THE WAR OF 1812
6/1/2011
At President James Madison’s urging, Congress declared war on Great Britain in June 1812. This marked the second time in less than 40 years that the United States went to war against the mighty British Empire. There were various reasons for declaring war, noble or otherwise.
The U.S. war effort was hampered by an ill-equipped military and dissenters who openly sided with the enemy. Nevertheless, the U.S. emerged from this war more powerful than ever before, have secured North American dominance after what many called the "Second War for Independence."
In the first decade of 1800, Europe was ravaged by war as the French under Napoleon Bonaparte fought to control the Continent. Napoleon’s primary obstacle to European domination was Great Britain. Across the Atlantic, both the British and French continued trading with the U.S., but they also worked to sabotage each others’ trade, thus harming the U.S. in the process.
U.S. officials debated as to whether France or Britain was more to blame. The Jefferson administration (1801-1809) tended to favor France because of their historic alliance with the U.S. against the British in the War for Independence. As such, there was more anti-British sentiment in the U.S. than anti-French.
Causing further outrage in the U.S. was the British policy of impressment, in which the Royal Navy stopped U.S. ships at sea and impressed, or forced, U.S. sailors into British naval service on the grounds that they were British deserters. Americans denounced this practice, feeling that the British were infringing on their liberty just as they had prior to the War for Independence.
However this anti-British sentiment was not shared by most Americans in New England, primarily because the New England states relied heavily on British imports. A series of boycotts and embargoes were imposed in the U.S., but that hurt U.S. commerce more than Britain or France, and it caused an economic downturn. It also encouraged smuggling as many New Englanders openly violated the laws by conducting an illicit trade with Britain.
In 1811, many young congressmen from the western states took their new seats in Congress. These "War Hawks" called for war against Britain, not so much for violations at sea since their states had no sea ports, but because they believed that the British were inciting Indian uprisings in their region. Perhaps more importantly, many of these new politicians sought to seize Canada from Britain and possibly even Florida from Spain, a British ally.
With the anti-British fervor accelerating, President James Madison delivered a war message to Congress on June 1, 1812. Madison cited British impressments and violations of free trade at sea as the primary reasons. The House of Representatives voted 79 to 49 in favor of war, and the Senate followed with a 19 to 13 vote in favor, thus declaring war on Britain. However the divided votes were an ominous sign that not all Americans would support the coming conflict.
Attempts to Conquer Canada
Almost immediately after declaring war, the U.S. began mobilizing to invade Canada. The British, having most of their military units fighting Napoleon in Europe, held Canada with only thin garrisons. Despite this, U.S. forces surrendered both Fort Dearborn (now Chicago) and Detroit in August 1812. A U.S. attack on Queenston was beaten back, and an expedition on Lake Champlain failed when state militia units insisted on their constitutional right not to be sent outside their states.
On the other hand, U.S. forces managed to defeat the British at the Thames and Chippewa. Also U.S. troops burned York (now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. However a Canadian invasion at Montreal failed in late 1813, and this ended all U.S. plans to conquer Canada.
Battles at Sea
At the time, Great Britain possessed the most powerful navy in the world. Hopelessly inferior, the U.S. revived the Revolutionary War policy of hiring privateers to harass British shipping. And surprisingly, the U.S. Navy managed to win 80 percent of the battles in the war.
The most significant victory for the U.S. Navy occurred when the USS Constitution compelled the British Guerriere to surrender. The Constitution’s resilient hull gave her the nickname "Old Ironsides." Another dramatic victory occurred on Lake Erie in 1813, when Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s U.S. fleet defeated the British. Perry declared, "We have met the enemy and they are ours."
Conversely, the most significant British victory on water was the Shannon’s defeat of the USS Chesapeake off Boston on June 1, 1813. In addition, the British conducted a naval blockade of U.S. naval ports, which nearly destroyed the U.S. economy.
British Counterattacks
By 1814, the war in Europe had ended and Britain turned its full attention to the war in North America by revising its strategy and sending massive amounts of reinforcements. The British launched a three-pronged offensive at Lake Champlain, Chesapeake Bay and New Orleans that would split the U.S. into thirds.
The Lake Champlain offensive failed when the U.S. Navy scored a spectacular victory over the British. In the Chesapeake Bay offensive, the British invaded Washington, DC and burned the White House and the Capitol, partly in retaliation for the U.S. burning of York. This was the only successful attack on Washington in U.S. history, and it ranked with Pearl Harbor and September 11, 2001 as one of the most traumatic foreign attacks on U.S. soil.
However the Chesapeake offensive faltered when the British failed to take Baltimore. The British bombardment of Fort McHenry outside the town inspired Francis Scott Key to compose "The Star-Spangled Banner."
By the fall of 1814, the third prong of the offensive was employed when a large British army was sent to invade New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico.
New England Threatens Secession
After two years of fighting, neither side had claimed an advantage, although the British blockade was slowly bankrupting the U.S. Adding to this was the absence of trade with Britain, which devastated the U.S. economy, particularly in New England. Consequently, New Englanders who had opposed the war from the outset began openly clamoring for it to end.
During the war, New Englanders thwarted the U.S. by refusing to provide state militia to the federal army and by maintaining communication and illegal trade with the British. This not only provided aid and comfort to the enemy, but it reduced the bargaining power of U.S. negotiators trying to reach a peace. Then, in December 1814, disgruntled New England Federalists met in Hartford to discuss seceding from the Union.
The Hartford Convention marked the first major secession movement in U.S. history. The delegates ultimately voted against secession, instead proposing several amendments to the Constitution that would favor them (none were adopted). Although secession was defeated, many Americans were outraged that such a topic would be considered during a war. As a result, Federalists were disgraced and secession would thereafter be associated with treason.
Peace and Victory
In late 1814, U.S. and British negotiators worked in Ghent, Belgium to forge a peace. After conceding that no advantage could be gained by either side, the Treaty of Ghent was signed on Christmas Eve, 1814. The U.S. withdrew its two major demands—that Britain stop impressing U.S. seamen and acknowledge U.S. free trade at sea—mainly because U.S. officials knew that Britain would honor these demands anyway after having won the war in Europe. Other territorial disputes were referred to commissions, where they stalled for decades.
News of this treaty had not yet reached the U.S. when the British attacked New Orleans on January 8, 1815. A 3,000-man British Army attacked fortified U.S. positions commanded by General Andrew Jackson and was severely defeated. This made Jackson a national hero.
Although the Battle of New Orleans had no impact since the war had already ended, it made the "peace without victory" provisions of the Treaty of Ghent more acceptable to U.S. officials. Although nothing was gained or lost, the War of 1812 set many significant trends for the U.S.:
First, the Federalist Party dissolved, as many were repulsed by the Federalists’ opposition to the war. This left the Republicans unopposed in U.S. politics until the new Democratic Party was created in 1828.
Second, the war created the notion of equating secession with treason, as many declared that the Hartford Convention was treasonous because secession was considered during a war. This concept inspired future politicians to declare that the Union is indivisible and secession is illegal, which ultimately led to civil war when the southern states were prohibited from seceding in 1861.
Third, the war led to the ultimate destruction of Indian tribe power east of the Mississippi River. Without British assistance, Indian tribes were pushed out of the Ohio River Valley, and the Creek Indians were driven out of Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. This war also laid the groundwork for the Seminole Wars that drove the Indians out of Florida and eventually moved all Indians to the West in the "Trail of Tears."
Most importantly, the war showed that the U.S. could stand up to the most powerful nation in the world. This elevated the U.S. to a level closer to the European powers. By earning British respect, the U.S. would be more respected by European nations in future negotiations. More than anything else, this was why the War of 1812 has sometimes been called the "Second War for Independence."
WalterCoffey.com
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