From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (22 page)

Americans viewed these developments with growing alarm. Neither understanding nor respecting Indian culture, they failed to perceive that Tenskwatawa's movement was the natural response of a people overwhelmed by change. They were inclined then—as historians have been since—to dismiss him as a charlatan and fanatic.
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The British in fact responded with notable caution to Indian unrest, but Americans could not concede the legitimacy of Indian grievances without admitting their own guilt. They blamed the agitation on the British. From the relative security of Washington, Jefferson and Madison counted on American benevolence to solve the problem. As was often the case, however, the commander on the scene took a quite different approach. Certain that Indians understood only force, Governor William Henry Harrison sought to drive the Prophet from the Indiana territory. If he did not conspire to provoke an Indian attack, the result was the same. When Harrison established position outside Prophetstown, claiming to wish to parley, the Prophet ordered an attack. In the battle of Tippecanoe, November 7, 1811, each side suffered heavy losses. The Americans claimed victory, and indeed Harrison did destroy Prophetstown and discredit the Prophet as a leader. Formerly settled in one place, the Indians now scattered. Violence erupted across the frontier.
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Americans increasingly feared a general Indian war, for which they blamed the British.

By the summer of 1812, anger and frustration reached the breaking point. Neither diplomacy nor economic retaliation had wrenched concessions from England. Americans from Madison down increasingly accepted the necessity for war. Madison appears to have reached such a conclusion as soon as late 1811, but his halting and ineffectual efforts to mobilize Congress failed.
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A sizeable bloc of congressmen, the so-called
War Hawks, were already committed to fight, but the rest were badly divided. The Federalist minority blamed the impasse on the Republicans. One group of Republicans opposed both war and acquiescence; another wavered uncertainly. Persuaded by May that no settlement was likely, and with the approaching election putting a premium on action of some kind, Madison submitted a war message to Congress. It was approved on June 17 without enthusiasm and by the closest vote of any declaration of war in U.S. history (79–49 in the House; 19–13 in the Senate).

Ironically, at the very time Americans were drifting toward war, Britain was lurching toward concessions. Years of trade restrictions had finally worked significant hardships, especially among the rising manufacturing class, producing growing pressures for changes in policy. In 1812, the Admiralty ordered the navy to avoid clashes with U.S. ships and stay clear of the coast. In late June, the ministry revoked the orders in council for one year. But each step was taken on an ad hoc basis without publicity or explanation of the larger forces that drove it. At a time when it could take as long as twelve weeks to exchange dispatches across the Atlantic, word of changes in policy on one side did not arrive in time to influence the other. The British found out about the American decision for war long after they had revoked the orders. The Americans did not learn about revocation of the orders until August, two months after declaring war.
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It has often been speculated that faster communication in 1812 might have averted an unnecessary war, but this may assume too much. The new British ministry, while more conciliatory, was not prepared to go as far as Madison wished. On several occasions after war began, the belligerents or outside powers such as Russia attempted to promote an armistice. Each effort failed because of persisting deadlock on impressment. Revocation of the orders in council was only temporary, not enough to satisfy the United States. In any event, had he known of them, Madison might have interpreted British concessions as a sign of weakness and pushed ahead with war.
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At least on the American side, the question of war or peace by 1812 transcended disagreements on specific issues. For many Americans, war provided an opportunity to fulfill long-standing expansionist designs on Florida and Canada. Southern War Hawks such as Kentucky's Henry Clay and Tennessee's Felix Grundy had their eyes firmly fixed on East Florida. Vast in size, weakly defended, its population small and presumed of dubious loyalty to the Crown, Canada also seemed irresistibly ripe for
the plucking. "I verily believe," Clay boasted to Madison, "that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Upper Canada at your feet."
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More important, Canada was the one place where mighty Britain seemed vulnerable. Its conquest would plug a major leak in the embargo and eliminate an alternative means of supply for the British West Indies, thus making U.S. trade restrictions more effective and giving the United States a way to wring concessions from Britain. Eliminating their primary means of support would help quell the Indian menace and open the Northwest to American expansion. In a broader sense, the elimination of British power from North America would enhance U.S. security.
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Whether or not American expansion was essentially defensive, the conquest of Canada served urgent national needs. Manifest Destiny would be the "rallying cry of the next generation," Robert Rutland has written, "but as a political force it was first unleashed by the War Hawks of 1812."
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The vote of 1812 was along strict party lines, and for Republicans, by this time, war also seemed the only means to defend honor, principle, and party. Republicans in all sections felt a deep sense of humiliation at having endured for so long affronts to American sovereignty. The United States was being treated as though the war of independence had never occurred. Some form of redemption was essential to restore its self-respect. "By war, we should be purified, as by fire," Massachusetts Republican Elbridge Gerry told Madison.
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For many Republicans, it was not only a matter of honor but also one of defending their principles and indeed their embattled party. Republican political economy depended on the right to export. By 1812, in the face of crippling threats from abroad, war seemed the only way to preserve the ideals of republican political economy.
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Viewing the American Revolution as a unique experiment in constructing a society based on principles of individual liberty and their party as the guarantor of those principles, Republicans saw that experiment as imperiled by the great powers abroad and Federalists at home. If the government could not withstand that dual challenge, it would surely collapse, demonstrating the invalidity of republican principles. Republicans accepted war as the only way to preserve the party and the heritage of the
Revolution. Younger Americans who had not participated in the Revolution felt this with particular keenness. They must show "the World," War Hawk John C. Calhoun of South Carolina proclaimed, "that we have not only inherited the liberty which our Fathers gave us, but also the will and power to maintain it."
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Madison accepted war in 1812 in the confidence that it would be relatively short, inexpensive, and bloodless—more talk than fight—and that the United States could achieve its objectives without great difficulty. In fact, the War of 1812 lasted two and a half years and cost more than two thousand American lives and $158 billion.
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For Britain, the war was a military and diplomatic sideshow to the main performance in Europe; for the United States, it became a struggle for survival.

The Americans hoped to conquer Canada quickly and use it to extract concessions from Britain on neutral rights and Indian issues. Fearing that delay would permit Britain to reinforce its colony, Madison rejected London's proposals for a truce and urged vigorous prosecution of the war. "The sword once drawn, full justice must be done," Jefferson thundered from Monticello. " 'Indemnification for the past and security for the Future,' should be painted on our banners."
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As in previous crises, the aims of Republican strategy exceeded the means available to attain them. Canada
was
poorly defended and Britain
was
preoccupied with Europe, but the United States could not exploit these advantages. As a result of Republican frugality, the army had languished. Preparedness measures belatedly enacted by Congress after the declaration did little to rectify the deficiencies. The Madison administration attempted the unique experiment of sending an army to war without any staff organization. At the outset, the army consisted of but seven thousand men (more officers than soldiers), poorly trained and equipped and led by superannuated and incompetent commanders. The desertion rate was so high (often justified by lack of food and pay) that Madison pardoned deserters to fill rolls. Liberal dispensation of liquor and handsome
bounties failed to secure enough enlistments. The vaunted militia turned out to be disorganized and even cowardly. Some units simply refused to cross the border into Canada.
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Inadequately manned and poorly conceived, the much talked-about "holiday campaign" into Canada met disaster. British regulars supported by Tecumseh's Indians repulsed an invasion of Detroit in July 1812, removing any threat to Canada and leaving the American Northwest vulnerable. A later assault by the Niagara River met a similar fate. Its dreams of easy success quickly dashed, the United States found itself on the defensive.

During the first year and a half of the war, neither belligerent could gain the upper hand. Dismissed by some Royal Navy officers as a few ships "manned by a handful of bastards and out laws," the U.S. Navy acquitted itself honorably in individual encounters with British men-of-war. American privateers inflicted costly losses on enemy merchant shipping.
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But the Royal Navy enforced a tight blockade of the U.S. coast, exacerbating economic problems. Raiding parties wreaked havoc among the seaboard population. On the Canadian frontier, U.S. Navy forces under Oliver Hazard Perry won a major victory on Lake Erie in September 1813. In October, Harrison inflicted a crushing defeat on the British and Indians at the battle of the Thames on the north shore of Lake Erie. The two victories, combined with Tecumseh's death in battle, eased the threat to the Old Northwest and even permitted a modest American incursion into Canada. In the meantime, a two-pronged U.S. invasion of Montreal was repulsed.

The fighting was not at all like the quaint eighteenth-century war Madison had foreseen. Action at the Thames was as savage as that in the especially brutal Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal. According to a British sailor who had seen both, the fire at Lake Erie made Trafalgar seem a "mere fleabite by comparison."
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The Kentucky militia dressed in war paint and carried—and used—scalping knives. A British soldier described them as "wretches . . . capable of the greatest villainies." When Americans complained that British use of Indians led to atrocities, the British retorted that, after all, the Americans used Kentuckians.
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In 1814, America's position worsened measurably. Instead of relieving the nation's problems, the stalemated war compounded them. At least until Vietnam, the War of 1812 was easily the most unpopular conflict in
U.S. history, and Madison encountered enormous difficulties mobilizing his people. The British blockade denied the United States access to war materials from abroad. Creating domestic industries virtually from scratch posed nearly insuperable problems. Unable to find buyers for its bonds and reluctant for political reasons to raise taxes, the government faced near bankruptcy by 1814. The smuggling initiated during the embargo persisted in wartime in the form of trading with the enemy. "Self, the great ruling principle [is] more powerful with Yankees than any people I ever saw," sneered one British officer.
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Many parts of the nation were decidedly apathetic toward the war. Open disaffection in Federalist New England was far more serious. Governors refused to order the militia beyond state borders. Congressmen attempted to block administration war measures. Extremists talked openly of seceding and creating an independent nation tied closely to England.

Developments abroad were even more ominous. Napoleon abdicated in April, and the imminent end of war in Europe permitted Britain to shift resources to North America. To exact revenge upon the United States, protect Canada, and improve its strategic position and bargaining power, Britain devised a three-pronged offensive: a diversionary strike in the Chesapeake Bay area, an invasion by Lake Champlain to isolate the disaffected northeastern states, and an attack on New Orleans to gain control of the Mississippi Valley. "Chastise the savages," thundered the London
Times
.
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To add to Madison's difficulties, formal Anglo-American peace negotiations were scheduled to begin just as the British launched their offensive. By the time the peace commissioners actually assembled in August 1814 in the British-controlled Flemish town of Ghent, Britain had gained the edge militarily. Its harsh demands reflected its change in fortunes. To repay their allies and protect Canada from the United States, the British demanded creation of an Indian buffer state comprising 250,000 square miles (about 15 percent of U.S. territory) between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. They also insisted upon unrestricted access to the Mississippi, a northeastern boundary giving Canada a sizeable chunk of Maine, banishment of U.S. vessels from the Great Lakes, and exclusion of Americans from fishing grounds off Nova Scotia. London aimed to reverse major results of the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

In this supreme crisis, diplomacy salvaged for the United States what could not be won on the battlefield. Madison had already abandoned
demands that Britain accept his position on neutral rights and impressment. The end of the European war seemed to make such issues irrelevant. Britain would relent only to the extent of a settlement on the basis of the
utipossidetis,
meaning that territory held at the time the war ended would go to the occupant. The U.S. delegation, headed by Clay, Gallatin, and John Quincy Adams, was perhaps the ablest ever put together by the nation. A master of card games—at Ghent he was often stumbling to bed about the time Adams was rising to pray—Clay sensed that the British were bluffing and persuaded his colleagues to stall. The delegation thus ignored Washington's instructions to break off the negotiations.
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