The history of homeland security in the United States covers specific issues and programs designed to protect the United States from foreign enemies or domestic terrorism. It also includes public attitudes regarding specific fears. Coverage is from the colonial period to the present.
Coastal Defense 1800-1945
The U.S.A.'s coastal defense became a significant priority starting in 1776.David Clary, Fortress America: The Corps of Engineers, Hampton Roads, and United States Coastal Defenses. (1990) Prior to the American Revolution many coastal fortifications already dotted the Atlantic coast, as protection from pirate raids and French incursions. The Revolutionary War led to the construction of many additional fortifications, mostly comprising simple earthworks erected to meet specific threats.
With Europe at war during 1793–1815, a new national program of fortification building was begun under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton and a Navy was built up by President John Adams. After 1801 President Thomas Jefferson minimized the Navy and set up the Second System to protect major ports by the use of small inexpensive gunboats manned by unpaid volunteers. The gunboats proved inadequate when facing the Royal Navy in the War of 1812.Gene A. Smith, "A means to an end: Gunboats and Thomas Jefferson's theory of defense." American Neptune 55.2 (1995): 111-121.Spencer C. Tucker, The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy (1993). In the Third System set up in 1816, the Presidency of James Madison and the Presidency of James Monroe requested, and Congress funded, a defensive system along Atlantic harbors. It featured cast-iron, muzzle-loading cannon protected by masonry, and supported by a modern navy. Britain so fully dominated the world naval situation that peace prevailed and the system was never needed.Jamie W. Moore, "The Bernard Board and Coastal Defense Evolution." Journal of America’s Military Past 14: 3-13.
By the 1860s advances in steel armour and heavy guns rendered masonry forts obsolete. New steamships and ironclad warships could overcome Third System defenses.
In 1885 President Grover Cleveland appointed the Endicott Board, whose recommendations led to a large-scale modernization program of harbor and coastal defenses. It emphasized well dispersed, open topped reinforced concrete emplacements protected by sloped earthworks. Many of these featured disappearing guns, which sat protected behind the walls, but could be raised to fire. Underwater mine fields were a critical component of the defense, and smaller guns were also employed to protect the mine fields from minesweeping vessels. Defenses of a given harbor were initially designated artillery districts, redesignated as coast defense commands in 1913 and as harbor defense commands in 1924. In 1901 the Artillery Corps was divided into field artillery and coast artillery units, and in 1907 the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps was created to operate these defenses.
By 1917 the rapid development of military aviation rendered these open topped emplacements vulnerable to air attack. Therefore, the next, and last, generation of coastal artillery was mounted under thick concrete shields covered with vegetation to make them virtually invisible from above. The US Army adopted the French 155-millimeter Grande Puissance Filloux heavy field gun in 1917. Until 1944 it was the weapon of choice in coastal defense, with the circular or semicircular Panama mount.William H. Dorrance, "Evolution of Major-Caliber US Coastal Defense Guns, 1888-1945." Army History 37 (1996): 14-20.Konrad F. Schreier, Jr. 'The Panama Mount 155-MM G.P.F. Gun" Council on America's Military Past. Journal (1998) 25#1 pp.72-78. In anticipation of a conflict with Japan, most of the limited funds available between 1933 and 1938 were spent on the Pacific coast. In 1939–40 the threat of war in Europe prompted larger appropriations and the resumption of work along the Atlantic coast. Under a major program developed in the wake of the Fall of France in 1940, a near-total replacement of previous coast defenses was implemented, centered on 16-inch guns in new casemated batteries. These were supplemented by 6-inch and 90 mm guns, also in new installations.
Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard was created by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1790 when Congress authorized the construction of 10 vessels to enforce tariffs and prevent smuggling. This fleet was originally known as the Revenue Marine and later as the Revenue Cutter Service. In 1822, the Revenue Marine was merged with the Life-Saving Service, which was responsible for rescuing shipwreck victims, to form the modern Coast Guard. The service was later transferred to the Department of the Treasury before becoming part of the Department of Transportation in 1967 and eventually the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Prior to 1900, the Coast Guard primarily focused on enforcing tariffs, preventing smuggling, and rescuing shipwreck victims.Stephen H. Evans, The United States Coast Guard 1790–1915: A Definitive History (Naval Institute Press, 1949).
In June 1942 during World War II a Coast Guard patrol of the beach in Amagansett, New York, discovered the landing of German saboteurs in Operation Pastorius. The 8-man sabotage team was soon captured and executed.
Anti-Masonic fears, 1820s-1830s
The Freemasons are a secret fraternal group that originated in Europe and became popular in elite circles in the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007) pp 268-270.Ronald P. Formisano, and Kathleen Smith Kutolowski, "Antimasonry and Masonry: The Genesis of Protest, 1826-1827." American Quarterly 29.2 (1977): 139-165. online Members are sworn to secrecy about who belongs and what they do. In the U.S., popular fears emerged that the aim of Freemasonry was "to overthrow the established religion and government in every country in the world". In 1826, William Morgan disappeared from the small town of Batavia, New York. Rumors spread that he had been kidnapped by Freemasons and murdered after threatening to expose Freemasonry's secrets by publishing its rituals.Charles Grandison Finney, The Character, Claims, and Practical Workings of Freemasonry. Morgan's disappearance sparked a series of protests and suspicion against Freemasonry, which eventually spread to the political realm. Andrew Jackson a highly controversial politician was a Mason and one of his enemies Thurlow Weed set up a movement that became the Anti-Masonic Party. This political Party ran presidential candidates in 1828 and 1832, and elected local and state officials. They elected William A. Palmer governor of Vermont and Joseph Ritner governor of Pennsylvania. By 1835 the party had disbanded everywhere except Pennsylvania.,William Preston Vaughn, The Anti-Masonic Party in the United States, 1826–1843 (University Press of Kentucky. 1983). but
John Quincy Adams, president of the United States during the Morgan affair, ran for governor of Massachusetts on the Anti-Masonic ticket in 1833. He denounced the Freemasons, declaring:George A. Lipskey, John Quincy Adams: His Theory and Ideas (1950) p. 269.I do conscientiously and sincerely believe that the Order of Freemasonry, if not the greatest, is one of the greatest moral and political evils under which the Union is now laboring ... a conspiracy of the few against the equal rights of the many ...Masonry ought forever to be abolished. It is wrong - essentially wrong - a seed of evil, which can never produce any good.
Though few states passed laws directed at Freemasonry by name, laws regulating and restricting it were passed and many cases dealing with Freemasonry were seen in the courts.Albert Gallatin Mackey, and H. L. Haywood, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry Part 3 1909 p. 1286, online Antimasonic legislation was passed in Vermont in 1833, including a provision by which the giving and willing taking of an unnecessary oath was made a crime.See Vermont Catholic Encyclopedia, (1911). The state of New York enacted a Benevolent Orders Law to regulate such organizations. Freemason membership declined sharply, and the Antimasons like Adams transferred their deep concern to antislavery.Samuel Flagg Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the union (1956) vol 2 pp 302-303.
Catholic threat 1840s-1928
The arrival after 1840 of hundreds of thousands and indeed millions of Catholic immigrants from Europe, especially Ireland and Germany, ignited a Protestant nativist fear for American security.Maura Jane Farrelly, Anti-Catholicism in America, 1620-1860 (Cambridge UP, 2018) ch. 5. Henry Winter Davis, an active Know-Nothing, was elected in 1854 on the new "American Party" ticket to Congress from Maryland. He told Congress that the un-American Irish Catholic immigrants were to blame for the recent election of Democrat James Buchanan as president, stating in 1856:Quoted in James Fairfax McLaughlin, The life and times of John Kelly, tribune of the people (1885) pp 72-73 online The recent election has developed in an aggravated form every evil against which the American party protested. Foreign allies have decided the government of the country -- men naturalized in thousands on the eve of the election. Again in the fierce struggle for supremacy, men have forgotten the ban which the Republic puts on the intrusion of religious influence on the political arena. These influences have brought vast multitudes of foreign-born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests, without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact, accomplished the present result.
The nativist rhetoric reawakened old historic fears based in British history regarding the threat of the Catholic Church. The new fear was that the Catholics were controlled by their priests, who in turn were controlled by their bishops, who in turn were controlled by the Pope in Rome. Their votes would all be dictated and be hostile to American values. The early success of the Irish in Boston and New York to gain political influence underlined the threat. The Protestant fear was that Catholics would disregard fair election procedures and thereby threatened to ruin the democratic process. Furthermore, the Catholics were brought unprecedented violence poverty and disease to newly emerging slums. The main result was explosive overnight growth of the Know Nothing party in the mid-1850s, it briefly came to power in Massachusetts and nearby states. However the Know Nothing leadership was weak and it had few strong leaders and seldom won reelection.Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s (1992).