BS: March on Washington, 1814

Subject: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 08:43 PM

200 years ago this week.

There was plenty of warning the British were coming. The defenses were ill-led militiamen, the attackers were well trained and well-led, many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars.
The President and his wife fled before the onslaught.
And the White House was put to the torch. The British burned Washington.

"All Things Considered" American Public Radio, is doing a radio report of the events in the style of "You Are There". It's a lot of fun, if listening to one of the great losses of American forces in history can be said to be fun.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 09:32 PM

Could you Brits come back and sort of clean house for us? No need to burn anything this time around, though.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 11:21 PM

Somehow I thought it was the Canadians who burned the White House to the ground...

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 12:49 AM

From Wikipedia:

"On August 24, 1814, after defeating the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross occupied Washington City and set fire to many public buildings, including the White House and the Capitol, as well as other facilities of the U.S. government.[3] The attack was in part a retaliation to American actions in the Raid on Port Dover.

Throughout the history of the United States, the U.K. is the only country to have ever burned the White House or Washington, D.C., and this was the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a foreign power captured and occupied the United States capital."

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 06:11 PM

I'd like you all to come over again and capture those running the US government. Take them and hold them for ransom so we can fail to pay it and you'll be stuck with them.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,#
Date: 23 Aug 14 - 11:14 AM

We have enough with the well-groomed twit in Ottawa.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: robomatic
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 09:06 PM

I should've OP'd to the music side...

THE ARROGANT WORMS
The War of 1812 Lyrics

ooooh come back proud Canadians
To before you had TV
No hockey night in canada!
There was no CBC (oh my god)

In 1812 Madison was mad
He was the president you know
well he thought he'd tell the British
Where they ought to go
He thought he'd invade canada
He thought that he was tough
Instead we went to washingon...

[chorus]
And burned down all his stuff!
And the white house burned burned burned down
And we're the ones that did it
It burned burned burned
while the president ran and cried
It burned burned burned down
And things were very historical
and the americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies yeah
wah wah wah!
In the war of 1812

Us Hillbillies from Kentucky
Dressed in green and red
Left home to fight in Canada
But the returned home dead

Its the only war the Yankees lost
Except for Vietnam
And also the alamo
and the bay of... Ham

The loser was america
the winner was ourselves
so join right in and gloat about
the war of 1812

[chorus]

In 1812 we were just sittin around
Puttin crops into the ground
we heard the soldiers coming and we didnt like that sound
so we took a boat to washington
and burned it to the ground

ooooh we fired our guns but the yankees kept-a-comin
There wasn't quite as many as there was a while ago
we fired once more and the yankees started runnin
Down the mississippi to the gulf of mexico-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ooo

They ran through the snow and they ran through the forest
They ran through the bushes where the beavers wouldnt go
The ran so fast they forgot to take their culture
Back to America and the gulf of mexico-oo-oo-ooo

so if you go to washington
its buildings clean and nice
bring a pack of matches
and we'll burn the white house twice

and the whitehouse burned burned burned
but the americans wont admit it
it burned burned burned
it burned it burned it burned
it burned burned burned
how that made them mad
and the americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies
wah wah wah
in the war of 1812 (dragged out)

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: gnu
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 05:57 AM

Can't we all just get along?

P.S. Why do they always focus on the negative? The burning buildings? What about the positive? Like all the looting. Some damn fine swag was had.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 08:36 AM

""Somehow I thought it was the Canadians who burned the White House to the ground...""

"Canadians look much like average, boring British people, except when they dress to go outdoors" National Lampoon

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,DaveRo
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 09:49 AM

There's a good book describing these extraordinary events: When Britain Burned the White House by Peter Snow. It was on BBC radio a while back. The president fled leaving his dinner on the table, for which the invaders were grateful - especially has he had an excellent wine-cellar.

They burned the capitol too, and its library. Fortunately Jefferson was able to sell his to replace it. (He was short of money at the time, I think.)

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: artbrooks
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 10:01 AM

The extant British Order of Battle ( basically the troop list) lists four British infantry units in addition to the Royal Marines. All of the infantry (the 4th (King's Own/Lancaster), 44th (East Essex) and 85th (Bucks Volunteers) Regiments of Foot and the 21st Regiment (Royal North British Fusiliers). Since the Marines did not recruit geographically, it is possible that some individuals were from Upper or Lower Canada. Canada, of course, did not exist as a separate political entity at that time.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: gnu
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 10:21 AM

There were Canucks and First Nations among the force. You won't find many accounts of First Nations participation. I am not a buff in this War or First Nations' history but the contributions of First Nations seems lightly skimmed over in many instances and many areas of Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: gnu
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 10:55 AM

Here's a start re First Nations... https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1338906261900/1338906300039

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 05:50 PM

"The president fled leaving his dinner on the table, for which the invaders were grateful - especially has he had an excellent wine-cellar." Guest/DaveRo

English, I presume? Let me correct you: As I recall, President Madison wasn't even home. Dolley Madison, his wife, had had dinner prepared for invited guests- and she is the one who left it. Your soldiers ate and drank and then burnt the building to the ground. Kind of cheesy, actually.

(Mrs. Madison, however, had time to take some valuables with her, including a copy of the famous painting of George Washington.)

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: gnu
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 07:28 PM

"Your soldiers ate and drank and then burnt the building to the ground. Kind of cheesy, actually." Well, it was just gonna get cold anyway... fer a while. Waste not, want not... I always say.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: olddude
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 10:35 PM

Won the battle and lost the war

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: olddude
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 10:37 PM

But a really good job of cleaning house.. Ya can have it today if you want. I will toss in the capital

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Charmion
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 11:29 PM

Burned Washington? I knew we burned Joan of Arc ... Never knew we caught Washington ...

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 02:35 AM

Offhand I don't recall how the war of 1812 ended. Pretty sure it didn't get chalked up as a win for the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 03:33 AM

Ebbie: "Let me correct you: As I recall, President Madison wasn't even home. Dolley Madison, his wife, had had dinner prepared for invited guests- and she is the one who left it."

Thank you for the correction. But I stand by my recommendation of Peter Snow's book for those who, like me, knew little about these events.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: artbrooks
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 10:41 AM

Ebbie, both sides agreed to return captured territory and the British agreed to end their policy of impressing American seaman who were, or once had been, British citizens. A small win for the US, since that was ostensibly what the war was about in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 02:31 PM

Much of the above doesn't agree with my memories of reading about the Civil War.
Maybe I should rely on something other than the books:
Guns of the South: Harry Turtledove
A Rebel in Time: Harry Harrison
Black in Time: John Jakes

But, as an S-F nut, what else can I do?
If you're looking for recommendations I found the Turtledove excellent, The Harrison V.Good.
The Jakes is "pulp fiction" and 'pulping' is about all it deserves!

Cheers

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: robomatic
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 08:28 PM

From a magazine that occasionally has some really readable articles this was writted in 2012:

This week marks the two hundredth anniversary of the commencement of the War of 1812, a benchmark that has been only halfheartedly acknowledged across the country. Late last year, PBS aired a film about the "small but bitter war." The State of Maryland, home to Fort McHenry—the siege of which inspired Francis Scott Key to compose the national anthem—has been celebrating the bicentennial with a commemorative license plate. And this weekend, the Society of the Second War with Great Britain in the State of New York will be participating in the War of 1812 Bicentennial Weekend at the Genesee Country Village and Museum in Mumford, New York.

The Society, which is a chapter of the General Society of the War of 1812, was created in 1896 "to perpetuate [the war's] memories and victories." In 1940, it was the subject of a Talk story by P. MacManna, B. Larner, and Russell Maloney. The publicity challenge of celebrating the War of 1812 appears to have been there from the beginning.

Asked why the war had remained so obscure to so many, Ketcham, the Secretary of the Society, offered two reasons:


One is that the men who fought in 1812 were over-modest about their accomplishments. The privateer captains, he says, reported only a small percentage of the ships they sank. They'd come into post after a successful sally against the British and go home for a quick drink and a supply of clean shirts without mentioning their exploits to anybody, whereas the soldiers who lugged a musket in 1776 devoted a disproportionate amount of time to hoarding up old weapons, pewter mugs, locks of Washington's hair, commissions, deeds, etc. The other reason is that the British (we are quoting Mr. Ketcham, remember) have acted like cads about their defeat. "They got the stuffing kicked out of them and they've been hush-hushing the thing ever since," he says indignantly.

According to Mr. Ketcham, the War of 1812 was significant because it established American naval power and heightened the country's international prestige. One of the other legacies of the war, of course, is "The Star-Spangled Banner." In a 1944 Talk story, Ebba Jonsson (The New Yorker's first librarian) gave a history of the composition of the national anthem.
MORE MUSIC INFORMATION HERE:
The famously hard-to-sing tune was composed in England in the seventeen-sixties by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a London social club. The original song, "To Anacreon in Heaven" featured words by Ralph Tomlinson. Jonsson describes the role played by one Dr. Beanes of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in placing Key in a position to rewrite Tomlinson's words:

One evening, the Doctor and a couple of friends were punishing a bowl of punch when three British soldiers, stragglers, who had lost touch with the invading force, knocked at his door. In their alcoholic exuberance, the Doctor and his friends disarmed the redcoats and marched them off to the village lockup. When the British took possession of the town, they freed the prisoners, locked up the Doctor, and then went on to lay siege to Baltimore…. Key, who was a lawyer, took a party from Baltimore out to the British fleet on a ship named the Minden under a flag of truce, to arrange for Beanes' release. The British admiral agreed to free the Doctor, but detained the Minden and its party while he launched an attack on Fort McHenry… Key stayed up all night on the Minden to watch the battle and eventually saw by the dawn's early light that the flag was still there. He wrote the lyric on the back of an envelope.

Jonsson points out the "The Star-Spangled Banner" was not officially named the national anthem until 1931. She traces the elevation of Key's song to another often-forgotten American war:

As late as the Spanish-American war, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was sharing honors with "Hail Columbia," and "My Country 'Tis of Thee" was pressing the pair of them pretty closely. Admiral Dewey, when his fleet steamed triumphantly into Manila Bay, ordered his band to play "The Star-Spangled Banner," and after that it became much more popular than the other two contenders.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Teribus
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 07:43 AM

"both sides agreed to return captured territory and the British agreed to end their policy of impressing American seaman who were, or once had been, British citizens. A small win for the US, since that was ostensibly what the war was about in the first place." - artbrooks

Nice to see the "ostensibly" in that last sentence. Nothing whatsoever to do with impressment of sailors or constraint of trade. The reason behind the War of 1812 was the same as that for the Revolutionary War {War of Independence} - blatant attempt at a land grab - In 1812 the target was Canada in 1776 it was to break the treaty made with the Indian Nations in 1754. In 1812 to the US it looked as though Napoleon and France were winning the war - pity about Napoleon's march into Russia, just six days after the USA declared war on Great Britain. The two opposing political factions in the USA at the time were the Federalists and the Democratic-Republican Party. The latter faction which prevailed favoured "a weak central government, preservation of slavery, expansion into Indian land, and a stronger break with Britain.".

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Joe_F
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 11:04 PM

In the USS Constitution Museum in Boston there is a display inviting visitors to express their opinions on who actually won the War of 1812, listing an admirable variety of plausible answers.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 01:39 AM

"The reason behind the War of 1812 was the same as that for the Revolutionary War {War of Independence} - blatant attempt at a land grab - In 1812 the target was Canada in 1776 it was to break the treaty made with the Indian Nations in 1754."

No offense, but sheesh- can we be sure that was not written by GfS?

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 01:57 AM

Ebbie the War of Independence had S.F.A. to do with any of the popular reasons given for it {Taxation without representation - to use your own word SHEESH - the Colonists in America were subsidised to the hilt and paid only 1/27th of the Taxes levied on their counterparts in the UK - Source Nail Ferguson Professor of History at Harvard University}. By the time of the Seven Years War the French had completely boxed in the British Colonies in America blocking all hope of any further westward expansion for a group of colonists who were "land hungry". AFTER the Seven Years War those colonists had two potential avenues open to them to expand westward - through Canada or into the Ohio and Wabash Basins. The latter was the easiest but that was blocked because of treaties made between the British Government and the Native American tribes who had assisted the British to defeat the French. Your War of Independence was a way to break free from the constraints of that treaty - I do not think that the US Government from that day onward ever honoured a single treaty that it made with any of the North American tribes.

In 1812 the Democratic-Republican Party, under Madison who drove the War, "favoured a weak central government, preservation of slavery, expansion into Indian land, and a stronger break with Britain."." - the land grab in this case was to drive the British from North America completely - that along with other later attempts failed.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 01:24 PM

history according to Teribus.... sheesh is right

while there will always be those who take advantage of any opportunity that comes their way, the American Revolution was born out of many attitudes that came with the "Age of Enlightenment"... and was supported by those who had learned that they could indeed get along without having to support an aristocracy and the 18th century equivalent of mega corporations.

and what made Manifest Destiny do-able, was the fact that life in Europe was miserable enough to make immigration to another continent look good. happy campers do not pack up and move...

colonialism was NEVER intended to benefit the colonies... and there were enough educated colonials to figure that out and decide to take action. One thing we can say for our founding fathers... they were smart and well read... more than I can say for many of our current political hacks.

Guess we need another revolution to clean house...

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Les from Hull
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 03:14 PM

Adding to what Teribus says about the 1812 War, the truth is that the war was very unpopular and Madison's big mistake, which is why he spent two years trying to stop it, as it had almost bankrupted the US Treasury.

And Manifest Destiny sounds much better than stealing land and racial cleansing. I was in the USA this year. Probably the only treaties the US Government have kept are ones that allocated the land the land that the Native Americans own now. And that's basically desert.

You have to accept what previous Governments of any country have done. It's a matter of historical fact. You don't have to stick up for them for national pride. It wasn't us. Some Big Boys did it and ran away.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 03:59 PM

actually, neither what became the USA or Canada has been innocent of abuses to native peoples... but why stop there? South America and the southern portions of North America have the legacy of the original slave trade in the New World. Just because Great Britain ended their support of the slave trade in the early part of the 19th century does not excuse them from earlier actions.

My issues with Teribus is the broad statements that ignore facts.

Fact #1... nobody in 1776 had any expectation of buying the French Territory that was part of the Louisiana Purchase... not to mention the inclusion of Florida.

Fact #2... the Founding Fathers were based in the established colonies and had nothing to gain by "trying to grab land" and everything to lose - their lives- if that was their real intent. At least one signer of the Declaration of Independence was most likely a smuggler and they all felt unfairly treated by the King and Parliment.

Fact #3... the additional western land that became part of the original USA was negoiated during the treaty of Paris by some canny Americans who saw an opportunity & took it.

Fact #4... everything that Teribus is bashing us about can be said about England earlier... they were the late comers who displaced the Dutch and tried to do the same with the French. and that was just in the north... what about the Carribean? Or the Indies?

the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to that.

as for the War of 1812... a young country with few strong allies is more than a little likely to feel threatened by an old enemy...

just ask the Ukraine how they feel about Russia...

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Teribus
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 04:43 AM

"Fact #1... nobody in 1776 had any expectation of buying the French Territory that was part of the Louisiana Purchase... not to mention the inclusion of Florida."

Never said anything at all about what was known as the Louisiana Purchase in relation to 1776.

"Fact #2... the Founding Fathers were based in the established colonies and had nothing to gain by "trying to grab land" and everything to lose - their lives- if that was their real intent. At least one signer of the Declaration of Independence was most likely a smuggler and they all felt unfairly treated by the King and Parliment."

Total bullshit the colonies founded during the early to mid 1600s one hundred years later were burgeoning and felt limited and constrained - they had a great deal to gain in 1776 - If losing their lives was a consideration then they would not have rebelled - they did solely because they thought the game was worth the candle - the prize was not "freedom" or "liberty" {They already had that by the yard - just look at the premises upon which these colonies were originally founded}, the prize was the land that would be available to them for westward expansion as viewed in 1776. The following map shows this and the land acquired under the Louisiana Purchase of 1803:

Wabash & Ohio Basin and The Louisiana Purchase

"Fact #3... the additional western land that became part of the original USA was negoiated during the treaty of Paris by some canny Americans who saw an opportunity & took it."

Again utter bullshit the Americans merely took what parts of the Treaty of Paris (1783) they wanted and just ignored the ones that didn't suit them. There were basically Ten Articles, the ones ignored by the Americans were as follows:

Article 4: Recognizing the lawful contracted debts to be paid to creditors on either side;

Article 5: The Congress of the Confederation will "earnestly recommend" to state legislatures to recognize the rightful owners of all confiscated lands and "provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to real British subjects" (Loyalists);

Article 6: United States will prevent future confiscations of the property of Loyalists;

Article 7: Prisoners of war on both sides are to be released; all property of the British army (including slaves) now in the United States is to remain and be forfeited;

Article 9: Territories captured by Americans subsequent to the treaty will be returned without compensation;

"Fact #4... everything that Teribus is bashing us about can be said about England earlier... they were the late comers who displaced the Dutch and tried to do the same with the French. and that was just in the north... what about the Carribean? Or the Indies?"

Again mostly desperate bullshit designed to deflect - the Spanish were "Conquistadores" - the English and latterly the British Empire was acquired through trade with the native people and their rulers and through territory and trading rights conceded as a result of Britain being victorious in various European Wars.

As for the War of 1812 {The subject of this thread} that as I stated previously was a desperately "mistimed" opportunistic land grab - "just ask the Ukraine how they feel about Russia... OR indeed just ask Georgia how they feel about Russia..."

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Charmion
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 06:20 AM

In Canada, especially Ontario, the War of 1812 is understood as a land-grab fought off by the British regular troops garrisoned in Upper and Lower Canada ably supported by the First Nations and Canadian militia. The National Archives of Canada has a nice collection of hand-bills distributed by American invaders in the Niagara region to persuade the residents there -- many recently resettled Loyalists -- of the benefits of becoming a new state of the Union.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Charmion
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 09:46 AM

Incidentally, it is very interesting that both British and American discussions of this war tend to focus on actions at sea, while Canadians focus on the land campaigns. In fact, like the American War of Independence, the War of 1812 had a variety of objectives and comprised several major campaigns on land as well as maritime strategies focussed on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie as well as on the high seas.

I believe this variance of focus arises from differences in interest: Canadians had the most skin in the game in the land campaigns in the Niagara Peninsula and along the St Lawrence and Richelieu rivers, so that is what we tend to care about and write about. Incidentally, it is also where the Americans were comprehensively whipped.

The Canadian historiography of the War of 1812 usually begins with the Quebec Act, which identified the vast tract between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes as British territory reserved for use by the resident First Nations, and specifically separated from the thirteen (later rebellious) colonies. That would support Teribus' point of view.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 10:00 AM

The Cdn. Maritimes connection 

From the Nova Scotia Museum, the maritime component:

""Starting on June 18, 1812 and lasting for nearly three years, the War of 1812 was a series of land and sea battles between the United States and Great Britain, including their respective First Nations allies. The war was fought in three principal theatres: first along the American-Canadian border (primarily along the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River); second, along the American South and third, and most relevant to Nova Scotia, the maritime component along the Atlantic coast of the United States. 

The maritime component can be described in three phases:
In 1812, the advantages lay with the Americans who won several spectacular single-ship actions.  Both sides launched an aggressive privateering campaign and trade through Nova Scotia boomed.In 1813, the British naval presence increased as additional ships were sent to Halifax and a blockade of the American coast was implemented. This year also saw one of the war's most memorable naval battles, the capture of USSChesapeake by HMS ShannonBy 1814, the Atlantic seaboard was dominated by the Royal Navy and American trade was dwindling.  There was an increase in British raids, including the occupation of the Castine region of Maine and the capture and burning of Washington D.C. 

As the war progressed, there was an increase in privateers and naval impressment. The Halifax Naval Yard and military presence grew in response to the battles at sea, while a prison for captured Americans was maintained at Melville Island. 

It was with the end of the war in 1814 that Nova Scotia would be most permanently affected. This period saw the arrival of the Black Refugees, discharged military personnel making the colony their home, the economic benefits of the Castine Funds, as well as the many graves, monuments, and buildings that today stand as a testament to the War of 1812's people and events. ""

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 04 Sep 14 - 10:05 AM

below is the text of President Madison's speech to Congress and here is the link http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/historicspeeches/madison/warmessage.html

What seems to be overlooked by many is the fact that the USA was a very new nation - with many veterans of the Revolution still alive who still remembered past grievances and had a great mistrust of Britain. And for those who claim land grab... there was still plenty of so called unclaimed land left. Most of the settlements in western NY were small, isolated and difficult to defend. To think that even a large number of Americans living at the time were proponants of Manifest Destny is like thinking that the Tea Party actually represents the average American. sheesh is right...


To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I communicate to Congress certain documents, being a continuation of those heretofore laid before them on the subject of our affairs with Great Britain.

Without going back beyond the renewal in 1803 of the war in which Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior magnitude, the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.

British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating the American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it, not in the exercise of a belligerent right founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal prerogative over British subjects. British jurisdiction is thus extended to neutral vessels in a situation where no laws can operate but the law of nations and the laws of the country to which the vessels belong, and a self-redress is assumed which, if British subjects were wrongfully detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of force for a resort to the responsible sovereign which falls within the definition of war. Could the seizure of British subjects in such cases be regarded as within the exercise of a belligerent right, the acknowledged laws of war, which forbid an article of captured property to be adjudged without a regular investigation before a competent tribunal, would imperiously demand the fairest trial where the sacred rights of persons were at issue. In place of such a trial these rights are subjected to the will of every petty commander.

The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects alone that, under the pretext of searching for these, thousands of American citizens, under the safeguard of public law and of their national flag, have been torn from their country and from everything dear to them; have been dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation and exposed, under the severities of their discipline, to be exiled to the most distant and deadly climes, to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors, and to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own brethren.

Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt to avenge if committed against herself, the United States have in vain exhausted remonstrances and expostulations, and that no proof might be wanting of their conciliatory dispositions, and no pretext left for a continuance of the practice, the British Government was formally assured of the readiness of the United States to enter into arrangements such as could not be rejected if the recovery of British subjects were the real and the sole object. The communication passed without effect.

British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights and the peace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions they have added the most lawless proceedings in our very harbors, and have wantonly spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction. The principles and rules enforced by that nation, when a neutral nation, against armed vessels of belligerents hovering near her coasts and disturbing her commerce are well known. When called on, nevertheless, by the United States to punish the greater offenses committed by her own vessels, her Government has bestowed on their commanders additional marks of honor and confidence.

Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate force and sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has been plundered in every sea, the great staples of our country have been cut off from their legitimate markets, and a destructive blow aimed at our agricultural and maritime interests. In aggravation of these predatory measures they have been considered as in force from the dates of their notification, a retrospective effect being thus added, as has been done in other important cases, to the unlawfulness of the course pursued. And to render the outrage the more signal these mock blockades have been reiterated and enforced in the face of official communications from the British Government declaring as the true definition of a legal blockade "that particular ports must be actually invested and previous warning given to vessels bound to them not to enter."

Not content with these occasional expedients for laying waste our neutral trade, the cabinet of Britain resorted at length to the sweeping system of blockades, under the name of orders in council, which has been molded and managed as might best suit its political views, its commercial jealousies, or the avidity of British cruisers.

To our remonstrances against the complicated and transcendent injustice of this innovation the first reply was that the orders were reluctantly adopted by Great Britain as a necessary retaliation on decrees of her enemy proclaiming a general blockade of the British Isles at a time when the naval force of that enemy dared not issue from his own ports. She was reminded without effect that her own prior blockades, unsupported by an adequate naval force actually applied and continued, were a bar to this plea; that executed edicts against millions of our property could not be retaliation on edicts confessedly impossible to be executed; that retaliation, to be just, should fall on the party setting the guilty example, not on an innocent party which was not even chargeable with an acquiescence in it.

When deprived of this flimsy veil for a prohibition of our trade with her enemy by the repeal of his prohibition of our trade with Great Britain, her cabinet, instead of a corresponding repeal or a practical discontinuance of its orders, formally avowed a determination to persist in them against the United States until the markets of her enemy should be laid open to British products, thus asserting an obligation on a neutral power to require one belligerent to encourage by its internal regulations the trade of another belligerent, contradicting her own practice toward all nations, in peace as well as in war, and betraying the insincerity of those professions which inculcated a belief that, having resorted to her orders with regret, she was anxious to find an occasion for putting an end to them.

Abandoning still more all respect for the neutral rights of the United States and for its own consistency, the British Government now demands as prerequisites to a repeal of its orders as they relate to the United States that a formality should be observed in the repeal of the French decrees nowise necessary to their termination nor exemplified by British usage, and that the French repeal, besides including that portion of the decrees which operates within a territorial jurisdiction, as well as that which operates on the high seas, against the commerce of the United States should not be a single and special repeal in relation to the United States, but should be extended to whatever other neutral nations unconnected with them may be affected by those decrees. And as an additional insult, they are called on for a formal disavowal of conditions and pretensions advanced by the French Government for which the United States are so far from having made themselves responsible that, in official explanations which have been published to the world, and in a correspondence of the American minister at London with the British minister for foreign affairs such a responsibility was explicitly and emphatically disclaimed.

It has become, indeed, sufficiently certain that the commerce of the United States is to be sacrificed, not as interfering with the belligerent rights of Great Britain; not as supplying the wants of her enemies, which she herself supplies; but as interfering with the monopoly which she covets for her own commerce and navigation. She carries on a war against the lawful commerce of a friend that she may the better carry on a commerce with an enemy — a commerce polluted by the forgeries and perjuries which are for the most part the only passports by which it can succeed.

Anxious to make every experiment short of the last resort of injured nations, the United States have withheld from Great Britain, under successive modifications, the benefits of a free intercourse with their market, the loss of which could not but outweigh the profits accruing from her restrictions of our commerce with other nations. And to entitle these experiments to the more favorable consideration they were so framed as to enable her to place her adversary under the exclusive operation of them. To these appeals her Government has been equally inflexible, as if willing to make sacrifices of every sort rather than yield to the claims of justice or renounce the errors of a false pride. Nay, so far were the attempts carried to overcome the attachment of the British cabinet to its unjust edicts that it received every encouragement within the competency of the executive branch of our Government to expect that a repeal of them would be followed by a war between the United States and France, unless the French edicts should also be repealed. Even this communication, although silencing forever the plea of a disposition in the United States to acquiesce in those edicts originally the sole plea for them, received no attention.

If no other proof existed of a predetermination of the British Government against a repeal of its orders, it might be found in the correspondence of the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at London and the British secretary for foreign affairs in 1810, on the question whether the blockade of May, 1806, was considered as in force or as not in force. It had been ascertained that the French Government, which urged this blockade as the ground of its Berlin decree, was willing in the event of its removal, to repeal that decree, which, being followed by alternate repeals of the other offensive edicts, might abolish the whole system on both sides. This inviting opportunity for accomplishing an object so important to the United States, and professed so often to be the desire of both the belligerents, was made known to the British Government. As that Government admits that an actual application of an adequate force is necessary to the existence of a legal blockade, and it was notorious that if such a force had ever been applied its long discontinuance had annulled the blockade in question, there could be no sufficient objection on the part of Great Britain to a formal revocation of it, and no imaginable objection to a declaration of the fact that the blockade did not exist. The declaration would have been consistent with her avowed principles of blockade, and would have enabled the United States to demand from France the pledged repeal of her decrees, either with success, in which case the way would have been opened for a general repeal of the belligerent edicts, or without success, in which case the United States would have been justified in turning their measures exclusively against France. The British Government would, however, neither rescind the blockade nor declare its nonexistence, nor permit its non-existence to be inferred and affirmed by the American plenipotentiary. On the contrary, by representing the blockade to be comprehended in the orders in council, the United States were compelled so to regard it in their subsequent proceedings.

There was a period when a favorable change in the policy of the British cabinet was justly considered as established. The minister plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty here proposed an adjustment of the differences more immediately endangering the harmony of the two countries. The proposition was accepted with the promptitude and cordiality corresponding with the invariable professions of this Government. A foundation appeared to be laid for a sincere and lasting reconciliation. The prospect, however, quickly vanished. The whole proceeding was disavowed by the British Government without any explanations which could at that time repress the belief that the disavowal proceeded from a spirit of hostility to the commercial rights and prosperity of the United States; and it has since come into proof that at the very moment when the public minister was holding the language of friendship and inspiring confidence in the sincerity of the negotiation with which he was charged a secret agent of his Government was employed in intrigues having for their object a subversion of our Government and a dismemberment of our happy union.

In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain toward the United States our attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just renewed by the savages on one of our extensive frontiers — a warfare which is known to spare neither age nor sex and to be distinguished by features peculiarly shocking to humanity. It is difficult to account for the activity and combinations which have for some time been developing themselves among tribes in constant intercourse with British traders and garrisons without connecting their hostility with that influence and without recollecting the authenticated examples of such interpositions heretofore furnished by the officers and agents of that Government.

Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have been heaped on our country, and such the crisis which its unexampled forbearance and conciliatory efforts have not been able to avert. It might at least have been expected that an enlightened nation, if less urged by moral obligations or invited by friendly dispositions on the part of the United States, would have found its true interest alone a sufficient motive to respect their rights and their tranquillity on the high seas; that an enlarged policy would have favored that free and general circulation of commerce in which the British nation is at all times interested, and which in times of war is the best alleviation of its calamities to herself as well as to other belligerents; and more especially that the British cabinet would not, for the sake of a precarious and surreptitious intercourse with hostile markets, have persevered in a course of measures which necessarily put at hazard the invaluable market of a great and growing country, disposed to cultivate the mutual advantages of an active commerce.

Other counsels have prevailed. Our moderation and conciliation have had no other effect than to encourage perseverance and to enlarge pretensions. We behold our seafaring citizens still the daily victims of lawless violence, committed on the great common and highway of nations, even within sight of the country which owes them protection. We behold our vessels, freighted with the products of our soil and industry, or returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested from their lawful destinations, confiscated by prize courts no longer the organs of public law but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their unfortunate crews dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British ports into British fleets, whilst arguments are employed in support of these aggressions which have no foundation but in a principle equally supporting a claim to regulate our external commerce in all cases whatsoever.

We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of war against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace toward Great Britain.

Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force in defense of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of Events, avoiding all connections which might entangle it in the contest or views of other powers, and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable re-establishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question which the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the Government. In recommending it to their early deliberations I am happy in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a powerful nation.

Having presented this view of the relations of the United States with Great Britain and of the solemn alternative grow mg out of them, I proceed to remark that the communica tions last made to Congress on the subject of our relations with France will have shewn that since the revocation of her decrees, as they violated the neutral rights of the United States, her Government has authorized illegal captures by its privateers and public ships, and that other outrages have been practised on our vessels and our citizens It will have been seen also that no indemnity had been provided or satisfacto rily pledged for the extensive spoliations committed under the violent and retrospective orders of the French Government against the property of our citizens seized within the jurisdic tion of France I abstain at this time from recommending to the consideration of Congress definitive measures with re spect to that nation, in the expectation that the result of un closed discussions between our minister plenipotentiary at Paris and the French Government will speedily enable Con gress to decide with greater advantage on the course due to the rights, the interests, and the honor of our country.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 04 Sep 14 - 09:11 PM

The offenses outlined by President Madison were a result of The King's Orders in Council of January 11 and November 7, 1807. They were intended to restrict by neutral nations with France(and were just the sort of thing we enthusiastically advocate when used against, say, the Russians).

Since the US was the major Neutral Nation, we were the chief parties who "suffered injuries and indignities". Add to that a feeling in some quarters that the British were encouraging Indian attacks on American frontier settlements, and the above mentioned
desire to incorporate a bit of British and Spanish territory into our Union, and you have
enough votes to drag the country into war.

The Orders were actually repealed in June, 1812, seven months after Madison delivered the above speech, and a couple days shy of the American Declaration of War. So we went to war after the "casus belli" had been resolved.

Worth reminding all here that our most decisive victory, the Battle of New Orleans,   was fought on the 8th of January, two weeks after the peace treaty had been signed. And so it goes...

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: gnu
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 04:22 AM

Interesting discussion. I appreciate the edification.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Les from Hull
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 08:41 AM

Napoleon's Continental System intended to blockade the UK from trade from the rest of the world, so that loss of food and raw materials would cripple the UK economy which was financing the wars against him. The Orders in Council were intended to counteract this. Of course the French did not have the naval resources to enforce this. The UK did.

The American merchant marine quadrupled in size during this period. And they were keen to get experienced seamen from wherever they could. British seamen had a duty to serve in the Navy when called upon, a duty that had existed since Tudor times. You couldn't change this by suddenly becoming American.

I'm not saying that any of this was right and fair. I'm just saying that it happened.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 09:06 AM

while preparing a short program about the War of 1812 for a local town's Old Fashioned Days festival I looked into the early settlers that were veterans of that war and what local conditions were.

what really hit home was how intertwined our history was with France... not just England... worthy of a tome by David mcCullough.

the idea of the War of 1812 being front for a "land grab" never made much sense... though, admittedly there were the "war hawks" who made as much sense as our current "tea party" a-holes. After all, our western border was the Mississippi River until 1803 when Jefferson authorized the Louisiana Purchase - almost a million square miles bought & paid for and open for settlement once you got past the Native peoples.

A position put forward by military historians that makes more sense is that the early USA was most definitely not a military power and thought the best strategy was a quick move to occupy Canadian land to "hold hostage" and bring about a quick resolution of their dispute with England. Ironic in that the resolution had already come about... once again proving that good information is critical to any endeavor.

I'm sure the war hawks thought that Canada would welcome the chance to rid themselves of England's shackles... again wishful thinking worthy of any Tea Party member. It's also been posited that the War of 1812 was largly responsible for creating a feeling of Canadian nationalism... which would explain why many feel about that war the way we feel about Lexington and Concord... where many who had no interest in breaking away from England were then galvanized into support of the Revolution.

Another result of the war was the resolve by the USA to develop an army and navy that would serve to protect our interest at home and abroad... a fairly new idea for a nation that was primarily made up of farmers and merchants. From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli... lol who would have thunk it?

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 09:30 AM

The following paragraph contradicts itself:

"the idea of the War of 1812 being front for a "land grab" never made much sense... though, admittedly there were the "war hawks" who made as much sense as our current "tea party" a-holes. After all, our western border was the Mississippi River until 1803 when Jefferson authorized the Louisiana Purchase - almost a million square miles bought & paid for and open for settlement once you got past the Native peoples."

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 09:42 AM

yet another snide comment from the terrible T...

if you want to discuss "land grabs" from the Native peoples you need to start with Columbus landing in the new world and then go on to each and every European nation that felt it was their divine right to claim whatever they thought they could grab and get away with. As for our treatment of native peoples, it was unfortunately consistent with European attitudes of the time. So once again we have the pot calling the kettle black.   

as for "land grab'... that was the term YOU used to describe the American intention of declaring war in 1812 - and also the true reason behind the american Revolution. If you are going to try to argue, could you at least use some intelligence ... or barring that, some consistency.

oh sorry, I forgot... your only consistency is to be arrogant and demeaning. If we were unlucky enough to have had you born in the USA, you would be a prime candidate for membership in today's Tea Party. You and Sarah Palin would make quite the team... :(

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Les from Hull
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 12:28 PM

There were a number of American factions pushing for war in 1812. Many merchants had expanded their businesses benefitting from the wars in Europe. Hence my earlier point about the quadrupling of the merchant marine. There were also the hawks that thought it would be fairly easy to free those poor Canadians from the British yoke. And there were a quite a few that thought that British interference in US affairs was an affront to national pride.

And there were those who traded regularly with Canada who would be ruined by war and so opposed it.Some merchants of Eastern Maine even made a separate 'peace' and signed a temporary allegiance to King George.

And there were many many more who didn't live near the coast or the border with Canada who had no interest in the war whatsoever.

Initially the merchants could fit out privateers and make a handsome profit from capturing British vessels. But later they found that their privateers were being snapped up by British cruisers, and their goods rotting in warehouses because of British blockade.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 12:42 PM

"British seamen had a duty to serve in the Navy when called upon, a duty that had existed since Tudor times. You couldn't change this by suddenly becoming American." Les from Hull

That concept had ended a generation before. Certainly by the time the American Constitution was written one couldn't call becoming American, sudden.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 12:53 PM

thank you, Les for a more balanced look at underlying causes of the War of 1812... especially since political changes over the course of time can make figuring out what caused what is real challenge.

There have been wars fought for reasons that will never stand up to close scrutiny... some, even, are going on as we speak. a sad state of affairs.

What is probably more important is that former enemies can and have become strong allies, thanks to common interests and goals. If only our southern border was as uncontentious as the one we share with Canada... even if the border crossings seem to be run by idiots at times.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 01:03 PM

agreed, Ebbie...

the Naturalization Act of 1790 very clearly spelled out who and who could not become citizens of the USA... so that became part of American sovereign rights. And respect for our sovereign rights was a very sore issue back then.

on a side note, the Louisiana Purchase started out to be just the purchase of New Orleans & the surrounding area to ensure trading access on the Mississippi... Napolean's decision to sell the rest was a great opportunity and helped remove Bonaparte & his family from being our backdoor neighbors. A wise move for anyone... because with friends like them, who needs enemies...

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: robomatic
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 05:43 PM

Another article from that magazine what we read on the West side of the Pond.

Can history explain anything? Henry Adams, after a lifetime of writing about American history, wasn't sure that it could. "Historians undertake to arrange sequences,—called stories, or histories,—assuming in silence a relation of cause and effect," he wrote. But he suspected that the assumptions wouldn't bear scrutiny, and he was haunted by the idea that hoping for a causal explanation of human affairs might be a mistake. "Chaos was the law of nature," he suggested late in life. "Order was the dream of man."

Perhaps it was Adams's penchant for historiographic nihilism that drew him to the War of 1812, the conflict with Britain that looms over his masterpiece, the nine-volume "History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison." As a great evil, a war calls out for some kind of theodicy—for an explanation of why it happened and what it meant—but the War of 1812 frustrates the desire for such answers. Its origins lie in a concatenation of misperceptions, crossed signals, and false hopes. Its end is no less obscure: America, which started the war, accomplished none of its stated aims, and the peace treaty merely restored the combatants to the status quo before the fight. A number of historians feel that neither Britain nor America won—though most agree that the Indians, allies of Britain who never again seriously obstructed white America's expansion, definitely lost. At the time, no one seemed to have more than a partial understanding of why they were fighting. A British government official compared the two countries to two men holding their heads in buckets of water, to see who would drown first. Adams wrote of the first winter of the war, "So complicated and so historical had the causes of war become that no one even in America could explain or understand them."

Many of Adams's successors have found it just as hard to say what the war was about. Recently, in "The Civil War of 1812" (Knopf; 2010), Alan Taylor pushed pointillism even further than Adams did, taking as his subject the unstable allegiances and local vendettas along the border between America and Britain's Canadian colonies—the sort of fractal details that tend to get smoothed out of popular narrative. "No single cause can explain the declaration of war," he wrote. In "The Weight of Vengeance" (Oxford), a new study marking the war's bicentennial year, Troy Bickham repeats the refrain: "There is no single explanation for the outbreak of war in June 1812." But Bickham has a trick up his sleeve. It turns out that he's an optimist. He thinks that it is possible to say what the war was about. What's more, he's sure that Britain lost.

Within America, the War of 1812 was controversial—advocated by Republicans, who were known for their hatred of taxes and big government, and opposed by Federalists, who favored élite rule, central banking, and a peacetime defense establishment. Donald R. Hickey, a Wayne State College historian and the dean of 1812 scholarship, has called the vote to declare war the closest in American history. "Many nations have gone to war in pure gayety of heart," Adams wrote, "but perhaps the United States were first to force themselves into a war they dreaded, in the hope that the war itself might create the spirit they lacked."

The slogan of the so-called War Hawks centered on two issues: "free trade and sailors' rights." By "sailors' rights," they meant an end to the British practice of conscripting, or impressing, sailors from American merchant ships. By 1812, between nine and twenty thousand British sailors were working aboard American vessels, which paid more than twice as well as the Royal Navy. Britain, at war with France for nearly two decades, didn't think it could afford not to go after them. The American government considered many to be naturalized citizens, but British law deemed allegiance to the King indissoluble, and, at the time, it wasn't easy to tell an American from a Briton even if you agreed on the definitions. Though the American government issued certificates of citizenship, they were so easily forged that few British captains respected them. Many sailors simply identified themselves with tattoos of American flags or eagles. Under the circumstances, Taylor writes, "every British impressment was an act of counterrevolution." Secretary of State James Monroe counted more than sixty-two hundred impressments of American sailors between 1803 and 1811.

What about the "free trade" half of the slogan? British planters in the West Indies blamed American shippers for a sugar and coffee glut that was eroding prices in Europe, and they called for a crackdown on America's profitable trade with France and the French West Indies. Intermittently, the British government tried to regulate the United States almost as if it were still a colony. In 1807, in response to an attempt by Napoleon to blockade its coast, Britain issued a series of decrees, known as Orders in Council, that required American ships to dock in a British port and pay a British tax before trading with any part of Europe under Napoleon's control. As Adams put it, "American commerce was made English."

Yet neither free trade nor sailors' rights fully explains the outbreak of war. Impressment had been going on for years before Republicans started to harp on it, in late 1811. Even though the dispute had, in 1807, provoked a British warship to fire on an American one, no less an authority than Thomas Jefferson said he hoped that the two nations "might have shoved along." In addition, war was bound to put a stop to commercial shipping, sending the very sailors whom America was trying to protect back to the Royal Navy in search of employment. Impressment hardly seems decisive when, Bickham points out, war continued even after the issue became moot, in the spring of 1814, when Napoleon fell from power and the Royal Navy began discharging sailors instead of recruiting them. As for free trade, America didn't go to war until five years after the Orders in Council; instead, it tried what Jefferson called "peaceable coercion," a series of obstacles to trade with Britain. And France behaved at least as badly, seizing American ships bound for or leaving Britain. "The Devil himself could not tell which government, England or France, is the most wicked," a North Carolina congressman remarked. What's more, America's peaceable coercion of Britain eventually succeeded, thanks to an assist from Napoleon's blockade and an economic depression: in 1811, high bread prices caused riots in England, and by the end of the year the mills of Manchester lacked cotton. Eventually, on June 16, 1812, Britain announced the rescinding of the Orders in Council. But the news didn't reach America for five weeks, and two days after Britain's announcement the United States declared war. President James Madison later admitted that he would have delayed the declaration if he had known about the repeal. British merchants were so confident that war had been forestalled that they rashly celebrated by sending the White House a large quantity of English cheese.

Still, Bickham insists that the war was "no accident," and, indeed, British and American attempts to reach an armistice failed in August of that year, as did Russian offers to mediate, in 1813. In Bickham's opinion, the war continued after the evaporation of its ostensible causes because a larger issue was at stake: "whether or not the United States would be respected as a sovereign nation." Bickham writes that Britain "sought to stifle American ambition and turn it into a client state," which implies that Americans confusedly but accurately diagnosed a threat to their interests. But if a historian, looking at the matter in retrospect, isn't able to say exactly which interests the war protected, it seems just as likely that Americans were acting against their interests. Must the war mean what early Americans say?

Other historians have been more skeptical than Bickham. Hickey has written that "the supposed threat to American independence in 1812 was more imagined than real," and, in a recent article in the Journal of American History, Lawrence A. Peskin points out that what he calls "conspiratorial Anglophobia" sometimes drifted away from reality. Some Americans were willing to believe, for example, that British secret agents were buying up Connecticut sheep in order to sabotage the textile industry. In Adams's view, British politicians merely believed that "America ought to be equally interested with Europe in overthrowing the military despotism of Napoleon," and they resented giving America a free ride. Bickham is aware of the resentment, and even explains how it justified, in British minds, interference in America's trade, which was seen as taking unfair advantage of Napoleon's attacks on British shipping. Bickham tends, however, to take American touchiness more seriously than British resentment, and this allocation of empathy seems questionable, given that it's now easier to believe that Napoleon wanted to rule the world than to believe that Britain wanted to resubjugate America. But perhaps early Americans, through the haze of their emotions, did perceive a genuine danger, which, because they succeeded in averting it, never materialized and is now therefore hard for historians to see.

When war was declared, there were only ten or twelve thousand men in the American Army, and its officers were "sunk into either sloth, ignorance, or habits of intemperate drinking," as one of the better ones later recalled. The Navy had only seventeen seaworthy ships. Britain, meanwhile, commanded a thousand ships and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors worldwide, and it collected forty times as much tax revenue from its citizens. In declaring war, America had, as one congressman lamented, chosen to "get married, & buy the furniture afterwards." Though Congress repeatedly raised the wages and land bounties for soldiers, "these inducements were not enough to supply the place of enthusiasm," Adams wrote. The Army never had more than fifty thousand regulars, and Monroe, when he became the Secretary of War, estimated that the country needed twice that many.

Lacking the budget to augment its Navy, America chose to invade Canada, which was still a British colony. Madison had long ago predicted, "When the pear is ripe it will fall of itself," and many agreed with Jefferson's assessment that conquest of Canada would be "a mere matter of marching." Only seven thousand British troops were stationed there, and not all Canadians had strong loyalty to the King: Lower Canada, so called because it was lower on the St. Lawrence River, was full of Catholics of French origin, and the majority of Upper Canada's residents had recently left America for the promise of nothing more lofty than cheap land and low taxes. When General William Hull, the governor of Michigan Territory, crossed the Detroit River and initiated hostilities, his message to Canadians assumed their willing capitulation: "You will be emancipated from Tyranny and oppression and restored to the dignified station of freemen."

But, a month later, Hull was back in Detroit, under siege, drooling tobacco spittle and cowering while a British commander paraded Indians in vermillion-and-blue war paint before his fortifications. He surrendered, and the conquest of Canada began to recede as a possibility. By December, Henry Clay, the leader of Congress's War Hawks, was calling the conquest of Canada "not the end but the means"—no more than a potential bargaining chip—and Bickham considers the idea that America went to war for the sake of Canadian territory a "myth."

The campaign against Canada rarely rose above mediocrity. At least twice, American fighters arrived at the border only to decide that they preferred not to cross it, and their habit of looting undermined hopes of winning Canadian hearts and minds. Worse, America's strategy was flawed. The key to the region was the St. Lawrence River. Whoever held Montreal controlled everything upstream. But to attack Montreal Americans had to pass through northern New York, where Federalist residents opposed the war. The Administration shifted its focus to the west, where there were plenty of Republicans eager to fight, but where, Taylor writes, "the war could never be won." It's a little like the joke about the drunk looking for his keys not where he dropped them but where the street lamp is.

Viewed as a narrative, the war has too many settings and a weak plot. The British take Detroit. The Americans fail to take Queenston. The Americans try to take Fort Erie. On Lake Ontario, the Americans raid York, the capital of Upper Canada, and burn the Parliament buildings. The British fail to take Fort Meigs. The Americans take Fort George. The Americans raid York again. The British burn Black Rock. The Americans retake Detroit. The Americans abandon Fort George. The British take Fort Niagara and burn Black Rock (again), as well as Buffalo. And so on, for nearly three years. As a diversion, the British Navy raided and burned towns along the Eastern Seaboard, and in late 1813 and 1814, in what was practically a separate war, Andrew Jackson roamed the Alabama Territory rounding up and killing rebel Creeks.

Amid the chaos, though, there are some lovely scenes. Taylor paints one of General James Wilkinson, Aaron Burr's co-conspirator and betrayer, descending the St. Lawrence River with his troops while high on laudanum and whiskey, singing,


I am now a-going to Canada.
And there I will get money.
And there I'll kiss the pretty squaws.
They are as sweet as honey

only to be defeated, upon arrival in Canada, by a British force half the size of his. He deserved worse, considering that he had lost a thousand of his men to disease and desertion by lodging them in a Louisiana swamp and appropriating their provisions.

The war had pathos, too, in the fate of the Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, who sided with the British in the hope of forging a universal Indian confederacy. Tecumseh had a clear-eyed view of his people's predicament, explaining to an American general, "You want, by your distinctions of Indian tribes, in allotting to each a particular tract of land, to make them to war with each other. You never see an Indian come and endeavor to make the white people do so." When Tecumseh died, American soldiers cut off bits of his skin as souvenirs.

And there were some good lines. "I'll try!" Colonel James Miller said, when ordered to capture British cannons at a battle near Niagara Falls. He succeeded, and Adams says that his story "for the next fifty years was told to every American school-boy as a model of modest courage." The war also begat "We have met the enemy and they are ours," and "Don't give up the ship," not to mention "The Star-Spangled Banner." The best British line came when Admiral George Cockburn's forces overran and burned Washington, D.C. "Be sure that all the C's are destroyed, so that the rascals cannot any longer abuse my name," Cockburn ordered, as he supervised the demolition of a newspaper's printing office. The night before, his troops set fire to the White House after eating a supper they found on the table there.

America's luck in the war was not all bad. A few months in, the American frigate Constitution challenged a British frigate to a sea duel. A British cannonball bounced off the wooden ship, earning it the name Old Ironsides, and it won. (The ship, which has been preserved by the Navy, sailed Boston Harbor in August, on the anniversary of the victory.) The British were shocked. In twenty years of war with the French, they had lost only a handful of naval engagements. "The sacred spell of the invincibility of the British navy was broken," one British Parliamentarian declared. The American public recovered confidence in its power to fight; it was delighted, Adams wrote, by the discovery "that it still possessed the commonest and most brutal of human qualities."

The American Navy took two more frigates that year. The success against the Royal Navy was unprecedented, but the damage inflicted was "trifling," as Adams acknowledged. By late 1813, the Royal Navy had blockaded all of America south of New England, whose ports they left open for a while, probably as a reward for the region's resistance to the war. In April, 1814, the British closed New England's ports, too. The American economy was left in tatters.

A war tests a nation's strength, which consists, practically speaking, of its citizens' willingness to die for their country and to give it money. In 1814, such willingness began to fade in America. The Army shot a hundred and forty-six deserters, up from thirty-two the year before, and enlistment fell off when the government ran out of cash for recruiting bounties. "Something must be done and done speedily," the Secretary of the Navy said, "or we shall have an opportunity of trying the experiment of maintaining an army and navy and carrying on a vigorous war without money." In November, the federal government defaulted on the national debt, and the State Department wasn't even able to pay its stationery bill.

Meanwhile, secessionists in New England, who had for years been scheming to split from the United States, saw their chance. Nantucket, pleading starvation, made a separate peace with Britain in August, declaring neutrality and suspending payment of federal taxes. Britain relented its blockade of the island and freed Nantucketers from its prisons. Block Island and several towns on Cape Cod followed, and, in British-occupied Maine, locals soon took oaths of neutrality and even of allegiance. After Connecticut and Massachusetts squabbled with the federal government over command of the state militias, newspapers and politicians proposed that the states should hold on to their federal tax revenues in order to pay for the militias themselves. The governor of Massachusetts dispatched an agent to Nova Scotia with a secret, treacherous message: if the rupture with the federal government turned violent, the state was willing to help defend Canada in exchange for British military assistance. President Madison looked "miserably shattered and woe-begone," a Virginia lawyer reported in October. "His mind seems full of the New England sedition." In December, representatives from five New England states met in Hartford, but all secessionist machinations became irrelevant in February, 1815, when news arrived that diplomats had signed a peace in Ghent at the end of the preceding year.

Hickey calls the treaty America's "most significant victory." The London Times had been calling for Madison's execution, and the British had begun negotiations, in August, 1814, by asking for the annexation of northern Maine, the demilitarization of the Great Lakes, and the creation of an independent Indian nation in the Northwest, which would have taken up fifteen per cent of America's land. They settled, in the end, for nothing. Bickham doubts, however, that America's diplomats deserve all the credit. Britain's allies were impatient to start trading with America, he explains, and at the Congress of Vienna, where the end of the Napoleonic Wars was being negotiated, it was awkward for Britain to ask Russia and Prussia to refrain from carving up smaller nations while Britain itself was known to be asking for chunks of the United States. In October, the Prime Minister warned a colleague that another season of war in America would cost "much more than we had any idea of," and said he doubted that the British taxpayer was willing to foot the bill. The Duke of Wellington, the vanquisher of Napoleon, advised the Prime Minister that Britain hadn't fought well enough to deserve keeping any American territory, and, soon afterward, Britain's diplomats were instructed to get rid of what the Foreign Secretary called "the millstone of an American war" as fast as possible.

In London, the stock market rallied. Americans went on parades. In Washington, citizens heard of the peace only a week after learning that Andrew Jackson had routed British invaders in New Orleans, with a mere seventy-one American casualties to Britain's two thousand and thirty-six. Although Jackson's victory came too late to alter the terms of the peace, it succeeded in altering the memory of the war. Americans came to feel that they had won. Bickham, while not explicit, seems sympathetic to this view. Britain had aimed to "ignore American national sovereignty as it saw fit," he writes, and found that it wasn't able to.

British respect for American sovereignty did follow the war, and Britain and America never again tried to invade each other. The only question is whether the War of 1812 had anything to do with those facts. What if Britain began to respect America's sovereignty simply because it no longer had a good reason not to? Once Napoleon fell, Britain didn't need to fight him with sailors seized from American ships. Once the Continent was no longer controlled by a would-be world tyrant, Britain didn't mind American ships trading there. The idea behind America, Henry Adams believed, was "that in the long run interest, not violence, would rule the world." America grew timber, cotton, and tobacco that Britain wanted; Americans were excellent customers, and Britain looked forward to recapturing its hold on the American shipping business. The war's true victor may have been not America but the American idea, as championed by the tightfisted British taxpayer. ♦

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 11:16 PM

Thanks for posting the article, Robomatic. It cleared up a lot;-)

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: artbrooks
Date: 06 Sep 14 - 09:40 AM

Interesting article - 'New Yorker', right?

The course of the war was varied, and that reflected situations elsewhere. The land war actually began around 1810, with British arming of Native tribes in the American western territories and their encouragement of raids to discourage settlement expansion. Not all raids were directly instigated by the British, of course, and American settlers certainly retaliated in kind. This likely was the reason for the first invasion of Canada, a militia strike toward Windsor, Ontario in 1812, which was repulsed by British regulars, local forces and allied Indian tribes under Tecumseh who then invaded the US and captured Detroit. It is hard for us today to realize that Michigan and Ontario were the far frontier in 1812.

One direct result of the war was the realization that the US could not depend on militia, who were generally unequipped, untrained and unwilling, and the expansion of the regular Army into a viable force.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Sep 14 - 10:08 AM

In another thread someone's posts were deleted for being long C&Ps.... and a couple of these are much longer. That thread was a 'bit' more intense, but that should not change the basic rule that we summarize & post links.

There are good reasons for the rules, even if it is easier to just swipe and grab the whole article.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: sciencegeek
Date: 06 Sep 14 - 11:39 AM

interesting article... sounds like a typical human conundrum were you need to be careful what you ask for because you might get it...

only a week away from the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore and the attack on Fort McHenry. I know what I'll be singing... :)

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Sep 14 - 03:35 PM

Bill D. Your comment is well taken, and my articles were, uh, the technical term is 'stolen' although I briefly pruned the first one the second one was so damn good, especially the leading question... does history really explain anything? - that I posted it in detail. And both articles from the New Yorker (which I pay for). I love history, but as a young student I felt that it was someone else's story being dictated to me, kinda like Christmas. As I grew older I realized that I really like stories and history tells the most fantastic ones. As Tom Clancy said: "Fiction has to be different from reality because fiction has to be believable."
As Homer Simpson has said: "History is just a bunch of stuff that happened".
As a Yankee who loves English history (which melds with both Canadian and USAn history) I was fond of telling my foreign friends "We loved Canada so much we tried to take them over - failed, and called it good after the second time." Or as the costume guard/ guide at Fort Halifax told me: "We built this fort to protect us from YOU LOT."

More realistically, there was plenty of aggression from the North. More than once the English came down with India allies and laid waste t Massachusetts territory and kidnapped locals. And raids were led in the other direction. I won't load another long quote into this thread but Kenneth Roberts wrote histories aimed at young adults including one called Rogers' Rangers where the raiding party is chased back to their supply point in upstate New York such that any stragglers caught by the Inidians have their heads used as footballs. And the supply point is abandoned in fright just as they are arriving their dead on their feet (the movie version reversed this). And the Rogers of Roger's Rangers fought with the Loyalists during the American War of Independence.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: sciencegeek
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 04:26 AM

well, the 200th anniversary is over; the impossible song has been sung and resung and we have another chance this November to retake Washington from the idiots.

The dun cow I've been watching the past two weeks finally had her calf.. a nice little heifer. Now for a name... Frances?

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 07:20 PM

"and we have another chance this November to retake Washington from the idiots." Like that will ever happen.

Subject: RE: BS: March on Washington, 1814
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 09:24 AM

well, I can always hope...

started reading a book about the engagement between the Boxer and the Enterprise that took place Sept. 1813 near Portsmouth, Maine... Knights of the Sea by David Hanna. It seems quite promising and well researched, trying to portray the two ship commanders that both died in the battle and the world that shaped them.