Confederation, no executive or judicial branch of government existed, so it could not adjudicate disputes between states. The Continental Congress had limited foreign policy powers and no way to raise money through taxes.

But it could pass laws. Could it enforce them? Not really, since under the Articles of Confederation the Continental Congress was not given any law enforcement power.

To be fair, the land given to the U.S. by Britain and claimed by the individual states was poorly surveyed. Yes, cartographers had drawn maps, but they were more SWAGs than based on accurate data. Nonetheless, legislators in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia understood latitude and used them to draw their lines.

However, Thomas Jefferson thought these claims were absurd and wanted to create a framework to do two things. One, create principles on which new states could be created. Two, end slavery in the U.S. by establishing hard geographic boundaries that would limit its expansion.

Jefferson managed to persuade the Confederation Congress to vote for what is known as the Ordinance of 1784. In it, Jefferson established six principles for new states wanting to join the United States. Understand that the Constitutional Convention was still three years in the future, and the rules governing the admittance of a new state hadn’t yet been created. Yet, the Land Ordinance of 1784 provided a framework in that new states shall:

Remain forever a part of the United States of America. Remain forever a part of the United States of America.Bear the same relation to the confederation as the original states.Pay their apportionment of the federal debts.Uphold republican forms in their government.Be in new states admitted after 1800, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of them.

In well-chosen words, Jefferson laid out the principles for bringing new states into the confederation. With the last “rule,” Jefferson was hoping to limit the number of states in which slavery was practiced to only those where it was when he wrote the law. Ultimately, Jefferson failed because several of these restrictions died in the compromises made when the U.S. Constitution was originally written during the Constitutional Convention.

Admittance to the United States and slavery was a question debated each time a territory applied to become a state. In fact, between 1791 when Vermont was admitted as the 14th state, slavery was an issue 21 times. Kansas was the last stated admitted before the Civil War began and the Union victory put an end to the discussion.

Map shows the claimed boundaries by the original 13 States.

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The Trade That Led to Creation of D.C.

Once the Constitution was ratified and became the law of the land, President George Washington began lobbying Congress to select a site for the seat of the national government. Constitutionally, President Washington was well within his rights and power to ask Congress to create a location for the government’s headquarters.

Article I, Section 6, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution that created the legislative branch says it has the power “To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings…”

The framers of the Constitution were clear in their direction in how big and who would govern it but not where. At the time, the Federal Government was based in New York City. Prior to New York, the Continental Congress had been in Philadelphia.

Fresh in our Founding Father’s minds was that New York City was occupied by the British Army from the summer of 1776 to November 1783. During the war, the Continental Congress moved to Baltimore, Lancaster, and York when Philadelphia was threatened by the British Army. It also left the Pennsylvania city when threatened by the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, operating first from Trenton, NJ, then Annapolis, MD, and finally Princeton, NJ, before returning to Philadelphia.

A national capital was not a new idea. Several sites were proposed under the Articles of Confederation, and all were in either NY, NJ, or PA, something the southern states would not accept. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress did not have the power to create a national capital, so the issue died until the new Constitution empowered the Federal government to create a home.

The location that made it through the House of Representatives was in Columbia, Pennsylvania on the Susquehanna River between York and Lancaster.

The Senate bill specified a site on the Delaware River near Germantown, PA. Both the House and Senate dug in on their choice, and a compromise did not seem possible since the Southern States voiced their opposition to any capital in a Northern “location.”

However, Congress also faced another thorny issue: the debt accrued during the War for Independence. The U.S. owed money to many of its own citizens, as well as France, Spain, and the Netherlands. Worse, depending on the loan or bond, it was either in or about to be in default.

Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, proposed that the Federal Government assume all the debt and be responsible for repaying it. Again, the Southern States, which had repaid the money they borrowed to help finance the war, were opposed because it meant their citizens would be forced to pick up a portion of the $21.5 million (~$729,906,304 in April 2024).

Credit Thomas Jefferson, then the Secretary of State, to bring James Madison and Alexander Hamilton together at a private dinner to see if they could work out a deal. What emerged and was ultimately passed were two bills. One was The Residence Act of 1790 which created the District of Columbia on the north shore of the Potomac.

In return for the Maryland location, Madison and the Southern states dropped their opposition to the Federal government picking up the tab for the Northern States debt allowing the Assumption Act of 1790 to be passed in which the Federal government assumed all remaining war debts and guaranteed payment. The passage of the two bills is also known as the Compromise of 1790.

Image is Thomas Jefferson’s 1791 sketch of his concept of the Federal City, Library of Congress.

 

 

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England’s Country Children

When the last transport sailed out of New York harbor on November 25th, 1783, the British left behind more than 13 newly independent colonies. They left an infrastructure that formed the basis of the newly created United States.

What our Founding Fathers inherited, after eight years and four months of war, was not perfect by any standard. The former British subjects were venturing into a brave new world as they created a new country.

British rule since 1620 (the arrival of the Mayflower), as much as the colonists disliked it, provided the foundation. The Founding Fathers weren’t starting with a clean sheet of paper.

Each of the Thirteen Colonies had a representative legislature and an executive branch in the form of a Royal Governor’s office. Each colony had a court system, laws that governed commerce, and, amazingly enough, a postal system that in 1783, routinely delivered mail from New York to Philadelphia in less than two days. One could send letters up and down the coast with reasonable assurance it would be delivered within a week or two. We also had 18 universities that were founded before the revolution began and some had law and medical schools. We also had a vibrant and very, very free press.

What the new United States didn’t have was a stable currency, or a central bank or a strong central government. Yes, the economy was a mess, the Continental Congress was deeply in debt to its own citizens and to the Dutch, French and Spanish, all of whom paid for our independence.

The yoke of British rule was gone leaving the Thirteen Colonies with more positives than negatives. Most important the Founding Fathers were committed to making the new republic work. Within five years, the U.S. Constitution, the longest-serving document of its kind in the world, was ratified, and the U.S. was off to the races.

The legacy that the British left the new United States goes underappreciated. Without the infrastructure, the new U.S. would have had a much more difficult time becoming established and successful. In many ways, what British colonial policy left us was a precursor to what was to come in the 1840s.

One can make an argument that the British Parliament saw the success of the U.S. and encouraged its colonies to have a “responsible government” that enabled the colony to be self-governing. The change in attitude was also in England’s self-interest to nip future rebellions in the bud.

Note, however, that representation in how England formulated colonial was not part of the new policies. As it could in the 1770s, Parliament could pass legislation without input from the affected colony.

The first to have a “responsible government” was Canada which initially formed with Nova Scotia and what is now known as Ontario in 1848. The former penal colony known as Australia was next when Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Tasmania, and New Zealand were granted self-government under the Australian Constitutions Act of 1850.

Time and space of this blog does not allow a detailed discussion of what and how this happened, but suffice it to say that by 1907, New Zealand was “independent” of Australia, and in 1910, South Africa had self-rule. This left the crown jewel of the British Empire, India as the biggest colony still under British rule. In 1947, India became independent. As with the Thirteen Colonies in 1783, the British left behind an infrastructure that enabled India to transition to independence and self-governance.

What is interesting to note is that as former British colonies became independent, the majority did so without conflict. This is a testament to the British who, while they ruled them, put in place the infrastructure that enabled them to succeed as countries.

For this, the Brits are the mother country to many of the world’s democracies. I don’t believe that British leaders were farsighted enough to plan it this way, it happened because of policies that made it easier to rule their empire and generate wealth for England.

British Empire Flag circa 1921 courtesy of the Royal Museum Greenwich

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There’s Ice and Then There’s ICE!

As I write this story, it is early March 2024 when I often think about a flight in a Piper Turbo Aztec that involved icing way back in March 1978. My logbook shows I took off from Louisville International Airport (now Mohammed Ali International), flew to Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City, OK.

For those of you who do not know a Piper Turbo Aztec from a hole in the wall, it is a light twin-engine airplane that seats six; has a large cargo compartment in the nose and a baggage compartment aft of the third row of seats. Originally designed in the 1950s by the Stinson Aircraft Company, the plane was initially built and sold as the Piper Apache until Piper swapped out the 150-hp Lycoming O-320s engines for 250-hp Lycoming O-540s and called the plane the Piper Aztec.

The Aztec kept original wing design along with the carburetors on the non-turbocharged engines. To improve its high-altitude performance, Piper installed turbocharged TIO-540s that produced 250 horsepower and called it a Turbo Aztec. The turbocharged Aztec easily cruised at 180 knots at 12,000 with four people, some baggage, and full fuel. If you took off in an F model Turbo Aztec with 177 gallons of 100 octane fuel (thanks to the optional 40 gallon “long range tanks”), at 12,000 feet, the Turbo Aztec burned about 16 gph per engine at 75% power. This allowed for five hours of flying with a 45-minute reserve.

When I took off from Louisville in a PA-23-250F Turbo Aztec, the weather in Oklahoma City was 3,000 overcast, and the temperature on the ground was 34 degrees Fahrenheit. From a go-no-go perspective, the weather was marginal, and the forecast did not call for icing, even though the conditions for icing did exist. The FAA weatherman said “airframe ice was possible” which it was. Experience also told me that forecasts for icing were hit and miss, and I decided to launch. Afterall, I had an important meeting in OKC.

For those of you who fly, know that icing can occur when the temperature is 0 degrees Centigrade (32 degrees Fahrenheit) or colder, there is visible moisture and a supercooled surface. Clouds – even if there is no precipitation – qualify as visible moisture, and flying airplanes provide the supercooled surface.

Those who fly business and military jets and airliners use high rates of climb and descent that take the plane up through icing layers in seconds. And most have a surfeit of excess power to enable the plane to easily climb out of icing conditions. This isn’t true with many piston-engine General Aviation airplanes in which icing is evil. I’d encountered ice several times while flying helicopters in the Navy and in general aviation airplanes. Each time, I managed to climb above or descend below the altitude where the icing was occurring.

Enroute, I radioed a Flight Service Station and learned the weather in OKC was deteriorating as forecast. The ceiling was now down to 2,000 feet and expected to be around 1,000 feet and the new piece of info from the Flight Service station was that it was now forecast to start raining around when I arrived. At the time, he didn’t have any reports of icing in the vicinity of OKC so I continued the trip.

When instructed to contact Oklahoma City Approach, I’d already been cleared to descend from 12,000 feet (my favorite cruising altitude) to 4,000 and asked the approach controller to let me stay at 4,000. The approach controller said that an airliner landing at OKC had encountered ice between 2,000 and 3,000 feet. I wanted to stay above that altitude until I intercepted the ILS localizer. 

Once I started down toward the runway, my plan was to keep my speed up, descend quickly through the icing and intercept the glide slope. Once below the clouds, and with the runway in sight, I’d lower the flaps and landing gear and land. Will Rogers has two 9,800-foot-long parallel runways so if I landed long, it wouldn’t be a problem. 

There are two kinds of icing. Rime which looks like gloppy snow attached to a wall and clear, which is transparent. Both increase drag, reduce lift, and add weight, a lot of it.

Cleared for the ILS to Runway 35 Right, I double checked to make sure the pitot heat and propeller de-ice was turned while keeping the course deviation needle on the horizontal situation indicator (HSI) centered to ensure the plane was on the localizer. A gentle push and nose down trim lowered the Turbo Aztec’s nose. It accelerated as I descended and almost immediately, the plane started to pick up ice. 

Rime ice appeared first. I could see it on the probe for the outside air temperature gauge and along the leading edge of the wing. Then, passing 2,500, the freezing rain started.

Normally, in the Turbo Aztec, I flew the ILS glideslope at 110 knots, props set at 2,400 rpm, mixture rich, 20 inches of manifold pressure, and half flaps. In a normal approach, I’d cross the runway threshold at about 90 knots, and just above the runway, close the throttles, bleed off some airspeed, flare, and touch down. 

Not this time! The landing gear would be lowered at the outer marker as I started down the glide slope. Full flaps would be selected once I had the runway in sight, but not this time. 

I kept the Turbo Aztec at 140 knots and llmost instantly, the plane was coated with clear ice and began to descend faster from the additional weight and drag. Instead of the 20 inches of manifold pressure and 110 knots I’d normally use, the manifold pressure gauge showed each engine at 30 inches, which is what I needed to maintain 140 knots, stay on the glideslope, and descend at around 500 feet per minute. 

More power would be needed to level off and even more if I wanted to wave off and climb. How much more, I did not know which meant I was committed to landing.

The windshield de-ice couldn’t keep up with the ice accumulation, and the only way I could tell I had descended below the clouds was by looking out the side windows. The altimeter said the Turbo Aztec was descending through 1,200 feet. By the time I popped out of the overcast, I had increased the power to 32 inches of manifold pressure to stay on the glideslope. Max power at sea level was 39 inches of manifold pressure so I was running out of available power.

To see out front, I crabbed the airplane to point the nose to the right to look out the left side window. The maneuver let me see the runway but also increased the rate of descent. I did it twice to make sure I was lined up with the runway centerline as I struggled to keep the ILS and glide slope needles centered. They were the only reference I had to guide me down to the runway.

Once out of the clouds, I triggered the pneumatic boots on the wings. They inflated, popped off some clear ice that was quickly replaced with more from the rain hitting the leading edge of the wing. 

Using flaps was out of the question because while they provided additional lift, they also produced drag, something I didn’t need. And, with the ice on the wings, I wasn’t sure if the flaps on both wings would extend equally. At about one-half mile from the runway, I raised the nose to slow the Turbo Aztec and lowered the landing gear at 120 knots. Three things happened almost at once.

One, the gear came down and the green lights indicating the main mounts and nosewheel had locked in place in the down position came on. That was the only good thing. Two, the airplane slowed dramatically and three, the Turbo Aztec’s rate of descent increased.

Both throttles went to the forward stop for all the power the engines could produce, i.e., 39 inches of manifold pressure. The plane leveled off about 100 feet over the runway threshold at about 120 knots and I could see out the side windows I was over the runway. 

The plane started down when I eased the power back a couple of inches. Close to the runway, I eased back a bit more and raised the nose slightly to flare and hopefully cushion the landing.

Normally, the Turbo Aztec stalls at around 60 knots with full flaps or at about 70 with the gear and flaps up. Today, the Turbo Aztec simply stopped flying somewhere around 100 knots about five feet above the runway and landed with a noticeable thump.

Sheets of clear ice slid off the wings. More came off the fuselage as I closed the throttles and held the nose up to use drag to slow the plane down. Below 60 knots, S-turns down the runway let me see through the cabin side windows where to turn off the runway.

On the taxiway after clearing the runway, I stopped the Turbo Aztec and told Ground Control that I had left ice littering the runway. The pause also allowed me to collect my thoughts and let my knees shake. 

By the time I parked in front of Atlantic Aviation, the temperature had dropped to 320 Fahrenheit, and freezing rain was coating the Turbo Aztec. I didn’t care because I was done flying for the day. 

That night, I lay in bed, unable to sleep. By brain let me know in vivid terms how close I had become to being a statistic and a smoking hole in the ground.

This was a classic case of “get there it is,” and in retrospect, I should never have left Louisville. Confidence in my flying skills as a one who flew helicopters and fixed wing machines day and night and in any weather conditions let me down a path that maybe I shouldn’t have taken. 

In my logbook, along the with the Turbo Aztec’s model and registration number, total and actual instrument flight time, there’s a note in the Remarks block – heavy rime & clear ice. Those five words don’t come close to telling the whole story.

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Changing of the Guard Takes Time

If one looks at the patterns and foreign policy actions of U.S. and British leaders between 1783 and 1812, one can see that old feelings and hatreds are not easily overcome. They drove policy.

For example, as well done as the 1783 Treaty of Paris was, it still left unresolved issues on the table that both sides agreed to settle “later.” Unfortunately, the Confederation Congress (as the Continental Congress called itself) was powerless to deal with them now that the War for Independence was over. The Articles of Confederation gave most of the power to the 13 states and the Confederation Congress was powerless to adjudicate issues over simple items such as legal disputes between a citizens in two different states. Conducting foreign policy was beyond its capabilities even though it did so during the revolution.

The Confederation Congress could not use its power of the purse to change the behavior of state leaders because it was broke. It did not have the power to levy taxes and had to go to the individual states and ask (beg?) for money.

Our Founding Fathers, the same men who led a war against England, the richest and most powerful country in the world, shifted gears. They created the Constitution of the United States, which is the longest-serving document of its kind. But I digress.

Between 1783 and 1795, when the Jay Treaty was signed and ratified by Congress, the U.S. was often at loggerheads with Great Britain who was routinely violating the Treaty of Paris. The Jay Treaty brought some breathing space so the Founding Fathers could figure out how to make the newly ratified Constitution work.

Unfortunately, the French Revolution started in 1792, and Thomas Jefferson, an avowed Francophile, was up to his armpits helping those who wanted to create a republican France. Jefferson hated England and wanted to align the U.S. with France in its battle with the monarchies who were trying to put a Bourbon king back on the throne in France.

Jefferson fought tooth and nail to defeat the ratification of the Jay Treaty. He lost when President George Washington lobbied the Congress to ratify the agreement. Once he became president in 1801, Jefferson began to unravel the terms of the Jay Treaty and conduct economic warfare against Great Britain.

Here are just four posts from my blog on Jefferson’s policies that led to the War of 1812.

 Post #242 (12/10/23) – Madison Inherited a Foreign Policy Mess – https://marcliebman.com/madisons-inherit…al-security-mess/Post #225 (8/13/23) – America’s Second Struggle for Liberty – https://marcliebman.com/americas-second-…ggle-for-liberty/Post #207 (4/16/23)  – Trade Embargos Have Been Tried Before- https://marcliebman.com/weve-tried-tradeembargos-before/Post #172 (8/7/22) – The 1807 Tale of Ograbme – https://marcliebman.com/the-1807-tale-of-ograbme/

On the other side of the Atlantic, many British leaders who were in power in Parliament during the American Revolution had not gotten over the loss of the 13 Colonies. The creation of the upstart republic was an affront to them, and they still influenced British policy until the War of 1812. After which, their power began to wane.

So, when one looks at this, the first nine U.S. presidents – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and William Henry Harrison were all born before independence and were, therefore, British citizens until they declared independence. John Quincy Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, and Harrison were all children during the Revolutionary War, but teenagers in the tough years that followed which shaped their lives and perceptions.

In Great Britain, Lords North, Rockingham, Shelburne, Fox and William Pitt the younger were all in their graves by 1806. Three more PMs – Lord Perceval Portland II and Baron Grenville, who were young men during the American Revolution followed as PMs. It took Lord Liverpool to say enough is enough and end the War of 1812 on terms favorable to both sides.

That was the last war the U.S. fought against England. Several times over the next 50 years, we came close to fisticuffs, but cooler heads prevailed. What made it possible was that by 1816, the “old guard” of men on both sides were out of power, and their influence was waning. This let the scars from the bloody fight that ripped families apart heal.

The new leaders on both sides of the Atlantic look at the rapidly growing U.S. and traditional England and realize we have much more in common than differences. Sort of like parents learning to handle a rebellious, but prodigal son who has potential.

More on England’s offspring next week.

Image is the 1820 Painting of English Prime Minister Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool from the Royal Collection.

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Anatomy of a Privateer

Much has been written about privateers, their success, letters of marque, Admiralty Courts where the privateers took their prizes, and the money they made, but not much about the ships and the crews. So, who were they? What kinds of ships did they sail?

Let’s start with the issue of the letter of marque. To be legal, a letter of marque must be issued by a country at war with another. It is very specific in that it enables the holder of the letter to seize ships from the other country and sell them in an Admiralty Court (the names of these types of courts varied by country) either in their home country or one that is neutral.

Wealthy individuals or consortiums of like-minded investors would apply to their government for a letter of marque while at the same time having a vessel or vessels in mind that they would send to sea as privateers. In most cases, the ships were converted merchant men.

By the middle of the 18th Century, most merchant vessels were heavily armed with 12-pounder cannon. Some, like the Dutch and British East Indiamen, were better equipped than others, but for cost reasons, they didn’t have enough men to man all the guns.

For a privateer to be successful, it had to be able to outmaneuver and outfight a merchant ship crew determined not to be captured. This entailed reinforcing the bulkheads and frame of the ship, cutting additional gun ports, adding a magazine to the cargo hold, and other features that separated warships from merchant ships. These modifications added weight and, if not done correctly, affected the handling of the ship and reduced its speed.

At the time, most merchant ships sailed at five to six knots, so the privateer had to be several knots faster to run down the merchant ship. More sail area wasn’t the answer since the pressure from the wind stressed the rigging and masts.

What evolved were ships with enough armament to cause enough damage to force the merchant ship to surrender without engaging in a long battle that put the privateer at risk. The goal was to capture the merchant ship with as little damage to the merchant ship and its cargo as possible. The more damage, the less the ship’s value in the sale.

Many privateers were full-rigged brigs with two masts rather than three. Brigs were faster and more maneuverable than their prey and could run from an enemy frigate.

Privateers were armed with six to two dozen cannons, ranging from 6-pounders to 12-pounders. A 6-pounder, including the carriage, weighed under 2,000 pounds, while a 12-pounder was double that.

The weight of the cannon dictated the size of the gun crew. Once the cannon fired, its recoil rolled it back on the gundeck where it was reloaded before being hauled back into battery. A 6-pounder could easily be pulled back into position with the ropes and pulleys by six men. A 12-pounder weighing 4,000 lbs. needed at least 10!

Simple math suggests that ten 6-pounders require 60 men to crew while the same number of 12-pounders need 120 or more. More men in the crew meant more had to be recruited, fed, paid, and most important, reduced the size of each man’s prize share.

(See May 26th 2019, Blog Post – Prize Money – War, Patriotism, and Instant Wealth – https://marcliebman.com/prize-money-war-patriotism-and-instant-wealth/

Privateer crews were much larger than the merchant vessels they hunted. Assuming they captured a merchant vessel, a prize crew had to be put on board the captured ship, which was escorted to a port with an Admiralty Court. Typically, 30 – 40 men, including an officer, a senior quartermaster, and a bosun, were transferred to a prize. This left enough men to sail and fight the privateer. Most privateers had enough men on board to man two prizes at once.

Image is the 2009 Lance Woodworth photo of the brig U.S.S. Niagara which was rebuilt from the remains of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s ship that fought in the Battle of Lake Erie.

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Privateering During the War of 1812

On April 14th, 1812, the War of the Sixth Coalition (the next to the last of the Napoleonic Wars) ended. Napoleon was exiled to Elba and Great Britain (and Europe) was at peace. Or so the Brits thought.

Peace for the United Kingdom ended abruptly when James Madison asked for a declaration of war on June 18th, 1812. After a life-and-death struggle with their traditional enemy, France, the Brits turned their attention to their upstart former colony. Their first move was to send the Royal Navy to blockade the U.S. and strangle our economy.

Former President Thomas Jefferson whose policies that limited the funding of the Army and Navy and allowed the issues that led to Madison’s declaration of war fester, wrote to his successor, “The Royal Navy will prevail against the U.S. Navy, but our privateers will eat out the vitals of their commerce….” Later in the letter, Jefferson showed his lack of understanding of warfare by stating that “conquering Canada would be a mere matter of marching.”

To his credit, Jefferson got the impact of U.S. privateers on British commerce right. On the other two, he was wrong. Although the U.S. Navy only had 15 ships in commission on June 18th, the U.S. Navy was an ugly surprise to the Royal Navy who found that unless they outnumbered the U.S. warship, the sailing qualities, seamanship, and gunnery of the U.S. ship would prevail. The invasion of Canada was an unmitigated disaster.

However, to be fair, once the Royal Navy deployed enough ships to blockade every major port from Maine to Georgia, it began to strangle the U.S. economy. U.S. merchant ships to sail to overseas customers and bring goods into the U.S. and the U.S. Navy were often bottled up in port.

Madison signed the law on August 4th, 1812, allowing consortiums to be issued letters of marque which would enable the ships they owned to seize British ships and sell the vessel and the cargo. When Congress issued a letter of marque, it did not require any sort of reporting of what they captured or sank or if the consortium’s ship was captured by the British.

The Congress issued 515 letters of marque and the number of His Majesty George III’s merchant ships captured runs between 1,500 and 2,000.

A better way to look at the impact of the American privateer on the British economy were the insurance rates charged by Lloyds of London. If, as the British contend, the U.S. Navy and privateers were not a threat, then why were the wartime insurance premiums not eliminated after the victory over Napoleon? Lloyd’s continued to charge them until after the Treaty of Ghent was ratified by the U.S. Congress on February 17th, 1815.

The value of the American privateer during the War of 1812 was significant. One, it forced the Royal Navy to assign ships to hunt them.

Two, the money the U.S. government earned through the sale of captured cargos and vessels helped pay for the war.

Three, the goods on captured vessels were sold in the U.S. which benefited U.S. consumers.

Four, privateer crews were a polyglot lot with many freed slaves and immigrants from all over the world. Many family fortunes got their start from prize money earned by serving on a successful privateer.

Five, the ships and cargoes taken by American privateers caused English merchants’ money and the loss of seamen, ships and cargoes helped convince parliament that it needed to end the War of 1812.

Hand colored cartoon Yankey Torpedo by Thomas Tegg published in London on November 1st, 1813, courtesy of the Library of Congress

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Three Times Is the Flag’s Charm

It was evident to all those on the battlefield and in the Continental Congress during the American Revolution that a distinctive flag was needed. The design had to be unique and distinctive to be easily distinguishable on the battlefield and represented all Thirteen Colonies.

When the act was passed, the most common flag was an odd design due to our British forefathers, i.e., it had 13 horizontal stripes – seven red and six white – and a Union Jack in the upper left corner. Again, another hangover from being British colonies. To rid the country of this vestige of the British, the Continental Congress passed the Flag Act of 1777: Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.

The act was passed on June 14th, 1777, which is now celebrated as Flag Day. However, the Continental Congress did not set a standard on how the stars were to be arranged. This led to all sorts of arrangements, but the most common one was a circle of 13 stars.

The design concept worked well until 1794, when both Kentucky and Vermont were added to the union, and the country now had 15 states, not 13. Now Congress had to decide how to accommodate new states on the national flag, if at all?

Hence, the Flag Act of 1794 signed by George Washington reads: An Act making an alteration in the Flag of the United States. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, that from and after the first day of May, Anno Domini, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, the flag of the United States, be fifteen stripes alternate red and white. That the Union be fifteen stars, white in a blue field.

This was a solution until more parts of the land given to us by the 1793 Treaty of Paris petitioned to become states. What happens now?

The original concept of adding a bar and a star after Kentucky and Vermont were added, became too cumbersome. On April 4th, 1818, the 15th U.S. Congress passed a new Flag Act on April 4th. It read: An Act to establish the flag of the United States. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress Assembled, that from and after the fourth day of July next, the flag of the United States be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be twenty stars, white in a blue field.

And be it further enacted, that on the admission of every new state into the Union, one star be added to the union of the flag; and that such addition shall take effect of the fourth day of July then next succeeding such admission.

Problem solved. Well, not exactly. None of the tersely written Flag Acts set the flag’s dimensions or how the stars should be laid out. By 1912, there were 66 variations of the U.S. flag, and President William Taft issued Executive Order 1556 to set the flag’s size and shape. He later issued Executive Order 1637, which provided a specific example of how the U.S. flag should look.

None of the Flag Acts, nor Taft’s executive orders specified the actual colors. By the time Eisenhower became president, there were a plethora of shades of blue and red and he issued Executive Order 10860. In it, President Eisenhower established designs of the Seal and the Coat of Arms of the President of the United States and in Section 4 of the executive order, directs the reader to an attachment that specifies the colors.

Image is the 15 star, 15 bar national flag a.k.a. the Star-Spangled Flag that flew over Ft. McKinley during the War of 1812.

The post Three Times Is the Flag’s Charm appeared first on Marc Liebman.

Jim Blythe Veteran’s Impact Show

Marc and Jim talk about the VA diverting money from community care for veterans to providing benefits for illegal immigrants as well as more on the problems in the Middle East.

The post Jim Blythe Veteran’s Impact Show appeared first on Marc Liebman.