Born in Charles County, Maryland, Stoddert was educated as a merchant. In 1781 he set up a mercantile business in Georgetown, Maryland. In 1798 President John Adams appointed Benjamin Stoddert, a loyal Federalist, to oversee the newly established Department of the Navy. As the first Secretary of the Navy, Stoddert soon found himself dealing with an undeclared naval war with France, which would come to be known as the Quasi-War. Stoddert realized that the infant Navy possessed too few warships to protect a far-flung merchant marine by using convoys or by patrolling the North American coast. Rather, he concluded that the best way to defeat the French campaign against American shipping was by offensive operations in the Caribbean, where most of the French cruisers were based.
Thus at the very outset of the conflict, the Department of the Navy adopted a policy of going to the source of the enemy’s strength. Under Stoddert’s leadership, the reestablished United States Navy acquitted itself well and achieved its goal of stopping the depredations of French ships against American commerce. Stoddert established the first six navy yards and advocated building twelve ships of the line. Congress initially approved construction of six ships of the line, but following the peace accord with France, changed its mind, eliminating the ships of the line. Despite subsequent shifting political sentiments, the American people would ever after depend on the Navy to defend their commerce and assert their rights on the high seas.