THE FAILURE OF FEDERALISM: HAMILTON’S ABORTIVE PROFESSIONALISM
The failure of military professionalism to make institutional headway in the United States was also intimately connected with the failure of Federalism. The Federalists were almost classically conservative; their basic values closely resembled those of the military ethic. Responsible for the preservation of American security during the difficult first years, they had the conservative’s interest in military affairs. “Hamilton’s hobby was the Army,” wrote John Adams, and the second president himself averred that national defense “has always been near to my heart.”1 They stressed the need for military force and the primacy of national defense among the functions of government. The Federalists did not condemn nor eschew power politics; they played the game with some enjoyment and considerable finesse. Washington’s Farewell Address advice that the nation should be strong enough and sensible enough so that it could “choose peace or war as our interest guided by justice shall counsel” even reflected the professional military concept of war as the rational instrument of state policy.
If Federalist conservatism had maintained its vitality as an intellectual current and political force into the nineteenth century, it would have been a fertile source of military professionalism. Instead, the Federalists disappeared before the science of war and the military profession became functionally feasible in America. As a result, while they stressed the need for military force, they were not clear as to the need for professional direction of that force. Their two leaders, Washington and Hamilton, were indeed the antitheses of the professional type, moving with ease from military to political office and back again. They likewise had little understanding of objective civilian control. Washington obeyed the Continental Congress not as a soldier but as a citizen. Hamilton alone among the Federalists anticipated important elements of military professionalism. He saw that the prolonged and expert instruction of a small group of military leaders in the essentials of the art of war was a necessary result of the division of labor, and he urged the creation of an elaborate military university to school officers in the “principles of war, the exercises it requires, and the sciences upon which they are founded.”2 Hamilton’s views were the most advanced application of the Federalist philosophy to military affairs, but they were, however, not even acceptable to most Federalists. And, more significantly, the conservative Federalist philosophy was not acceptable to most Americans. Its political eclipse in 1800 made Jeffersonian technicism rather than Hamilton’s incipient professionalism the starting point of the American military tradition.
TECHNICISM
JEFFERSONIAN SOURCES: THE PRINCIPLE OF SPECIALIZATION. The American officer of the pre-Civil War years was frequently highly trained and scientifically educated but his training was not in a military skill shared with all his fellow officers and distinguishing them from the rest of society. Instead, the officer was expert in one of several technical specialities, competence in which separated him from other officers trained in different specialities and at the same time fostered close bonds with civilians practicing his speciality outside the military forces. The officer corps, in other words, was divided into subgroups, some more important than the rest, but each likely to be more closely tied with a segment of civilian society than with other segments of the corps. The Army officer was frequently more engineering-minded than military-minded, and the naval officer more seamanship-minded than naval-minded. There was as yet in America no distinctive military science which, developing out of the various technical specialities, could modify them, subordinate them, and integrate them into a separate subject directed to the exclusively military purpose of war. Technicism remained a strong force in American militarism after it had been generally superseded by professionalism in Europe. It derived its strength from the many pragmatic, empirical, materialistic, practical aspects of American culture, equally hostile to the generalizations of theory and to teleological definitions of purpose. Insofar as it had its roots in any distinctive political-intellectual current, military technicism was primarily the product of the Jeffersonian influence upon American military institutions.
Like other liberals, Jefferson had little interest in or use for regular military forces, and he had no recognition of the emerging character of professional military officership. Jefferson had no use for objective civilian control, condemning the distinction “between the civil and military, which it is for the happiness of both to obliterate.” Unlike most subsequent liberals, however, he did have a definite plan for national defense. Jefferson did not scout the continuing threats to the United States nor the persistent possibility of war. His military policy had its roots in the same unstable state of international relations as did Hamilton’s. But in substance it was vastly different, representing an effort to develop a liberal alternative to the Hamiltonian program which would embody the extreme of transmutation based on the “military sovereignty of the people.” Far from wishing to disarm the United States, Jefferson desired to turn the nation into an armed camp. “None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army; to keep ours armed and disciplined is, therefore, at all times important . . .”3 The militia should be universal in scope — “every citizen a soldier” is a Jeffersonian motto — and well-organized, classified, disciplined, and equipped. In the end, Jefferson’s military policy was no more successful than Hamilton’s. To universalize the military obligation was in effect to abolish it. Instead of substituting a liberal force for a regular force, Congress preferred to limit the regular force to an inconsequential size. Extirpation triumphed over transmutation. Instead of maintaining a militia in peace to deal with emergencies and creating a regular army in war, as recommended by Jefferson, the United States maintained a regular army in peace to deal with emergencies and enlisted the militia after the outbreak of war. The Hamiltonian program was infeasible in a liberal society because it was contrary to the principles of liberalism; the Jeffersonian program was infeasible because it was contrary to the principles of society.
The Jeffersonian approach to military science and military leadership mirrored its theory of military force. Just as the Jeffersonians recognized the need for some form of military force, they also recognized the need for some form of military knowledge and education. But just as they identified military force with the civic population, so also they drew no distinction between civil and military skills. Quantitatively, military force was indistinguishable from the whole of society; qualitatively, military science was indistinguishable from the whole of science. “We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens,” Jefferson declared. “And make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.” The diffusion of military instruction throughout society was only possible because the skills required for the military vocation were the same as those required for a variety of civilian vocations. Technical subjects figured much more prominently than military ones in the sparse literature produced by American military and naval officers prior to the 1830’s. Jeffersonian respect went to the Enlightenment man of science; the good military officer was expert in some special scientific skill.
The tendency toward technicism in the Army officer corps was strengthened by the French influence on American militarism. This, too, was fostered by Jeffersonian sympathies for French institutions and culture. The Americans imitated the French in stressing fortifications, artillery, and engineering. Sylvanus Thayer, the dominating genius of West Point during its early years, studied French education carefully and was convinced that France was the “repository of military science.” He consciously strove to pattern his school along French lines, following the great model of the Ecole Polytechnique, and utilizing French instructors and French textbooks. Outstanding Academy graduates in the first half of the nineteenth century, such as Halleck and Mahan, were sent to France not Prussia to continue their education. Jomini was viewed as the final word on the larger aspects of military operations, and American infantry, cavalry, and artillery tactics im
itated those of the French Army. The French influence upon the Academy and the Army at large helped to produce a high level of technical and scientific achievement, but it detracted from emphasis upon the Army’s military purposes.4
EDUCATION: THE ENGINEERING SCHOOL AT WEST POINT. American military education was almost entirely technical in purpose and content until after the Civil War. There was little or no instruction in higher military science and strategy, and there were no American educational institutions comparable to the Prussian preliminary schools or the Berlin Kriegsakademie. The most notable and lasting manifestation of the Jeffersonian impact upon American militarism was in the military academy at West Point. Hamilton’s recommendations of 1799 had proposed the creation of five schools: a Fundamental School in which students received instruction for two years in “all the sciences necessary to a perfect knowledge of the different branches of the military art”; and four advanced engineering and artillery, cavalry, infantry, and naval schools, to one of which students would go for specialized study after completing the fundamental courses. This would have been a true professional academy teaching the essence of military science as a whole as well as elements of its more specialized branches.5 In contrast, the institution which Jefferson established at West Point in 1802 was only one-fifth of the military university urged by Hamilton. It was created almost incidental to the creation of the Corps of Engineers. Its principal object was to produce engineers for military and civil employment. It was the equivalent of the Ecole Polytechnique, not of St. Cyr: a technical institute designed to serve the entire nation as a practical scientific school, not a professional academy for the military vocation. As its first superintendent, Jefferson appointed Jonathan Williams, who had no military experience prior to his appointment but had worked on the construction of fortifications and made a reputation as a practicing scientist. Jefferson’s interest was always in the scientific rather than the military activities of the Academy.
The Jeffersonian origins of West Point had tremendous impact upon American military education, initiating a technological emphasis, remnants of which long persisted. The principal contributions of the Academy in the pre-Civil War years were, as intended by Jefferson, in the fields of engineering and science. Until after the Civil War, the school remained a part of the Corps of Engineers, and its superintendent had to be appointed from that branch. Engineering dominated the curriculum. A Department of Engineering was established in 1812, but it was not until 1858 that Congress created a Department of Tactics. Military subjects were taught as a sideline to military engineering, and the military engineering course itself was subordinated to civil engineering. As one observer commented, at the time of the Civil War there was “no instruction in strategy or grand tactics, in military history, or in what is called the Art of War.”6 Graduates of the Academy were much in demand by private employers and were utilized by the government in topographical surveys, railroad building, and the construction of other internal improvements. Throughout the years preceding the Civil War its alumni distinguished themselves to a greater extent in civil occupations than in the military service. West Point produced more railroad presidents than generals. Many students entered the Academy for the explicit purpose of becoming scientists or engineers rather than Army officers, and the Academy was justified to the country in terms of its contributions to science, exploration, and internal development. Prior to 1835, West Point exercised a formative influence over the development of technical education in America. A majority of the nineteen engineering schools established before 1870, including those at Harvard and Yale, had direct pedagogical affiliations with the Military Academy. Thus, before the Civil War West Point was deficient in the two components of a preliminary professional military education. It did not give its students a broad grounding in the liberal arts; neither did it furnish them with the first essentials of military science.
Before the 1860’s, technicism was even more pervading in many respects in naval education than in the Army. Its causes, however, were less immediately traceable to Jeffersonian sources. In the early days the emphasis was upon seamanship, and naval officers were frequently commissioned directly from the merchant marine. Subsequently, coincidental with the introduction of steam, a shift in concern occurred to marine engineering. Prior to 1845 the education of officers was practical and haphazard. The only examinations required of midshipmen were in navigation and seamanship, and a strong tradition existed in the Navy that the only place for the education of an officer was the deck of a ship. Eventually the desirability of securing legislative establishment of a shore school comparable to West Point was generally recognized. The nature of this school, however, was still conceived of in technical terms. In 1814, for instance, Secretary Jones advocated instruction in purely technical subjects, which alone he considered “necessary to the accomplishment of the naval officer.” In 1841, Secretary Upshur argued that the introduction of steam vessels required a high order of scientific knowledge among officers.7 When the Naval Academy was eventually established in 1845, its curriculum closely resembled that of West Point except for the substitution of marine technology for civil engineering. For decades afterward, opposition to theoretical instruction still remained strong in the Navy.
STAFF ORGANIZATION: JEFFERSONIAN NAVAL TECHNICISM, 1815–1885. The prevalence of technicism was also reflected in the key role assigned the administrative staff services in Army and Navy organization. Neither the War Department nor the Navy Department during this period possessed a true general staff devoted to the application of professional knowledge to military operations and war. An Army “General Staff” created in 1813 consisted of the adjutant general, quartermaster general, commissary general of ordnance, paymaster, assistant topographical engineer, and their assistants. Their influence in the Army structure was balanced somewhat by the position of the Commanding General, who theoretically represented the military interests of the Army but who actually became deeply involved in political controversy. The technical arms enjoyed a favored status. Engineering was defined by the Articles of War as “the most elevated branch of military science.”8 Throughout the years leading to the Civil War much of the energy of the Army and the Navy was devoted to the essentially civilian pursuits of exploration, scientific research, and internal development.
The most notable instance of the influence of Jeffersonian technicism in military organization was in the Navy Department, the organization of which was given a lasting character during Madison’s administration immediately after the War of 1812. In the pattern of organization which was then established and which prevailed until the twentieth century, military expertise was explicitly identified with technical expertise, and the necessity of professional knowledge for the broad conduct of naval operations in war was equally explicitly denied. Naval organization thus made no provision whatsoever for the representation of the professional military interests in the Navy, and consequently it did not resemble any of the three ideal types of executive civil-military relations. It was instead a strictly preprofessional form of organization.
From 1798 to 1815 the Navy Department consisted only of a Secretary and a few clerks who transacted all departmental business, civil and military. After the War of 1812, the demand for a larger staff arose and Congress established a Board of Navy Commissioners composed of three captains. The Board was placed under the Secretary, and its responsibilities were made coextensive with his. Civil duties — procurement and construction — and military duties — the employment of vessels — were assigned equally to both Board and Secretary. Clearly the intention of Congress was to establish a vertical system of organization. This, however, was not the view of the Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Crowninshield. In one of its first actions, the Board demanded that the Secretary inform it as to the destination of a squadron. Crowninshield refused this request, claiming that the Board should deal only with civil-industrial matters. The President sustained this interpretation of the law, and thereafter down to 1842 the three
naval officers constituting the Navy Commissioners directed the civil activities of the Department, while the civilian secretary directed the military activities.
This system seems absurdly paradoxical on the surface. Actually, logic was behind it. The civil activities of the Navy were much more highly specialized and technical than its military activities. The design, construction, and equipment of naval vessels and the operation of the Navy yards were jobs for experts. Compared to these, discipline, the assignment of personnel, and the employment of vessels were relatively simple matters. The man of affairs might still direct the latter; it was impossible for him to manage the former. The idea that the Secretary was competent to handle the military affairs of the Navy was enhanced by the custom, which prevailed down to the 1820’s, of appointing to that post men with maritime experience. The rationale behind naval organization was explicitly stated by Secretary Paulding in 1839. The duties of the Department, he said, divide naturally into two classes. The first class “comprises those connected with the more general and comprehensive interests of the state” — the size and distribution of naval forces, and the direction, employment, and discipline of naval personnel. The second class includes “everything connected with the construction, equipment and maintenance of the naval force.” The first class of duties, according to the Secretary, “requires no special technical or professional knowledge or experience . . .” Consequently, these duties may be directly discharged by the Secretary. The performance of the second class of duties, however, “calls for long professional experience, and it is believed can be more completely attained under the ministration of competent naval officers.”9 The replacement of the Navy Commissioners by the bureau system in 1842 did not alter this Jeffersonian pattern. The duties which had been previously collectively exercised by the Board of Navy Commissioners simply devolved on to the heads of the five bureaus for Yards and Docks; Construction, Equipment and Repairs; Provisions and Clothing; Ordnance and Hydrography; and Medicine and Surgery. No provision was made for the representation of the professional military viewpoint in the Navy structure, and the Secretary still attempted to discharge this function.
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