Despite vast technological changes, the character of the Navy as a service, in contrast to the Army, has also changed very little. While the 'citizen soldier' envisioned by the Founders has virtually disappeared from the Army of today, today's sailor, both officer and enlisted, has much in common with his predecessor who manned the Navy of the Constitution, technical expertise of course excepted.

Although service reforms beginning in the latter decades of the nineteenth century created a powerful Navy, the foundation of this Navy was laid by the likes of Hamilton, Benjamin Stoddert, the first Secretary of the Navy, and other Federalists who recognized the shortcomings of a navy limited to coastal defense alone.