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Yup, and those Ships carried Letters of Marque, basically permission to destroy any English or other ships, set them a fire, or take them a prize! Most battles saw the victor increasing his own ships compliment of weapons, supplies, and anything else of value! The United States owned exactly 5 Frigates, Ships of the line, but we're bolstered by a factor of 10 through privately held Man-0-War, all operating with the governments blessings!Sorry. I was responding to your post #74, which was in response to the comment in post #53 about private ownership of ICBMs.
No, the check and balance system was to keep any one branch from becoming too powerful. The Executive branch is not a person. Neither are the legislative and judicial branches.
"Lieut. Col. Smith to Governor Gage Boston, April 22, 1775.
Sir, In obedience to your Excellency's commands, I marched on the evening of the 18th inst. with the corps of grenadiers and light infantry for Concord, to execute your Excellency's orders with respect to destroying all ammunition, artillery, tents, &c., collected there, which was effected, having knocked off the trunnions of three pieces of iron ordnance, some new gun carriages, a great number of carriage wheels burnt, a considerable quantity of flour, some gunpowder and musket balls, with other small articles thrown into the river. Notwithstanding we marched with the utmost expedition and secrecy, we found the country had intelligence or strong suspicion of our coming, and fired many signal guns, and rung the alarm bells repeatedly; and were informed, when at Concord, that some cannon had been taken out of the town that day, that others, with some stores, had been carried three days before. . . ."
The Battle at Lexington Green, 1775 - the British Perspective
A letter from a British soldier describes the shot heard 'round the world.www.eyewitnesstohistory.com
"Privately owned merchant ships that, in wartime, were armed by their owners and licensed by the government to attack the maritime trade of the enemy, privateers profited by the sale of ships and cargoes they captured. As soon as word of the war arrived, ship owners in the port cities up and down the Atlantic coast raced to get their sleek sloops and schooners to sea in their new predatory role. They found cannon where they could, signed up oversized civilian crews, and sent messengers to Washington to get licenses called letters-of-marque from the federal government. On 26 June 1812, a week after Congress voted for war, it passed a bill allowing privateers, which President James Madison signed the next day."
Yes, Privateers Mattered
A recent trend among historians to ignore or discount American privateering’s important role in the War of 1812 is plain wrong.www.usni.org
There were also hundreds of farms and plantations who owned, or at least held large field guns, some captured, some stolen others recovered from past battles, all turned against the English and used to great effect! This all continued right up through WW-II with letters of Marque, impressing privately owned ships and other sea craft into service as privateers in the service of the United States! To this day, though very rarely practiced, the U.S. can, at the pleasure of the sitting President, or his appointed representatives of the military, or congress, issue letters of Marque to civilians for use of any and all privately owned assets to be used in time of war or conflict! The most widely known and used are the "Security Contractors" employees in the middle east and in and around the Persian Gulf area to defend against pirates!
This is constitutionally legal, and is codified within those documents!
All of this is well researched and documented history, easy to suss out with the most basic of google-fu skillz!
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