One faction wanted the permanent expulsion of Britain and the annexation of Canada. Once the war began, ex-President Thomas Jefferson warned that the British presence posed a grave threat and pointed to "The infamous intrigues of Great Britain to destroy our government and with the Indians to Tomahawk our women and children, prove that the cession of Canada, their fulcrum for these Machiavellian levers, must be a sine qua non at a treaty of peace." As Horsman explained, "If possible, England wished to avoid war with America, but not to the extent of allowing her to hinder the British war effort against France. Some Southerners supported expansionism; Tennessee Senator Felix Grundy considered it essential to acquire Canada to preserve domestic political balance and argued that annexing Canada would maintain the free state-slave state balance, which might otherwise be ended by the acquisition of Florida and the settlement of the southern areas of the new Louisiana Purchase.[29]. William Barlow, "The Coming of the War of 1812 in Michigan Territory." "Congressman Ezekiel Bacon of Massachusetts and the Coming of the War of 1812.". In the United States, battles such as New Orleans and Baltimore, the latter of which inspired the lyrics of the US national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, produced a sense of euphoria over a Second War of Independence against Britain and ushered in an Era of Good Feelings. Guns and ammunition, tomahawks and scalping knives were dealt out with some liberality by British agents. ", Trautsch, Jasper M. "The Causes of the War of 1812: 200 Years of Debate,", This page was last edited on 15 July 2022, at 05:18.

Thomas Jefferson, for example, was now out of power but argued that the expulsion of British interests from nearby Canada would remove a long-term threat to American republicanism. Speaking of his fellow Southerners, Calhoun told Congress that they, The historian Norman Risjord emphasized the central importance of honor as a cause the war. The Canadian colonies were thinly populated and only lightly defended by the British Army, and some Americans believed that the many in Upper Canada would rise and greet the American invading army as liberators. None of the 39 Federalists in Congress voted for the war, whose critics later referred to it as "Mr. Madison's War." Historians have demonstrated the powerful motive of honor to shape public opinion in a number of states, including Massachusetts,[56] Ohio,[57] Pennsylvania,[58][59] Tennessee,[60] and Virginia,[61] as well as the territory of Michigan. ", Edwin M. Gaines, "The Chesapeake Affair: Virginians Mobilize to Defend National Honor.". [62] On 3 June 1812, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by the pro-war extremist John C. Calhoun, called for a declaration of war in ringing phrases by denouncing Britain's "lust for power," "unbounded tyranny," and "mad ambition." A possible desire by the US to annex some or all of Canada. From 1807 to 1812, about 900 American ships were seized as a result. ", Robert L. Ivie, "The metaphor of force in prowar discourse: The case of 1812. The Federalist Party was strongly opposed to war and to annexation, as were the Northeastern states. Westerners in Congress found the raids intolerable and wanted them to be permanently ended. All Rights Reserved.

The American expansion into the Northwest Territory (now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin) was being blocked by Indians, which was a major cause animating the Westerners. [54][55] Many Americans called for war, but Jefferson held back and insisted that economic warfare would prove more successful, which he initiated, especially in the form of embargoing or refusing to sell products to Britain. But it was an objective. The American desire for Canada has been a staple in Canadian public opinion since the 1830s and was much discussed among historians before 1940 but has since become less popular. The Loyalists were extremely hostile to American annexation, and the other settlers seem to have been uninterested and to have remained neutral during the war. Britain, which had regarded the war as a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars, which had raged in Europe, was less affected by the fighting, and its government and people welcomed an era of peaceful relations with the US. By 1815, Britain was no longer controlled by politicians dedicated to commercial supremacy and so that cause had vanished. [25], In 1925, Pratt argued that Western Americans were incited to war by the prospect of seizing Canada. [21] Horsman explained, "Impressment, which was the main point of contention between England and America from 1803 to 1807, was made necessary primarily because of England's great shortage of seamen for the war against Napoleon. [12] Britain's policy was to effect the end of the war, though continuous campaigning, which would influence the people of the United states and Government policy.[13]. The establishment of Fort Madison in 1808 on the Mississippi had further angered the Sauk and led many, including Black Hawk, to side with the British before the war broke out. Although the policy of impressment was supposed to reclaim only British subjects, the law of Britain and most other countries defined nationality by birth. Therefore, many individuals were British by British law but American by American law. The British also had long had a goal to create a large "neutral" Indian state that would cover much of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. That this restriction took such an extreme form after 1807 stemmed not only from the effort to defeat Napoleon, but also from the undoubted jealousy of America's commercial prosperity that existed in England. [8], Although the British made some concessions before the war on neutral trade, they insisted on the right to reclaim their deserting sailors. Furthermore, the possession of Canada would be a valuable bargaining chip. [20], There is ample proof that the British authorities did all in their power to hold or win the allegiance of the Indians of the Northwest with the expectation of using them as allies in the event of war. That view has been retained by some historians. Canada! Furthermore, Americans complained loudly that British agents in Canada were supplying munitions to hostile Native American tribes living in US territories. Americans talked incessantly about the need for force in response. Exacerbating the situation, Sauk Indians, who controlled trade on the Upper Mississippi, were displeased with the US government after the 1804 treaty between Quashquame and William Henry Harrison ceded Sauk territory in Illinois and Missouri to the US. The merchants of New England earned large profits from the wartime carrying trade, in spite of the numerous captures by both France and England, but the western and southern farmers, who looked longingly at the export market, were suffering a depression that made them demand war."[67]. Pratt (1955), Julius W. Pratt, "Western Aims in the War of 1812. [71], This article is about the Anglo-American War of 1812 to 1815. [68] The US responded with the Embargo Act of 1807, which prohibited American ships from sailing to any foreign ports and closed American ports to British ships. Goodman (1941) refuted the idea, and even Pratt gave it up. Since 1805, he had preached his vision of purifying his society by expelling the "Children of the Evil Spirit" (the American settlers). War was declared with no mention of annexation, but widespread support existed among the War Hawks for it. Dwight L. Smith, "A North American Neutral Indian Zone: Persistence of a British Idea". (Only one was a British citizen and was later hanged; the other three were American citizens and were later returned but the last two only in 1812.) After Madison's speech, the House of Representatives quickly voted (79 to 49) to declare war, and the Senate did the same by 19 to 13. Canada also emerged from the war with a heightened sense of national feeling and solidarity against the American invasion. Stagg argued that Madison and his advisers believed that the conquest of Canada would be easy and that economic coercion would force the British to come to terms by cutting off the food supply for their highly-valuable West Indies sugar colonies. However, many argue that inducing the fear of such a seizure was merely an American tactic, which was designed to obtain a bargaining chip. We have heard but one word - like the whipporwill's one monotonous tone: Canada! [48], A number of American contemporaries called it "the "Second War for Independence. "A British Perspective on the war of 1812", "The End of an Era: British-Indian Relations in the Great Lakes Region after the War of 1812", Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 17891873, Reading list on the Causes of the War of 1812, United States Army Center of Military History, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Origins_of_the_War_of_1812&oldid=1098296403, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from June 2013, Articles with incomplete citations from June 2013, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, A series of trade restrictions introduced by Britain to impede American trade with. You will arrive among a people who are to become your fellow-citizens."[30]. Michigan History 53 (1969): 91-107. Historians now generally agree that an invasion and seizure of Canada was the main American military strategy once the war had begun.

However, he had no intention of honoring his promise.[69]. The humiliating attack by HMS Leopard against USS Chesapeake in June 1807 was a decisive event. However, American law allowed individuals who had been resident in the country for some time to adopt US citizenship. For Napoleon's invasion of Russia, see, Creation of Indian barrier state between US and Canada, Jasper M. Trautsch, "The Causes of the War of 1812: 200 Years of Debate,", Norman K. Risjord, "1812: Conservatives, War Hawks, and the Nation's Honor. The British Empire was engaged in a life-and-death war against Napoleon and could not allow the Americans to help the enemy, regardless of their lawful neutral rights to do so.

The majority in Congress was held by the Democratic-Republican Party, which was split on the issue. Burt, a Canadian scholar but also a professor at an American university, agreed completely by noting that Foster, the British minister to Washington, also rejected the argument that annexation of Canada was a war goal. He predicted in late 1812 that "the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us the experience for the attack on Halifax, the next and final expulsion of England from the American continent. He argued the consensus among scholars to be that the US went to war "because six years of economic sanctions had failed to bring Britain to the negotiating table, and threatening the Royal Navy's Canadian supply base was their last hope." In December 1808, an American officer expelled HMS Sandwich from Savannah, Georgia; the schooner had entered with dispatches for the British consul there. American commanders like General William Hull and Alexander Smythe issued proclamations to Canadians and their troops that assured them that annexations would actually occur during the war. [19] The Indian nations generally followed Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet and the brother of Tecumseh. All parties were committed to the defeat of France, which required sailors and thus impressment, as well as all-out commercial war against France, which caused the restrictions that were imposed on American merchant ships. Allowing the Royal Navy to reclaim those men would destroy both the US economy and the government's vital customs revenue. The New Zealander historian J.C.A. However, he also noted that many historians still published expansionism as a cause and that even those against the idea still included caveats regarding "possible expansionism underlying US motives." The policy proved a failure by not deterring the British, but it seriously damaged American industry and alienated the mercantile cities of the Northeast, which were seriously hurt.

Hacker (1924); Pratt (1925). Some historians maintain that an American goal in the war was to annex some or all of Canada, a view that many Canadians still share. "[14] That group was weakened by Whigs friendly to the US in mid-1812, and the policies were reversed although the US had already declared war. The ChesapeakeLeopard affair followed closely on the similar Leander affair, which had resulted in Jefferson banning certain British warships and their captains from American ports and waters. [31], As Horsman concluded, "The idea of conquering Canada had been present since at least 1807 as a means of forcing England to change her policy at sea. Ohio History 72 (1963): 175-94.

"[32] Hickey flatly stated, "The desire to annex Canada did not bring on the war. The American public was outraged by the incident, and many called for war to assert American sovereignty and national honor.

[51] Americans of every political stripe saw the need to uphold national honor and to reject the treatment of the United States by Britain as a third-class nonentity. This dispute came to the forefront with the ChesapeakeLeopard affair of 1807, when the British warship HMS Leopard fired on and boarded the American warship USS Chesapeake, killed three, and carried off four deserters from the Royal Navy. [18] Britain had ceded the area to the United States in the Treaty of Paris (1783) but had the long-term goal of creating a "neutral" or buffer Indian state in the area to block further American growth. America was unfortunate in that for most of the period from 1803 to 1812 political power in England was held by a group that was pledged not only to the defeat of France, but also to a rigid maintenance of Britain's commercial supremacy. [35] However, Foster also rejected the possibility of a declaration of war but had dinner with several of the more prominent War Hawks and so his judgement on such matters can be questioned. [15], The British continued to make that demand as late as 1814, during the Ghent Peace Conference. The confusion was compounded by the refusal of Jefferson and Madison to issue any official citizenship documents.

They advocated going to war against Britain for all of the reasons listed above but concentrated on their grievances more than on territorial expansion. Moreover a large section of influential British opinion, both in the government and in the country, thought that America presented a threat to British maritime supremacy. James Roark wrote, "These were fighting words in a war that was in large measure about insult and honor.

"Anthony Merry and the Anglo-American Dispute about Impressment, 1803-6. The conflict formally began on 18 June 1812, when Madison signed the measure into law. "[28], The other faction, based in the South, said that acquiring new territory in the North would give it too much power and so opposed the incorporation of Canada since its Catholic population was viewed as "unfit by faith, language and illiteracy for republican citizenship." Jefferson's embargo was especially unpopular in New England, whose merchants preferred the indignities of impressment to the halting of overseas commerce. "James Madison and the Coercion of Great Britain: Canada, the West Indies, and the War of 1812," in, Steel, Anthony. Americans proposed a truce based on the British ending impressment, but the latter refused because they needed those sailors. At the end of the war, the British held American territory in parts of Maine and some outposts in the sparsely-populated West, and the Americans held Canadian territory near Detroit. However, all territories that were occupied by either side were restored at the peace treaty to the prewar borders.

It would be independent of the US and under the tutelage of the British, who would use it to block American expansionism and to build up their control of the fur trade.

Also, they simply no longer considered the goal to be worth war against the US although much of the proposed buffer state had remained largely under British and Indian control throughout the war. [46] Any sort of accommodation would jeopardize those men and so concords such as the proposed Monroe-Pinkney Treaty (1806) between the US and Britain were rejected by Jefferson.

That stance was motivated by the advice of Albert Gallatin, who had calculated that half of the US deep-sea merchant seamen (9,000 men) were British subjects. [26] Pratt's argument supported the belief of many Canadians, especially in Ontario, where fear of American expansionism was a major political element, and the notion still survives among Canadians. During the war, both Americans and British launched invasions of each other's territory, all of which either failed or gained only temporary success. However, they relied on unverifiable declarations by the individual concerned for evidence of citizenship, and the large fees paid for the documents made them a lucrative sideline.

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