Thomas Jefferson Quotes
The real alternative before us is whether to abandon the Mediterranean or to keep up a cruise in it, perhaps in rotation with other powers who would join as soon as there is peace. But this Congress must decide..
The Barbary Pirates had an incredible extortion racket going in the Mediterranean. If nations would pay them an annual sum each year, they would not attack and seize merchant ships of that country and sell the ships and goods while holding the sailors for ransom. Jefferson refused to pay tribute though John Adams and others urged that he pay just like all the European Powers at the time. So to him it was keeping American ships out of the Mediterranean or some kind of concerted military naval option with the other European powers. For those powers however, the cost of keeping the sea lanes open with naval vessels was expensive and the tribute was a small proportion of the profits of merchant shipping at the time—a decision which many World shippers and nations made about 200 years later regarding the Pirates in Somalia and Asia. They treated it as a cost of doing business. In Jefferson’s case the multilateral idea was contributed by Lafayette. When the European powers were unwilling to participate in a combined military operation, Jefferson chose another alternative. He sent a naval squadron to confront the Barbary Pirates and the states which really controlled them. He did not ask Congress and the President’s war powers vis a vis the Congress have been in dispute ever since.
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, 3rd President of the United States (Democratic Republican, VA), Statement of the Policy Alternatives in dealing with the Barbary Pirates
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was referring to attacking the Barbary States. The Barbary Pirates had an incredible extortion racket going in the Mediterranean. If nations would pay them an annual sum each year, they would not attack and seize merchant ships of that country and sell the ships and goods while holding the sailors for ransom. See {640846}.
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams between 1797 and 1801. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.
