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[ INTRODUCTION ] Armed Ambassadors Modesty was not one of George Bancroft’s notable character traits. He possessed the intellectual superiority of a distinguished scholar and the self-assured swagger of an influential politician. In describing his role in creating the United States Naval Academy, Bancroft triumphantly declared: “As to the Naval School at Annapolis, I was its originator. It was my original conception, mine alone, and in every particular carried out by me.”1 Bancroft ’s proud statement might lead one to assume that the idea of establishing a naval academy in the United States did not surface until 1845, the year Bancroft became President James K. Polk’s secretary of the navy. Although Bancroft’s legacy as the Naval Academy’s founder is secure (the massive midshipmen’s dormitory is named in his honor), his assertion is not exactly accurate. The idea for a naval academy was not Bancroft’s “original conception .” As early as 1777, during the Revolutionary War, Captain John Paul Jones called for the establishment of small academies at American shipyards to educate the officers of the Continental navy. Although the Continental Congress never implemented Jones’s recommendation, it began a national debate on the merits and the potential dangers of founding an academy to prepare young men for service as naval officers. Since its formation in 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy has achieved a high level of prestige as a national military, educational, and cultural institution. Its students are among the best and the brightest the nation has to offer.The Yard, the academy’s Annapolis campus, is one of the country’s great landmarks , attracting approximately 1.5 million visitors each year.The entertainment industry has promoted an “All-American” image of the school, most recently in Hollywood’s portrayal of the struggles of a blue-collar plebe in the 2006 feature film Annapolis. The annual Army-Navy football game pitting the Naval Academy’s midshipmen against the cadets of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is one of the classic rivalries in college sports. Naval Academy graduates have served as some of the country’s most prominent leaders not only in war but also in government, diplomacy, science, engineering , and business. The academy’s alumni include one president of the United States (Jimmy Carter), cabinet secretaries, senators, congressmen, [ 2 ] Introduction governors, ambassadors, Nobel Prize winners, Medal of Honor recipients, and Rhodes Scholars. Since the Naval Academy opened its doors, instances of misconduct and academic dishonesty by midshipmen have attracted the attention of political leaders, the press, and the public precisely because such incidents do not conform to the institution’s distinguished reputation. Historically, the Naval Academy has reflected American society, particularly in the struggles associated with the integration of African Americans and women into the Brigade of Midshipmen.2 In many ways, the U.S. Naval Academy is a distinctly American institution.Yet, during the nation’s formative period, many citizens considered a naval academy to be inherently unAmerican . A naval academy was unnecessary and, more importantly, they believed it would violate the principles that were supposed to define the new American republic. Although several historians have studied the evolution of the Naval Academy since its establishment in 1845, none has placed the school’s controversial origins within a broader historical framework.3 This book examines the naval academy debate and the advancement of the American naval profession in the context of the nation’s development as a republican society and a world maritime power during the seventy years after the American Revolution. The naval academy debate was, in essence, a debate about the character of the American republic and the role of the United States in international affairs. There was a direct connection between emerging American nationalism in the early republic and the naval officer corps. Nationalism is a kind of national consciousness—the ideals, attitudes, aspirations, prejudices, and fears of a people. It is an ideological and emotional process through which people perceive their nation and its principles. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Americans were in the process of forming their new nation by debating the political, economic, and social principles that would define the republic.The growth of the American nation depended on the U.S. Navy. The naval officers of the early republic were “armed ambassadors ” who represented and defended the United States and its citizens on the high seas and in foreign lands. The professional and personal improvement of naval officers, as America...

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