Rival Visions: How the Views of Jefferson and His Contemporaries Defined the Early American Republic ed. by Dustin A. Gish and Andrew Bibby (review)

Abstract

spending of the kind that should repulse any taxpayer. Ships that had their keels laid and then languished for years. Repairs begun but never completed. Some $200,000 appropriated to repair a ship in such bad condition it had to be broken up (73). The most outrageous case was the USS Pennsylvania, a 120gun shipoftheline, by far the biggest in the U.S. fleet. First approved in 1816, its construction began in 1822, then stopped, until Congress allocated money to finish it in 1837, just as Jackson was leaving office. The money could have been used to build eigh teen sloops and schooners instead (90). Though meant to show the flag abroad, it never left the U.S., becoming a rotting hulk of a monument to bigship vanity and porkbarrel politics. Berube has written an impor tant book in American naval and maritime history. Any scholar plying these waters, of what ever period, should put On Wide Seas at the top of their reading list. The book also uncovers an aspect of Jackson’s presidency that is all too often overlooked. Jackson did understand the navy, and he did use it effectively given his goals. Possibly, Jackson may have even liked the navy, too.