By Edwin Cooney
It has become quite fashionable these days for political and
social pundits to suggest that war would be more legitimate if it were still
declared by Congress rather than advanced and conducted by our presidents. Since today marks the two hundredth
anniversary of the first of five historic declarations of war by Congress, now
might be a good time to reevaluate the necessity and the legitimacy of the War
of 1812 -- its very first war-making venture.
On Thursday, June 18th, 1812, Congress, at the
request of James Madison, responded affirmatively to the president’s request
for a declaration of war against Great Britain. The war crisis had long been brewing, extending back to the
close of the Revolutionary War and the 1783 Treaty of Paris which forced Great
Britain to recognize American independence. Even after 1783 with peace officially in place, the British
had followed what was called “Orders in Council.” They would board any American
ship, seize any contraband -- especially when Britain was at war -- and impress
into the Royal Navy any former British seaman or sailor who might have once
served His Majesty’s Government.
Neither President Washington’s celebrated 1795 Jay Treaty nor President
Jefferson’s 1807 trade embargo against both Britain and France alleviated this
American irritant.
This ongoing insult to American sovereignty was further
exacerbated by British exploitation of the increasing warlike activity of
American Indians in the Northwest Territory. Additionally, men such as
Kentucky’s Henry Clay and South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun were anxious to add
Canada to America’s domain.
Two lesser known factors concerned the personages of two
rather important men of that time.
James ("little Jemmy”) Madison, a giant of an intellect whom
Washington Irving once described as a “withered little apple-John” of a man,
had a lifelong fear of Indians.
Born in 1751, he had listened as a child to the bloodcurdling cries of
Indians in the mountain forest near his Montpelier, Virginia plantation
home. The French stirred up that
generation of Indians against English settlers and thereafter little Jemmy was
frightened, believing in his soul that Indians were little more than savages.
The second prominent personage affected by events was
British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. Many insist he wanted to avoid war
with America over the impressments issue, not so much for the sake of peace,
but rather to cut down on the cost of war. After all, Britain was then at war with Napoleon Bonaparte
and didn’t need a war with its former colonies. Hence, it has been said that Perceval was ready to alleviate
one of America’s major irritants.
Then came Monday, May 11th, 1812 and Spencer Perceval became
the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated. Perceval was shot to death in the lobby of the House of
Commons by Liverpool businessman John Bellingham who had a date with the
hangman eight days later. Thus the
process for repealing the Orders in Council was delayed. Not until after Congress had declared
war in the House of Representatives by a vote of 79 to 49 and in the United
States Senate by a vote of 19 to 13 did news of the repeal of impressments
reach Washington.
From the very outset, the war was pretty much a
disaster. Military victories,
though occasionally spectacular, were few and far between. General William Hull who led an
invasion into Canada in August of 1812 became fearful that he might be attacked
by Indians and cut off from his base in Detroit. So Hull retreated to Detroit and subsequently surrendered
the city to the British without firing a shot. Court-martialed and sentenced to death, Hull was pardoned by
President Madison due to his past service during the revolution. In April of 1813, Major General Henry
Dearborn invaded York, Ontario (renamed Toronto in 1834), burned and sacked the
city, but did not hold it. Only
Oliver Hazard Perry’s naval victory and other gallant naval triumphs over the
British on Lake Erie counted for much.
In October 1813, William Henry Harrison -- who would become our ninth
president for one month in 1841 -- attacked the forces of the Shawnee Indians,
killing their great chief Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames near Windsor,
Ontario Canada.
In August of 1814, largely in reprisal for our attack on
York, the British invaded Washington and burned both the president’s mansion
and the capital before returning to their ships in Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, there was the December
1814 Hartford Convention, an abortive threat by New England Federalists to
secede from the Union due to economic recession brought on by the war.
On Christmas Eve 1814, America and Britain, thoroughly tired
of the war, settled everything by signing the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium status
quo ante bellum: each side retaining prewar territory. No mention of the impressments issue
was made in the settlement but, with Napoleon defeated, the British were
through with it all. Of the
286,730 Americans who served in the war, 2,260 were dead and 4,505 were
wounded.
Two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, "Old
Hickory" (Andrew Jackson) overwhelmingly defended New Orleans against a
British invasion. British
casualties were over 2,000 while American casualties were merely 21.
So were all of the political division, property damage and
human destruction worthwhile? Some
might dare assert that they must have been, because, after all, Congress had
declared it so!
Some, however, might observe that war is too important a
matter to leave up to Congress!
Hmmm! What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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