President Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801. Jefferson, who believed that paying off the pirates only led to more demands, announced that there would be no more tributes paid. Tripoli demanded a payment of $225,000 on top of annual payments of $25,000. Jefferson refused to pay, and Tripoli declared war on the US.
Jefferson announced in his First Annual Message to Congress, "Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had [threatened] war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . ."
Jefferson took this defensive military action without seeking a declaration of war from Congress. He believed that a more decisive response would be needed, and so he asked Congress for formal action. In response, Congress passed the "Act for Protection of Commerce and Seamen of the United States against the Tripolitan Corsairs." This act authorized an expanded force to "subdue, seize and make prize of all vessels, goods and effects, belonging to the Bey of Tripoli, or to his subjects."
Years later in 1815, President James Madison sent the navy to the Barbary Coast once again. (The phrase "to the shores of Tripoli" from the Marine Hymn refers to this historic battle.) Madison eventually declared victory against the pirates in his Seventh Annual Message to Congress.
I might argue that today all Governments are the Pirates, and they are all running a giant ‘protection’ scheme.
To the shores of Tripoli.
ping
Hagiography, not history.
In actuality, all the European seagoing nations either fought the pirates or bought them off, as seemed expedient. Americans sometimes copied the gambits.
President Jefferson was opposed to a blue-water navy - too expensive, too destabilizing geopolitically (he believed); he reversed many of President Adams’ foreign-policy initiatives along such lines. The pirates responded accordingly.
Piracy began to wane after a US squadron was sent to attack or accept surrender in 1815; fresh from naval success in the War of 1812, Americans were feeling their oats. The pirate powers caved.
The decline really gained momentum when the Royal Navy, no longer warring against Napoleonic France, implemented the British policy of shelling every seaside town on the Barbary Coast suspected of being a pirate base.
It culminated in the Battle of Navarino in October 1827 - the last major naval engagement fought entirely between sail-powered warships. The Ottoman Turks were defeated by the Euro powers and agreed to bring the pirates into line.
“...Years later in 1815, President James Madison sent the navy to the Barbary Coast once again. (The phrase “to the shores of Tripoli” from the Marine Hymn refers to this historic battle.)...” [from the original article]
This assertion keeps popping up but it is mistaken.
The line in the USMC hymn refers to the capture of Derna in 1805. After marching 500 miles along the coast of Libya, US Marines commanded by Lt Presely O’Bannon together with civilian William Eaton and Berber mercenaries did battle to depose the Pasha of Tripoli.