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James Madison's Message a Positive Spin on the War of 1812
James Madison's Message a Positive Spin on the War of 1812
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Madison James


James Madison's Message a Positive Spin on the War of 1812

 

In the midst of the War of 1812, President James Madison reports recent American victories to Congress, expresses outrage over the conduct of the British and their Native American allies, and points hopefully to the war’s positive effects on the young nation.

 

JAMES MADISON. Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1813. The War, December 14, 1813. Message fills first and second pages. New York: Samuel Woodworth & Co. 4 pp., 9" x 10.75"

 

Excerpts


“In meeting you at the present interesting conjuncture it would have been highly satisfactory if I could have communicated a favorable result to the mission charged with negotiations for restoring peace.... The British cabinet, either mistaking our desire of peace for a dread of British power or misled by other fallacious calculations, has disappointed this reasonable anticipation.” (p1/c1)

 

“On Lake Erie, the squadron under command of Captain Perry having met the British squadron of superior force, a sanguinary conflict ended in the capture of the whole.” (p1/c2)

 

“The cruelty of the enemy in enlisting the savages into a war with a nation desirous of mutual emulation in mitigating its calamities has not been confined to any one quarter. Wherever they could be turned against us no exertions to effect it have been spared.” (p1/c3)

 

“The systematic perseverance of the enemy in courting the aid of the savages in all quarters had the natural effect of kindling their ordinary propensity to war into a passion, which, even among those best disposed toward the United States, was ready, if not employed on our side, to be turned against us. A departure from our protracted forbearance to accept the services tendered by them has thus been forced upon us.” (p1/c3)

 

“although among our blessings we cannot number an exemption from the evils of war, yet these will never be regarded as the greatest of evils by the friends of liberty and of the rights of nations. Our country has before preferred them to the degraded condition which was the alternative when the sword was drawn in the cause which gave birth to our national independence, and none who contemplate the magnitude and feel the value of that glorious event will shrink from a struggle to maintain the high and happy ground on which it placed the American people.” (p2/c3)

 

“If the war has increased the interruptions of our commerce, it has at the same time cherished and multiplied our manufactures, so as to make us independent of all other countries for the more essential branches for which we ought to be dependent on none, and is even rapidly giving them an extent which will create additional staples in our future intercourse with foreign markets.” (p2/c3)

 

“If the war has exposed us to increased spoliations on the ocean and to predatory incursions on the land, it has developed the national means of retaliating the former, and of providing protection against the latter, demonstrating to all that every blow aimed at our maritime independence is an impulse accelerating the growth of our maritime power.” (p2/c3)

 

“The war has proved, moreover, that our free Government, like other free governments, though slow in its early movements, acquires in its progress a force proportioned to its freedom, and that the union of these States, the guardian of the freedom and safety of all and of each, is strengthened by every occasion that puts it to the test.” (p2/c3)

 

Historical Background


The British practice of impressing sailors from American vessels and British support of hostile Native American tribes that attacked American frontier settlers led the United States to declare war on the United Kingdom in June 1812. Unprepared for war against the world’s greatest naval power, the United States benefited from British preoccupation with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. In this message to Congress, delivered mid-way through the war, President James Madison puts a positive outlook on the war by celebrating American successes in the Great Lakes and against the Red Stick Creeks. He also muses hopefully on how the war is developing the American nation.

 

The British hoped to establish a Native American buffer state between the United States and British settlers in Canada. To block American expansion, they supported a confederacy of Native Americans under the leadership of Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa (“The Prophet”). In November 1811, Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory defeated Tecumseh’s followers at the Battle of Tippecanoe. While Tecumseh was away recruiting allies, leadership of the group fell to Tenskwatawa. Although the Native Americans attacked, Harrison’s forces stood their ground until the Native Americans withdrew and abandoned Prophetstown, which Harrison’s men burned, together with food supplies stored for the winter. Tecumseh’s confederacy never fully recovered from the defeat at Tippecanoe. He was killed in October 1813 when American forces defeated the British and their Native American allies at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada.

 

Despite Madison’s positive outlook, the war did not go well for the United States in 1814, as the British temporarily seized Washington, D.C., and burned the U.S. Capitol and the Executive Mansion. Ironically, the greatest American victory, Andrew Jackson’s triumph in the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, came two weeks after a peace treaty had been signed in Ghent but five weeks before the news reached the United States.

 

Additional Content


This issue also includes an article on “Torpedo War” (torpedoes were floating mines) from Norfolk (p3/c1); a notice that eleven British army officers, prisoners in Massachusetts, were being held in close confinement in retaliation for 46 American officers imprisoned by the British (p3/c3); a report from Knoxville, Tennessee, of a third victory over the Red Sticks Creeks, after the victories of Tallushatchee and Talladega earlier in November 1813 (p4/c1); and more war news.

 

The War (1812-1815) was a weekly newspaper established in New York by Samuel Woodworth & Co. in June 1812 to provide war news. It continued through three volumes and 119 issues until February 1815. Samuel Woodworth (1784-1842) was born in Massachusetts and served an apprenticeship with a newspaper editor. He became a poet, printer, and newspaper publisher. Woodworth was best known for his 1817 poem “The Old Oaken Bucket,” which was set to music in 1826 and sung by generations of American schoolchildren.

 

 



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