Jefferson vs. Obama

Thomas Jefferson

Barack Obama

Philosophically speaking, President Thomas Jefferson and President Barack Obama could not be further apart. Jefferson was a Democrat-Republican, a nomenclature which to our modern mind might represent the best (or worst) of the political landscape, but which at the time referred to a political party that adhered to the ideals of republicanism: an agrarian society personified by the yeoman farmer; states’ rights; minimal or no taxation; and above all, limited government bureaucracy and limited government interference in the daily lives of American citizens. Its strength was in the South and West, and its champions included men (in addition to Jefferson) such as James Madison and James Monroe.

Opposed to the Republican Party was the Federalist Party comprised largely of merchants, bankers and entrepreneurs. The Federalists, by contrast, believed in a strong central government endowed with full powers to protect its citizens at home and to flex its muscles abroad. Its popularity was concentrated in the North, particularly in the five New England states, and its champions included such men as John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

Whatever one’s political leaning might be today, few Americans would disagree that President Obama’s political philosophy is radically different from that espoused by President Jefferson.

One can argue, however, that both presidents made gross miscalculations on the need of a strong military, in particular a strong navy.

U.S. Battleship Division Nine, 1917

When serving as consul to France in the late 1780s and early 1790s, Jefferson made it known that he advocated a strong navy to protect American maritime interests against pirates and other seagoing miscreants (the backdrop of For Love of Country, volume II of the Cutler Family Chronicles). As vice president to John Adams, however, he flip-flopped on that issue. When he became president in 1801, he seemed to still favor a smaller navy, and yet sent five powerful naval squadrons to the Mediterranean during the war with Tripoli (the backdrop of the soon-to-be-released A Call to Arms, volume IV of the Chronicles). During his first administration the U.S. Navy expanded considerably in number of ships. But then, just as storm clouds were again gathering over the Atlantic and another war with Great Britain loomed, Jefferson reversed himself again and called for the construction of coastal gunboats to be given priority over the construction of frigates and other traditional naval vessels. To his mind, the coming war would be strictly a defensive affair, so why build more warships? How the United States would defend herself against the 1,000 ship Royal Navy with flotillas of gunboats was a question that Jefferson never seemed ready, willing or able to answer.

U.S. Navy Amphibious assault ships, 2010

Fast–forward two centuries. In the last of the three presidential debates, President Obama made what was to many analysts a similar gross miscalculation regarding the need for a strong naval presence. When informed by his debate opponent that the current Navy is smaller than it has been at any time since 1917, the president responded by essentially claiming that modern technology has obviated the need for a large standing navy. The United States can do very well, thank you very much, with a few aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. But is such a statement accurate?

In a New York Post article entitled “The Prez Misleads on the Military’s Needs” dated 10/24/12, Rear Adm. (ret.) Joseph Callo writes as follows:

“Our naval forces are now badly overextended. Equipment and people have been worn down –and there are serious questions about the ability of the downsized U.S. Navy to meet more than a limited number of major threats.”

Admiral Callo goes on to write, “Numbers do count, Mr. President, and at present we’re getting the numbers wrong. One ship, one plane, one person can be in only one place at a time. And no level of technological capability can make up for it if the ships, planes and people aren’t where we need them, when we need them and in sufficient numbers.” He cites the recent attack on the American consulate in Benghazi as an example of deficient naval forces in the Mediterranean unable to make a timely response that could possibly have saved the lives of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Putting twenty-first century technology aside, I can almost hear the echoes of Secretary of War Henry Dearborn and Navy Secretary Robert Smith delivering the same sort of message to President Jefferson in 1808.

Can you?

On a personal note, I want to state that Admiral Callow is an acquaintance of mine and I know him to be a patriot and a man of superior intellect and integrity. He is also the author of many fine books, his most recent being The Sea Was Always There.

Photo credits: Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale in 1800, [public domain]; Official portrait of Barack Obama [public domain]; U.S. Battleship Division Nine steaming in to Rosyth, Scotland, 1918.[public domain]; Six of the U.S. Navy's seven Amphibious assault ships in formation, 2010, [public domain]

The Rock of Gibraltar

The Rock of Gibraltar

Few locations in the history of Mankind have been as devoutly coveted as Gibraltar, a blade-shaped stab of land thrusting out from the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.

The first recorded inhabitants of Gibraltar were the Phoenicians, who no doubt saw the importance of the peninsula in re-supplying their forays into the Atlantic Ocean starting around 1000 B.C. The Carthaginians and the Romans also established settlements there at the time when the Rock of Gibraltar was considered one of the Pillars of Hercules, after the Greek legend that pegged Hercules as the creator of the Straits of Gibraltar. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Gibraltar was occupied first by the Vandals and subsequently by the Visigoths.

The Siege and Relief of Gibraltar, 1862

All that changed in 771 A.D. when the great armies of Islam swept across North Africa and up into Spain and France via Gibraltar, conquering everything and everyone in their path and bringing with them, into the Dark Ages, the enlightenment of the ancient Greeks and Persians. Islam maintained an iron grip on most of Spain until 1462 when the duke of Medina, acting on behalf of King Henry IV of Castile, reclaimed Spanish control of Gibraltar.

But alas for Spain, Gibraltar was not to remain forever in Spanish hands, despite its geographical and emotional attachment to mainland Spain. In 1704, during the War of the Spanish Succession, a combined English and Dutch force captured the town. Under the terms of the subsequent Treaty of Utrecht, Gibraltar was ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity. Spanish attempts to regain control in 1727 and again starting in 1779 both ended in failure.

So how did Gibraltar appear to someone who had never before visited the area? Below is a scene from For Love of Country, Volume II in the Cutler Family Chronicles, in which protagonist Richard Cutler sails in an armed family-owned schooner from Boston to Algiers to try to rescue his brother and his brother’s shipmates from an Arab prison. On the way he stops over in Gibraltar to visit with his brother-in-law, a post captain in the Royal Navy attached to the Mediterranean Squadron. Richard is under the impression, mistakenly as it turns out, that the Royal Navy will assist him in his mission.

Europa Point, Gibraltar

            Richard sat in silence as the oarsmen rowed the boat over to the naval squadron’s anchorage. Only the steady creak of oars rising and dipping, rising and dipping broke the silence. Richard took advantage of the lull to survey the western face of Gibraltar, now revealed to him by an evening sun streaking through broken clouds. Through the dissipating fog and mist he saw what appeared to be a gargantuan battle cruiser of mythical proportions pointing north, the magnificent height of the Rock serving as an old-fashioned poop deck rising high above the Mediterranean. There was even what seemed to be a ship’s hull, a substantial wall running close to the water’s edge from as far north as he could see all the way south past the fortress to Europa Point at the southern tip of the rocky promontory. Interspersed along the wall every fifty feet or so were clusters of star-shaped batteries housing cannon of various firepower standing in defense of official and private buildings of Spanish, British, and Italian construction. And, to his surprise, he saw Moorish construction too: holding a commanding position where a gentle slope gave way to a steep escarpment a third of the way up to the top of the Rock loomed a massive stone castle in a triangular shape resembling an Egyptian pyramid. Attached to the castle was a square-turreted redoubt replete with merlon battlements and a huge stone archway flanked on both sides by thick stone walls that zigzagged down along the embankment to the wall at the water’s edge.

Tower of Homage in the
Moorish Castle, Gibraltar

            The coxswain followed Richard’s gaze. “The Tower of Homage, sir,” he explained, his seasoned tone suggesting prior experience acting as tour guide to visiting dignitaries. “That’s what we English call it. The Moors call it Al Qasabah. It was built in the early fifteenth century after the Moors recaptured Gibraltar from the Spanish. Quite a sight, isn’t it? The British governor lives on the top floor of the redoubt.”

            “I’ll be damned,” Richard marveled, awed by the sight and wondering what it must have cost the Spanish to finally wrest this fortress away from the Moors.

            A glance to the right or left of the castle confirmed how heavily fortified Gibraltar was, and why the Spanish had failed during the Great Siege of 1779–83 to take back from the British what was, geographically if not by the Treaty of Utrecht, Spanish soil. All along the escarpment were natural caves of various sizes, giving the impression of an enormous, two-mile-long honeycomb of gun ports. The iron black of cannon muzzles protruded everywhere like the dark tongues of unseen beasts lurking in their dark depths. In areas devoid of caves the British had erected additional gun batteries, armed to the teeth with 64-pounders--some larger, it seemed to Richard, if guns of such enormous size existed. And from his current vantage point out on the waters of Algeciras Bay, away from the dominance of the fortress and the sheer rock cliffs, he could see high up on the very peak of the Rock what he would have deemed to be impossible: silhouettes of mammoth cannon arrayed in back-to-back formation. One rank faced north toward Catholic Spain, the other south across the eight-mile Strait toward the empire of the Prophet: the North African realm of Islam.


As a footnote to history, in 1967 the citizens of Gibraltar rejected a proposal for Spanish sovereignty. Today Gibraltar governs it own affairs, with certain powers such as defense and foreign relations residing with the British government.

Photo Credits: "The Rock of Gibraltar's North Front cliff face from Bayside showing the embrasures in the Rock." c. 1810. [public domain]; "The Siege and Relief of Gibraltar, 13 September 1782" by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), c. 1783. [public domain]; Eastern cliffs at Europa Point, Gibraltar.[Creative Commons]; Tower of Homage in the Moorish Castle, Gibraltar.[Creative Commons]