“There Will Still Remain Heroes and Patriots”: Civilian Control and Officer Resignations in the Early American Navy, 1794–1815

It is widely accepted among scholars of American military history that officers have never used resignation, or the threat to do so, as a means of shaping civilian policy.  For much of American history, this has indeed been the case; officers dutifully followed orders without using 11^th hour resignations to protest what they considered unwise or immoral policies.  However, such a tradition was not foreordained.  In the early republic, naval officers saw the threat of resignation as a perfectly legitimate means of pressing their case in questions of promotion, relative rank, and even wartime strategy.  The civilian leaders of the Navy Department even yielded, at times, to such threats.  By the end of the War of 1812, however, consistent refusal to yield in the face of threats of resignation by the Navy Department and growing professionalization within the officer corps had brought the practice to an end.

This paper considers several key moments when naval officers turned to resignation in an attempt to force the civilian government to grant their wishes.  Joshua Barney left the United States Navy and accepted a commission from France over the issue of relative rank.  Richard Dale resigned in protest when Congress refused to create the rank of admiral.  Thomas Truxtun, hero of the Quasi War with France, successfully forced the Navy Department under Benjamin Stoddert to submit to his demands by submitting his resignation, but using the same tactic on Stoddert’s successor ended his career.  Truxtun’s failure to achieve his ends marked a turning point.  In the War of 1812, multiple officers threatened to resign in hopes of shaping promotion policies, but the Navy Department curtly called their bluffs.  From that point forward, resignation to avoid disagreeable orders or shape policy ceased to be an option in the U.S. Navy.