Matthew Fontaine Maury: Reformer

Abstract

Although he was better known as a scientist than a reformer, Matthew Fontaine Maury’s influence as the latter was hardly negligible. Maury argued for institutional expansion and reform during a period of agitation and stagnation for the American navy. Published in Richmond’s Southern Literary Messenger between 1840 and 1841, Maury’s five ‘Scraps from the Lucky Bag’ agitated for wide-ranging reforms aimed at tackling the numerous inefficiencies and inadequacies of the navy. His proposed reforms served multiple purposes. Naval reform was, for Maury, a matter of necessity, and advocating for it permitted him to challenge the limited role that the navy occupied in 1840. It also served as a way for Maury to address the anxieties of the antebellum South’s maritime interests and make the case for real protection of Southern coastal waters. Lastly, Maury’s plan of reform was based in and allowed a re-imagination of the navy as the modern, powerful arm of an ambitious national project. This article considers Maury’s ‘Scraps from the Lucky Bag’ as both advocacy for naval reform and a specific vision of both the South and the nation. Situating Maury within American anxieties over expansion and international interference, this article argues that Maury leveraged, or attempted to leverage, those anxieties to achieve his goal of reform. Maury’s advocacy for naval reform was not only an argument for a larger, more technologically advanced and better organized force, but also for the territorial and maritime expansion of the United States. For Maury, these projects were fundamentally linked. A reconsideration of Maury’s efforts towards naval reform opens a window on the conflicting visions and anxieties of American expansion, both national and sectional, as well as the configuration of the American navy in the mid-19th century.