War of 1812

In the early 1800s, the British Empire and Napoleonic France were engaged in an all-out continental war for survival.
The belligerents in this conflict, known as the Napoleonic Wars, would eventually turn to a strategy of commercial warfare involving a series of escalating trade embargoes meant to cripple the opponent’s economy.
And the broad reach of these embargoes would ensnarl neutral countries not involved in the conflict, including the rising power across the Atlantic that had, with the assistance of France, defeated the British Empire in a military confrontation less than three decades earlier.

The Fox Blockade

In May of 1806, Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Charles James Fox sent a letter to U.S. ambassador to the U.K., James Monroe, informing him that the British Empire would be implementing a blockade ranging from the French port city of Brest to the river Elbe:

[T]he King has thought fit to direct …. the blockade of the coast, rivers, and ports, from the river Elbe to the port of Brest, both inclusive.

The blockade prevented neutral ships from trading with any ports located within this blockaded region.
It did however allow neutral vessels to sail through the area in question on route to neutral ports:

[S]uch blockade shall not …. prevent neutral ships … [carrying] goods not being the property of His Majesty’s enemies, and not being contraband of war, from approaching the said coast, and entering into and sailing from the said rivers and ports [with some exceptions] …. provided the …. ships …. so approaching … shall not have been [loaded] at any port belonging to or in the possession of any of His Majesty’s enemies …. [and] shall not be destined to any port belonging to or in the possession of any of His Majesty’s enemies.

Napoleon’s Berlin Decree and the Continental System

In November of 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and King of Italy, issued his Berlin Decree, the opening salvo in his strategy of defeating Britain through commercial warfare.
Napoleon’s shift to a strategy of economic warfare was, in part, prompted by his defeat the year prior at the hands of Britain’s mighty Royal Navy at the Battle of Trafalgar, which led him to conclude that he would be unable to invade the island of Great Britain without first softening the target.
It was also prompted by his expanding control over continental Europe which made the implementation of an effective continental blockade possible.
The Decree put into force a blockade against the British Empire and stated that any vessels carrying goods from England or any of its colonies would be subject to plunder by France:

The British islands are declared in a state of blockade …. All commerce and correspondence with the British islands are prohibited …. All merchandize belonging to England, or coming from its manufactories and colonies, is declared lawful prize.

It further mandated that the trading vessels of neutral nations would be unwelcome at the ports of France or her allies if they had previously stopped at any port belonging to Britain or her colonies:

No vessel …. having been [to a port belonging to England or her colonies] since the publication of the present decree shall be received at any port.

This plan to cut off Britain’s trade with continental Europe is referred to as the Continental System.

The Orders in Council of 1807

In 1807, Britain responded by issuing a series of Orders in Council, a type of legislation passed by the British monarch upon consultation with a group of advisors known as the Privy Council.
These Orders expanded Britain’s blockade of France and its allies.
They further mandated that vessels belonging to neutral countries (e.g. America) carrying exports to France and its allies must first stop at a British port and pay a duty.
Under this blockade, the British Empire’s fearsome navy would patrol the Atlantic, intercepting noncompliant trading vessels heading from the New World to France, even if the port of origin was a neutral country.

The Milan Decree of December 1807

Further ensnaring neutral countries in the European conflict, Napoleon - who by now had added the title Protector of the Rhinish Confederation to his claims as King of Italy and Emperor of France - responded to the British Empire’s blockade by issuing his Milan Decree of December 1807.
The Decree stated that any trading vessel which complied with the 1807 Orders in Council would be considered English property and thus fair game for pillage by the Napoleon’s forces, regardless of which nation’s flag it flew:

Every ship, to whatever nation it may belong, that shall have submitted to be searched by an English ship, or to a voyage to England, or shall have paid any tax whatsoever to the English government, is thereby, and for that alone, declared to be denationalized, to have forfeited the protection of its king, and to have become English property …. Whether the ships thus denationalized by the arbitrary measures of the English government, enter into our ports, or those of our allies, or whether they fall into the hands of our ships of war, or of our privateers, they are declared to be good and lawful prizes.

The implication of the Decree was that, if an American trading vessel were to pay the duties mandated by Britain, France would deem that American ship fair game for plunder, even though America was a neutral country.

Ripple Effects of these Embargoes

Ultimately, while the Continental System did cause substantial harm to the economies of Britain and its colonies, Napoleon was unable to bleed Britain into economic submission and officially ended in 1813.
But before then, the European embargoes would have ripple effects across the Atlantic, having ensnared the American economy in an Old World conflict.

America’s Response

The Non-Importation Act of 1806

In April of 1806 the U.S. responded to the European embargoes by implementing trade restrictions of its own.
The Non-Importation Act of 1806 forbid Britain and its colonies from selling certain goods in the United States; or, to put the same thing another way, it banned Americans from importing a prohibited list of wares from the British Empire.
However, though the law was passed in 1806, its implementation was delayed pending ongoing negotiations with London and the legislation did not take effect until December 1807.
The list of forbidden products was comprised of items American lawmakers thought the U.S. was capable of manufacturing itself.
These items included glass, paper, nails, hats, and beer.
This and subsequent trade restrictions America would impose on Europe were referred to as the restrictive system (1806-1811).

The Embargo Act of 1807

The following year, the U.S. added to its importation restrictions a comprehensive ban on the exportation of American products.
President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party, signed into law the Embargo Act of 1807 which prohibited U.S. vessels from engaging in any exportation to any foreign country.
It also prohibited foreign vessels from carrying U.S. exports overseas.
The Act read:

Be it enacted …. that an embargo …. hereby is laid on all ships and vessels in the ports and places within the limits or jurisdiction of the United States …. bound to any foreign port or place [except vessels under the immediate direction of the President of the United States].

Furthermore, the Act placed new conditions on U.S. vessels transporting goods domestically from one American port to another.
That Jefferson and the Congress thought a total ban on U.S. exportation would not devastate U.S. industry and the American economy turned out to be one of the great acts of foolishness of American leadership in the years preceding the War of 1812.

Effects of the 1807 Embargo Act

The Embargo Act of 1807 made its impact felt in Britain, which struggled to replace the agricultural goods, particularly cotton, it formerly imported from the United States.
As a consequence, the British textile industry, which used cotton as an input to production, was hit particularly hard with textile production falling an estimated 32%.
However, the Embargo Act resulted in a devastating 80% collapse in U.S. exports from 1807 to 1808 (some merchants choosing to risk defying the embargo helps explain why exports didn’t record at zero).
The result was an economic recession in the United States.
All the while, despite some adverse effects in Europe, the embargo did not break the wills of the belligerents in the Napoleonic Wars, who were locked in a pitched battle for survival, to uphold their embargoes on neutrals.

The Non-Intercourse Act of 1809

So in March of 1809, the U.S. replaced the 1806 Non-Importation Act and 1807 Embargo Act with the Non-Intercourse Act.
The Act broadened the ban on the importation of certain British goods to include all British and French goods:

And be it further enacted that …. it shall not be lawful to import into the United States or the territories thereof, any goods, wares or merchandise whatever from any port or place situated in Great Britain or Ireland, or in any of the colonies or dependencies of Great Britain, nor from any port or place situated in France, or in any of her colonies or dependencies, nor from any port or place in the actual possession of either Great Britain or France.

Moreover, the Act replaced the complete ban on the exportation of U.S. goods with a narrower ban on exporting goods specifically to France, Britain, and their allies:

And be it further enacted that so much of the act …. as forbids …. the exportation of domestic and foreign merchandise to any foreign port or place …. is hereby repealed …. except so far as they relate to Great Britain or France, or their colonies or dependencies, or places in the actual possession of either.

Further, the Act contained a provision stating that the U.S. would lift its trade restrictions on either or both England and France if they responded in kind by lifting their respective embargoes:

And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States …. hereby is authorized, in case either France or Great Britain shall so revoke or modify her edicts, as |that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, to declare the |same by proclamation.

Like its predecessors, the Non-Intercourse Act inflicted a cost on the U.S. economy without succeeding in its objective of forcing the waring European adversaries to capitulate to American demands.

Macon's Bill Number 2

In a third attempt to retaliate to the British and French embargoes, this time – hopefully – without harming the American economy, the U.S. passed Macon’s Bill Number 2 on May 1, 1810.
After suffering the negative economic effects of two failed attempts to enact an embargo, this bill took a completely different approach, seeking the play the two feuding European rivals off one another by offering the following terms: the U.S. would export freely to both empires, but if either France or Britain lifted their trade restrictions against the United States, America would respond by banning imports from the other country.
The bill read:

And be it further enacted, that in case either Great Britain or France shall, before the third day of March next, so revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, which fact the President of the United States shall declare by proclamation, and if the other nation shall not within three months thereafter so revoke or modify her edicts in like manner, then [certain sections of the Non-Intercourse Act] shall, from and after the expiration of three months from the date of the proclamation aforesaid, be revived and have full force and effect, so far as relates to …. the dominions, colonies and dependencies of the nation thus refusing or neglecting to revoke or modify her edicts.

Napoleon’s Machinations, Madison’s Folly

In August of 1810, Napoleon took the U.S. up on its offer, ordering his foreign minister, the Duc de Cadore (Duke of Cadore), to write a letter to President Madison informing him that the Berlin and Milan Decrees would be rescinded.
The letter, referred to as the Cadore letter, read:

I am authorized to declare to you, sir, that the decrees of Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that after the 1st of November they shall cease to have effect; it being understood that, in consequence of this declaration, the English shall revoke their orders in council, and renounce the new principles of blockade, which they have wished to establish; or that the United States, conformably to the act you have just communicated, shall cause their rights to be respected by the English.

President Madison responded by issuing a presidential proclamation on November 2, 1810 stating:

Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim that the said edicts of France have been so revoked as that they ceased on the said first day of the present month to violate the neutral commerce of the United States.

And in February of 1811, the United States implemented a new trade embargo against Britain, which chose not to revoke its Orders in Council.
There was just one problem: Emperor Bonaparte would never actually repeal his decrees.
The Cadore letter was a ploy by Napoleon to dupe the United States into reinstating a ban on the importation of Britain’s goods and, he hoped, diminish the strength of the British economy.
And President Madison bought it, hook, line, and sinker; he did not wait for verification that Napoleon had indeed revoked his decrees before slapping new trade restrictions on Britain.
This prohibition on British imports into the United States would be the final commercial measure the U.S. would adopt in the run-up to the War of 1812.

Seized American Ships and the Impressment of U.S. sailors

The early 1800’s French and British restrictions on American trade were coupled with British harassment of U.S. vessels and sailors on the high seas.
Britain even went so far as to impress American sailors on intercepted vessels into its conflict, forcing captured Americans to serve the British cause.
The cost of British and French aggression toward U.S. trading vessels was sizable.
In a report to submitted to Congress on July 6, 1812, shortly after the United States had declared war on Britain, Secretary of State James Monroe – not to be confused with James Madison – provided the legislators with a tally of the U.S. ships seized by Britain and France during this period.
According to the report, France had captured 307 U.S. vessels in the period following the implementation of Napoleon’s Milan Decree.
Additionally, the report states that Britain had captured 389 U.S. vessels in the period following the implementation of Britain’s 1807 orders-in-council.
The U.S., then, had legitimate reason to be aggrieved with both Britain and France, its trade and citizens having been caught in the dragnets of their war.

American Expansionism

But harassment of U.S. vessels, impressment of American sailors, and restrictions on American trade were not the only motivations for a second war with the British Empire.
In the eyes of some there was also a potential prize for victory in a new war with Britain: the empire’s territories in North America.
In the early days of the War of 1812, former president Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to friend, drafted at his Monticello residence and dated August 4, 1812, which detailed his ambition to seize Canada from the British Empire and predicted that doing so would be easy:

[T]he acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching; & will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, & the final expulsion of England from the American continent.

It’s clear that the father of the Democratic-Republican Party was ready for war with Britain, one he thought would be easily won and lead to the American annexation of British Canada.

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia.

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War with Whom?

This American expansionism offers a partial explanation for why the United States would declare war on Britain, but not France, in 1812 despite both European empires having taken steps to restrict American trade in the preceding years.
The United States had already purchased Napoleon’s North American territories in an 1803 exchange known as the Louisiana Purchase.
The British Empire, on the other hand, still held dominion over British Canada.
To former President Jefferson and other expansionists, this northern territory was there for the easy taking.
Another factor that set Britain apart from France as the subject of American ire was its alliance with indigenous peoples in their bloody battle for survival against an America seeking to expand westward.
Moreover, anti-British sentiment amongst Americans had already by stoked by the Chesapeake Affair.
On June 22 1807, the crew of British naval vessel HMS Leopard attacked the Chesapeake, an American naval frigate sailing off the coast of Virginia, killing four.
The Royal Navy then proceeded to board the Chesapeake and seize four British deserters who were onboard.
The episode triggered outrage in the United States that was not quickly forgotten.
The combination of American ambitions of seizing British Canada, the British alliance with indigenous peoples whose territory the U.S. sought to annex, repeated British hostility toward U.S. sailors and incursions into American waters, anti-British sentiment among Francophile Jeffersonians, and a view among Democratic-Republicans that Napoleon posed a less immediate threat to the U.S. than Britain meant that any American military response to suffocating European embargoes would take aim squarely at the British Empire and exempt France.
The relatively greater American fury at British slights than French transgressions is captured in an August 1807 letter former President Thomas Jefferson authored at his Monticello residence:

I never expected to be under the necessity of wishing success to Bonaparte. but the English being equally tyrannical at sea as he is on land, & that tyranny bearing on us in every point of either honor or interest, I say, ‘down with England,’ and as for what Bonaparte is then to do to us, let us trust to the chapter of accidents. I cannot, with the Anglomen, prefer a certain present evil to a future hypothetical one.

Madison’s Secret War Message to Congress

Under the War Powers Clause of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress is authorized to declare war, precluding President Madison from doing so single-handedly.
(Related: Learn how U.S. presidents have increasingly made claims to greater war powers here).
So on June 1, 1812, President James Madison sent a secret message to Congress laying out a case for war with the British Empire.
His message detailed what he believed to be the series of transgressions the British Empire had committed against the United States:

(1) The Royal Navy detains American sailors aboard U.S. flagged trading vessels for conscription into Britain’s war against Napoleon.

British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating the American flag on the great high way of nations, and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it …. 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 every thing dear to them; have been dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation …. to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors.
Against this crying enormity …. the United States have, in vain, exhausted remonstrances and expostulations.

(2) British vessels inhibit American trade and commerce.

British cruisers have been in the practice also, of violating the rights and the peace of our Coasts. They hover over and harrass our entering and departing Commerce …. Under pretended blockades …. our commerce has been plundered in every Sea; the great staples of our Country have been cut off, from their legitimate markets …. 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 …. but as interfering with the monopoly which she covets for her own commerce and navigation.

(3) Britain has sided with indigenous peoples (whom Madison refers to as savages) in their battles against the United States.

In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain towards the United States, our attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just renewed by the Savages, on one of our extensive frontiers …. 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.

Madison concludes his letter by writing:

Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have been heaped on our Country. Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations, and these accumulating wrongs; or, opposing force to force in defence of their national rights …. 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.

Madison also recommended that Congress refrain from declaring war on France on the grounds that discussions with that country were ongoing:

I abstain, at this time, from recommending to the consideration of Congress, definitive measures with respect to that nation, in the expectation, that the result of unclosed discussions between our Minister Plenipotentiary at Paris and the French Government, will speedily enable Congress to decide, with greater advantage, on the course due to the rights, the interests, and the honor of our Country.

Britain Rescinds Its Orders-In-Council

With the U.S. on a war footing, London took steps to appease a slighted America.
In an attempt to ease American fury at the harassment of its Atlantic coast and vessels, British craft were ordered, in the spring of 1812, to pay deference to U.S. ships and stay clear of the American coast.
And on June 16, two days before President Madison would sign a declaration of war into force, Britain announced it would rescind its Orders-in-Council if the U.S. reciprocated by lifting its ban on British exports to the United States.
Then on June 23, Britain unilaterally rescinded its Orders-in-Council without any U.S. guarantees of reciprocity.
However, news of Britain’s efforts to placate America did not reach U.S. lawmakers until August, and by then, it was too late.

America Declares War

On June 17th, the U.S. Senate voted to approve the resolution declaring war on the British Empire by a 19 to 13 margin.
You can view the Senate’s approval of the resolution declaring war on the British Empire here.
The House of Representatives had already voted to approve war against the British Empire by a margin of 79 to 49.
President Madison signed the bill into law on June 18, 1812, marking the start of the War of 1812.
This declaration of war was the first in American history.
(To learn more about the legal mechanisms by which the U.S. government declares war, see here).

The most ardent supporters of a declaration of war were the faction of the Democratic-Republican Party known as the “war hawks,” led by Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky, the inexperienced 35-year-old who had assumed the title of Speaker of the House despite being a first-term Congressman.
Support for the war was not bipartisan: all 39 Federalist lawmakers voted against declaring war; all 98 yes votes came from members of Madison’s Democratic-Republican Party.
And even the Democratic-Republican Party was not unanimous in its support for war with Britain: 23 party members opposed the measure.
The partisan character of the declaration of war would lead its critics to brand the ensuing conflict “Mr. Madison’s War.”
On June 19, the day after signing the bill into law, President Madison issued a presidential proclamation which described Britain as having “forced on [the United States] the last resort of injured Nations.”

On June 17, 1812, the U.S. Senate resolved to declare war on the British Empire. Document Courtesy of the National Archives.

The Battle of York

The war did not involve a U.S. campaign against the island of Britain, located across the Atlantic.
Rather the offensive portion of America’s military campaign was directed against the British Empire’s dominion along the United States’ northern border: present-day Canada.
This offensive would result in the temporary capture of York (present-day Toronto).

The American naval campaign against York was conducted via Lake Ontario. Video: Lake Ontario and the Toronto Islands.

Britain Sets Washington D.C. Ablaze

By April 1814, the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau (agreed in Fontainebleau, France) had exiled Emperor Napoleon to the Tuscan island of Elba.
Till now, Britain had viewed its hostilities with America as a secondary side show: it was consumed by an all-out continental war with Napoleon Bonaparte in its own backyard.
The temporary pause in the Napoleonic Wars that followed Napoleon’s exile to Elba freed the British Empire to focus its energies and resources on the United States.

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Abbe House, used by President Monroe early in his presidency.

And Madison’s successor as president, James Monroe, would be forced to use Abbe House as a temporary executive residence while the White House underwent repairs.

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The British assault on Washington D.C. also resulted in the immolation of the Capitol Building and the U.S. Supreme Court Building.
After laying waste to America’s capital, the British Empire turned its sights north to Baltimore.

The Battle of Baltimore

On September 13-14, the British Empire launched a naval assault on the port city of Baltimore.
The resistance to this British incursion came from Fort McHenry, named after the second U.S. Secretary of War James McHenry.

View of the Patapsco River from which the British fleet bombarded Fort McHenry.

Unwilling to approach the city's shore for fear of coming within firing range of Fort McHenry's cannons, the British fleet bombarded the fort overnight from a distance.
As dawn broke on September 14, it become apparent to terrified onlookers that the fort had withstood the British bombardment.
The resilience of the fort inspired Francis Scott Key, who watched the battle from sea, to compose the Star-Spangled Banner.
This sea battle and a separate land battle fought between American and British forces at North Point together comprise the Battle of Baltimore.
The U.S. victory at Fort McHenry marked one of the high points for America in a difficult conflict that saw its capital immolated and its finances ruined.

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The Treaty of Ghent

The torching of Washington, D.C. and a British occupation of part of Maine ultimately made America more amicable to a negotiated peace.
Meanwhile, a relentless Napoleon had escaped exile on Elba and sought to reclaim continental dominance: the next phase of the Napoleonic Wars was on.
The return of the dreaded tyrant made Britain more open to negotiating peace with America.
The newfound willingness of both parties to the War of 1812 to seek peace resulted in the conclusion of the Treaty of Ghent (agreed in Ghent, located in present-day Belgium) in 1814, which brought the war to an end.
The Treaty required that all territories captured during the war be returned.

Consequences of the War of 1812

The U.S. declaration of war against Britain ultimately proved financially and militarily ill-conceived.

Defund the Military, Declare War, Abandon the White House

From its inception the Democratic-Republican Party, which voted in favor of the war, disliked large standing armies and navies because it believed - not without merit history has since affirmed - that a large permanent defense establishment could become its own powerful interest group.
Democratic-Republicans further feared that the existence of a large standing army and navy would increase the likelihood of war.
Motivated by these twin fears and a desire to retire the national debt they so abhorred, the party set about shrinking the army and navy under the Jefferson administration (1801-1809).
(Related: The battle over Alexander Hamilton’s proposal for the federal assumption of state debts following the American Revolution. )
In place of a large standing navy, the Jeffersonians preferred to rely on privateers who, rather than needing to be paid full-time, could simply be called up when war broke out.
In the early days of the War of 1812, former president Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to friend, drafted at his Monticello residence, detailing his preference for privateers and hired hands over standing navies:

[O]ur privateers will eat out the vitals of [English] commerce. [P]erhaps [England] may burn New York or Boston. [I]f they do, we must burn the city of London, not by expensive fleets or Congreve rockets, but by employing [residents of Britain], whom nakedness famine, desperation & hardened vice will abundantly furnish from among themselves.

But though these pesky privateers were quite capable of agitating an opponent, they were no match for the British Empire’s unrivaled armada and were incapable of protecting America’s Atlantic coast, a glaring vulnerability.
And in place of a large standing army, the Jeffersonians preferred to rely on volunteers and militia men who would be called to take up arms if war broke out and then return to civilian life once conflict ceased.
The Democratic-Republicans viewed such temporary armies as less liable to abuse by aspiring autocrats.
But they were also less hardened and less well-trained than a permanent standing army.
The result of these cuts to the armed forces was that when the Jeffersonians declared war in 1812 – not a single Federalist lawmaker voted in favor of the declaration of war – on one of history’s mightiest empires, America’s forces had been starved of well-trained troops, funds, and resources for years.
Madison and the Jeffersonian-majority Congress did begin some preparations for war in late 1811 as America drifted closer to issuing its first ever declaration of war.
But the war program was, it would turn out, insufficient.
It authorized increases in the compensation of soldiers in the hope that this would result in an increase in enlistments, and thus, an increase in the size of the army.
It also allocated funds for the purchase of weapons.
But the hurried program of late 1811 to prepare for a war that would begin in the summer of 1812 could not undo years of under-training and under-staffing the military.
And Democratic-Republicans continued to resist the expansion of America’s navy, voting down multiple Congressional proposals that would have authorized the construction of new vessels.
This rejection of any program that sought to expand the navy came in the context of ensuing war with an island country that had built a global empire on the back of its superior armada which dominated the world ocean.
It should come as no surprise then that the British Empire was able to occupy and torch Washington, D.C., forcing President Madison to flee to Virginia.

Starve the Treasury, Declare War, Default

The War of 1812 also proved ruinous to American finances: just over two decades after Alexander Hamilton implemented his plan to get the newly established nation’s fiscal situation in order, a series of Democratic-Republican fiscal policies and the war had wrecked them.
First, an 1802 internal tax repeal under President Thomas Jefferson left the federal government entirely dependent on customs, tariffs, and the sale of public lands for its revenues; revenues which were bound to fall as war took a toll on American trade.
Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin appealed for the reinstatement of an internal tax in January of 1811, but Congress rebuffed his proposal.
To make matters worse, the United States entered the war – a period that naturally required increased federal expenditures and therefore a greater need to issue debt – without a fiscal agent to collect the government’s revenues and help it issue debt.
The role had previously been filled by the Bank of the United States, the brainchild of Alexander Hamilton inspired by the Bank of England.
But in 1811, just prior to America’s declaration of war against Britain in 1812, the Jeffersonian-majority Congress allowed the First Bank’s charter to expire un-renewed.
In addition to the absence of a fiscal agent, the U.S. government also suffered from a lack of control over monetary policy.
Today the Federal Reserve Bank controls U.S. monetary policy and could take steps to prevent a default by the federal government should the treasury run into trouble.
But during this early period of American history, the country didn’t even operate with a single unified national currency, let alone a coherent monetary policy: America’s monetary system was a mess.
So the United States would enter war with a global empire lacking sufficient tax revenues to fund the conflict and absent strong institutions capable of managing the nation’s finances at a time when they would naturally come under increased strain: it was only a matter of time before the federal government ran out of money.
In the summer of 1813, with America already mired in conflict for a year, Congress belatedly took steps to lay internal taxes.
But it was too late: the U.S. government’s borrowing rates had already spiked as lender confidence deteriorated and would continue rising toward prohibitive levels even after the new taxes were legislated.
And in 1814, with the Treasury’s coffers running empty, the U.S. government defaulted on some its debts (contrary to the long-standing myth repeated by many of today’s politicians that America has never defaulted on its obligations).
America’s fiscal difficulties would prompt Treasury Secretary Alexander Dallas to write in a November 1814 letter that the “treasury was suffering from every kind of embarrassment.”
In a subsequent December 2, 1814 letter, Dallas detailed overdue interest payments on Treasury Notes held by lenders in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.

The Second Bank of the United States

The fiscal difficulties America experienced during the war led many policy-makers to conclude that having a central bank-like institution that could serve as a fiscal agent and shape monetary policy would be helpful during war.
At the same time several wealthy self-interested businessmen, worried that unmanaged inflation was eroding their profits, carried out an aggressive campaign to convince Congress to charter a new national bank.
The fiscal debacle during the war and pressure from these business and banking elites prompted a sharp about-face in Washington.
President Madison – a Jeffersonian Republican -– decided to support the chartering of a new central bank-esque institution in 1816, a mere 5 years after the Democratic-Republicans had allowed the charter of America’s first central bank-like institution, established at the behest of Alexander Hamilton, to expire un-renewed.

Militarily and Financially Ill-Conceived

The War of 1812 thus proved both militarily and financially ill-conceived.
After underfunding and undertraining the U.S. military for years, the Democratic-Republicans declared war on the British Empire only to suffer the humiliation of having the White House and other symbols of American independence from Britain torched by a red-coat occupation of the capital.
And after depriving the Treasury of funds and dissolving the federal government’s fiscal agent, the Democratic-Republicans declared war on one of history’s mightiest empires only to run out of money and default on some of its debts.
Viewed in light of this terrible mismanagement, it’s a wonder the conflict ended in a draw (though it may not have if Napoleon had not escaped exile in Elba, drawing Britain’s attention back to Europe).
Moreover, the Democratic-Republicans had dramatically underestimated the difficulty of seizing British Canada.
In the run-up to the war, former president Thomas Jefferson had written that “the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching.”
But, rather than flocking to the American cause, British Canadians put up strong resistance and, in the end, no part of British Canada was annexed into the United States.

Casualties

It’s impossible to know with certainty how many men lost their lives in the conflict not least because deaths from disease, as opposed to direct combat, were not recorded.
However, War of 1812 historian David Hinkley has estimated the U.S. casualty figures at approximately 20,000, British losses at roughly 10,000, and indigenous losses at around 7,500.

Enduring National Symbols & Myths

Though the war ended with no territory exchanging hands, it did forge some enduring national symbols and myths.
In the United Kingdom, the War of 1812 is something of an afterthought today; a footnote in expositions of the more important battles for survival that comprised the Napoleonic Wars.
At the time, England viewed its blockade of the Atlantic as an essential part of its efforts to halt Napoleon’s conquest of Europe which merely happened to ensnare the United States.
And anyway, according to its view at the time, truculent America was merely using its quibbles with the blockade as a pretense for invading Canada, a long-time ambition of many American expansionists.
But across the Atlantic, U.S. proponents of the war offered a different take, framing it as a battle against a British Empire that did not recognize the sovereignty of a rising America; a “second war of independence.”
Viewed from this alternative perspective, it should come as no surprise that America’s Star-Spangled Banner - composed in the wake of the Battle of Baltimore, one of America’s military successes in the War of 1812 - remains a major part of American nationalism today and serves as the country’s national anthem.
Today it is routinely sung in nationalistic displays before major U.S. sporting events such as N.F.L. and N.B.A. games.
In Canada too, the war took on significance in the national ethos.
Since Canadian Confederation, the War of 1812 has been held up as an early example of an enduring Canadian multiculturalism in which English Canadians, French Canadians, British loyalists who had fled north after America achieved independence, and natives coalesced around the cause of halting American expansionism.
Thus, the War of 1812, as wars often do, provided fodder for national myth-making in both the United States and Canada.

Written By: Aiden Singh Published: July 28, 2020 Sources

War of 1812

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