The Barabary Pirates wasn't really a paternalist imperial action - the Pirates had a better navy than we did and were enslaving our sailors when they caught our ships, so it's funny that you talk about fetters for others.

I think you're missing my point that we didn't fight the Barbary Pirates because we particularly cared about them enslaving people (even our own) but because they were disrupting our commerce through the Mediterranean.

And the Barbary Pirates and American slave trade could and did coexist. You seem to be quite emotional on that point.

I'm not emotional about the Barbary Pirates. I simply think that pointing out that a country cared more about its merchant interests than another country's citizenry isn't exactly deeply insightful. Also, I don't agree that a country that had freed itself from monarchy less than a generation earlier can be described as 'unburdened by the legacy of monarchy' particularly given the origin of common law in the US.

To be a merchant paternalist, you generally need to be powerful. I thought it was important to point out that the United States was not powerful at that time, and barely managed to protect its merchant's interests some of the time. Your comment about merchant paternalists not caring about leaving others in fetters, both iron and structural, doesn't really apply to that particular conflict.

This was in some sense preordained, given that it was Shay's Rebellion that motivated the creation of a strong federal government and the Whiskey Rebellion was one of the earliest usages of the standing army. But the other obvious purpose was expanding the territory of the United States. Hogeland's Autumn of the Black Snake details how defeating Indians in Ohio was the impetus to create a standing army, an idea that was quite controversial.