198 Chapter 7 National Growing Pains
they were to absolve the British from responsibility
for the Indian difficulties. If only the seas were free,
they reasoned, costs would go down, prices would
rise, and prosperity would return.
To some extent western expansionism also
heightened the war fever. The West contained
immense tracts of virgin land, but westerners wanted
more. Canada would surely fall to American arms in
the event of war, the frontiersmen believed. So, appar-
ently, would Florida, for Spain was now Britain’s ally.
Florida in itself provided no cause for a war, for it was
sure to fall into American hands before long. In 1810
Madison had snapped up the extreme western section
without eliciting any effective response from Spain.
So it was primarily because of Canada, nearby
and presumably vulnerable, that westerners wanted
war. President Madison probably regarded an attack
on Canada as a way to force the British to respect
neutral rights. Still more important in Madison’s
mind, if the United States conquered Canada,
Britain’s hope of obtaining food in Canada for its
West Indian sugar islands would be shattered. Then it
would have to end its hateful assaults and restrictions
on American merchant ships or the islands’ economy
would collapse.
But westerners, and many easterners too, were
more patriots than imperialists or merchants in 1811
and 1812. When the War Hawks(their young lead-
ers in Congress) called for war against Great Britain,
they did so because they saw no other way to defend
the national honor and force repeal of the Orders in
Council. The choice seemed to lie between war and
surrender of true independence. As Madison put it,
to bow to British policy would be to “recolonize”
American foreign commerce.
Opponents of War
Large numbers of people, however, thought that a
war against Great Britain would be a national calamity.
Some Federalists would have resisted anything the
administration proposed; Congressman Josiah Quincy
of Massachusetts declared that he “could not be
kicked” into the war, which he considered a cowardly,
futile, and unconstitutional business designed primar-
ily to ensure the reelection of Madison. According to
Quincy the War Hawks were “backwoodsmen” will-
ing to wage a “cruel, wanton, senseless and wicked”
war in order to swallow up Canada.
But other people based their objections on eco-
nomics and a healthy realism. No shipowner could
view with equanimity the idea of taking on the largest
navy in the world. Such persons complained sincerely
enough about impressment and the Orders in
Council, but war seemed worse to them by far. Self-
interest led them to urge patience.
Such a policy would have been wise, for Great
Britain did not represent a real threat to the United
States. British naval officers were high-handed, offi-
cials in London complacent, British diplomats in
Washington second-rate and obtuse. Yet language,
culture, and strong economic ties bound the two
countries. Napoleon, on the other hand, represented
a tremendous potential danger. He had offhandedly
turned over Louisiana, but even Jefferson, the chief
beneficiary of his largesse, hated everything he stood
for. Jefferson called Napoleon “an unprincipled tyrant
who is deluging the continent of Europe with blood.”
No one understood the Napoleonic danger to
America more clearly than the British; part of the stub-
bornness and arrogance of their maritime policy grew
out of their conviction that Napoleon was a threat to
all free nations. TheTimesof London declared, “The
Alps and the Apennines of America are the British
Navy. If ever that should be removed, a short time will
suffice to establish the headquarters of a [French]
Duke-Marshal at Washington.” Yet by going to war
with Britain, the United States was aiding Napoleon.
What made the situation even more unfortunate
was the fact that by 1812 conditions had changed in
England in a way that made a softening of British mar-
itime policy likely. A depression caused chiefly by the
increasing effectiveness of Napoleon’s Continental
System was plaguing the country. Manufacturers,
blaming the slump on the loss of American markets,
were urging repeal of the Orders in Council.
Gradually, though with exasperating slowness, the
government prepared to yield. On June 23, after a
change of ministries, the new foreign secretary, Lord
Castlereagh, suspended the Orders. Five days earlier,
alas, the United States had declared war.The War of 1812
The illogic of the War Hawks in pressing for a fight
was exceeded only by their ineffectiveness in planning
and managing what would become theWar of 1812.
By what possible strategy could the ostensible objec-
tive of the war be achieved? To construct a navy capa-
ble of challenging the British fleet would have been
the work of many years and a more expensive propo-
sition than the War Hawks were willing to consider.
So hopeless was that prospect that Congress failed to
undertake any new construction in the first year of
the conflict. Several hundred merchant ships lashed a
few cannon to their decks and sailed off as privateers
to attack British commerce. The navy’s seven modern
frigates, built during the war scare after the XYZ
affair, put to sea. But these forces could make no pre-
tense of disputing Britain’s mastery of the Atlantic.
For a brief moment the American frigates held
center stage, for they were faster, tougher, larger, and