How many years has the U. S. coast guard been around?

Answer 1

The official answer is that the U.S. Navy is about 15 years older, based on the services' respective official "birthdays" (1775 for USN vs. 1790 for USCG), but the answer for those debating the issue really depends on the criteria used to gauge the age of the U.S. Navy.

It should be noted here that the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, each date their respective creations to when they were first created by the Continental Congress, when the U.S. still consisted of British colonies--they do not use the dates when they were reconstituted under the U.S. Constitution by the U.S. Congress.

The Continental Congress created the Continental Navy on 13 October 1775, but it was disbanded after the Revolutionary War--the ships were sold and the officers and sailors were released. According to a U.S. Supreme Court decision, the new United States government began to legally function under the U.S. Constitution on 4 March 1789. Since the U.S. Constitution authorized the U.S. Congress "to provide and maintain a Navy," the effective date of the Constitution could also be considered as a possible birthday of the Navy. However, Congress did not take action to provide ships until 1794, when it authorized the procurement of six frigates, the first three of which were not completed and launched until 1797 (the 1794 authorization could be considered a possible birthday of the Navy and would be equivalent to the 1790 authorization for the Coast Guard, providing the grounds for the question being debated here). Between 1794 and 1798, naval affairs were administered by the Department of War, until the Department of the Navy was created on 30 April 1798.

The U.S. Coast Guard celebrates 4 August 1790 as its birthday, which is when the first U.S. Congress "authorized the construction of ten vessels to enforce tariff and trade laws and to prevent smuggling...The service received its present name in 1915 under an act of Congress when the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the Life-Saving Service" (USCG website). There is no mention of any similar service being created during the colonial era under the Continental Congress, so the Coast Guard appears to be entirely a post-Revolution creation, unlike the Navy.

The bottom line is that the answer depends entirely on what criteria you want to use for dating the origins of the U.S. Navy. There are three options:

1) If you consider that the Continental Navy was the direct predecessor of the U.S. Navy and disregard the gap in physical continuity caused by its disbanding after the Revolutionary War, then 13 October 1775 would be the birthday (this is the official birthday used by the U.S. Navy and recognized by the rest of the U.S. government).

2) If you use the date that a naval force was authorized by the U.S. Constitution, then the 4 March 1789 effective date for the beginning of the U.S. government would be the birthday and the Navy would still be older than the Coast Guard--but only by about a year (this writer has not seen any other author argue for the use of this date, but presents it here as a technical possibility).

3) If you want to count the date that the U.S. Congress first acted to create a physical U.S. Navy, then the 1794 authorization to procure ships would be the birthday and the Coast Guard would then be about four years older than the Navy (this option appears to be the origin of the debate behind the original question).

Arguments could be made for the additional options of counting the 1797 launching of the first Navy ships or the 1798 creation of the Department of the Navy as possible Navy birthdays, but these are discounted in the interest of equal treatment. Since the official Coast Guard birthday is based on a procurement authorization and not actual launching, the 1794 authorization for the Navy ships is considered to be the latest possible birthday of the Navy in this argument, as it treats both services equally.

For more info, see:

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq31-2.htm

http://www.uscg.mil/history/

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_q_and_a.html

Answer 2

222 years. It was created August 4, 1790.

1790 to 1890 = 100 years

1890 to 1990=100 years

1990 to 2012=22 years

Answer 3

since the 1790s i guess no one has recognized them because they became a whole later after the other branches that were first build.

Answer 4

Coast Guard