Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes
There's not a ship that sails the ocean, But every climate, every soil, Must bring its tribute, great or small, And help to build the wooden wall!
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "The Building of the Ship." The Seaside and the Fireside. Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1850, p. 6.
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}.
Nantucket was the center of the New England whaling fleet which at the time plied the Earth’s oceans and influenced non Western People the world over. It was a type of cultural imperialism although the whalers sized or claimed anyone’s land or controlled any nation’s trade.
He was not aware of it but the Union War Department had prepared well and additional ironclad ships under construction of which the Monitor was just the first. Lincoln had approved the construction of ironclads on October 4, 1861. The Confederate Merrimack was larger and to the layman was the stronger ship but the Monitor did some damage and drove the Confederate Merrimac from the field to make repairs. The Confederacy, with minimal industrial steel-making capacity could not produce enough steel to protect more ships than the one ironclad Merrimack. The Union Navy, not only were building more Monitor class ships, but also, had a few Merrimack type wooden ships being iron clad as well as their Monitors as Strong had called for. The Union soon totally dominated the seas and as important, the rivers with which they could supply Union troops and bombard Confederate cities built thereupon.
This quotation shows that the French revolutionaries wished for an invasion of England, even before Napoleon came to power. Part of the reason was the traditional enmity between France and England, even before the French Revolution, and the other part that England was covertly working against the French Revolution and ideologically stood for monarchy and inequality, while the French of the time were Republicans for whom equality was not only an ideal, but part of the law and much of post-revolutionary reality.
He was referring to the Algerian Barbary Pirates who 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. Ames was well known for his hyperbole and fear of all the worst possible consequences. He was in many ways like some of the Tea Party of the 21st century who saw immigrants taking over the country and Muslim terrorists in attack on the United States. The Algerians did not have the inclination, skill, or shipbuilding skill to handle trans-Atlantic travel.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the Fireside Poets from New England.
