War of 1812: Causes and Declaration

Overview

• The War of 1812 was regarded as a fight to protect national honor and neutral maritime rights during the 19th century
• President James Madison stated the declaration of war was a result of British violation of American rights on the seas on 1 June 1812
• Critical scholarship later revealed that non-maritime factors played a role in the conflict
• The recent trend in studying the war involves emphasizing non-maritime factors and downplaying British sea aggressions as a cause

House Declaration

• On June 4, 1812. the House of Representatives adopted the war declaration
• New York, New Jersey, and New England only provided 17 votes in favor versus 35 votes against
• The rest of the US provided 62 votes for war and 14 for peace
• Historians acknowledged that the sectional divide in the vote revealed flaws in interpreting the war's causes based only on maritime rights
• Historians in the last century claimed the West and South were more patriotic and sensitive to the insults to national honor compared to older sections of the US, but recent analysis does not back this up
• United States engaged in war against Great Britain due to the demand from western and southern men, despite the opposition from the Northeast

Pratt's statement

• Pratt's statement offers insight into the "new" interpretation of the War of 1812's causes
• Historians presumed the West was barely affected by maritime rights issues
• Since the West desired war, there must be extra reasons specific to that region
• Howard T. Lewis stated in 1911 that the desire for Canadian agricultural land reserves was the primary cause of the War of 1812
• Lewis believed that the imperative demand for more land for western immigrants to settle while under US jurisdiction held the key

Views on the War

• Louis M. Hacker embraced the land-hunger thesis in 1924 and noted the agrarian West had little interest in high sea incidents, an assumption later proven wrong
• Hacker rejected this by calling the notion that the rural West incited the US to war due to national honor "untenable"
• Hacker adopted the belief that the West wanted war for its own unique reasons, naming land-hunger as the cause
• Hacker dismissed the idea that a general Indian uprising with British complicity pushed the west into war
• Hacker noted that the West desired Canada because it represented a reservoir of agricultural land.
• Hacker pointed out that farmers could only prosper on fresh soil, and wasteful farming methods meant continually needing more land
• Hacker addressed the fact that a significant portion of the US remained unsettled in 1812 by stating that the West did not consider the prairies fit for farming

Pratt vs Hacker

• Professor Pratt refuted Hacker's argument that the fear of Indians, coupled with alleged British allegiance with savages, had significant weight
• Westerners were greatly concerned about the Indian threat
• Andrew Jackson's words after the Battle of Tippecanoe implied a feeling held by people on the frontier
• Concern over Indians and alleged British supporters was not a tactic to hide a secret agenda for agrarian expansion

Hacker's land-hunger thesis

• Hacker mentions Indian pillaging and murders in 1811, and stated that there were British agents to blame for the unrest, so popular sentiment accepted these accusations
• Randolph stated in Congress that the West's real motive was "agrarian cupidity"
• As Hacker admits, the Ohio Valley almost unanimously blamed the British for their trouble with the Indians
• British being allies of the Northwestern Indians against the US was nothing new

Western Views

• Anger rose against the Indians linked to Tecumseh and their supposed British backers in 1810 and 1811
• Hacker cites numerous reports of murders/outrages and regards them as propaganda
• Pratt refutes Hacker's claim that the Indian menace was of little importance to the West
• The claim that the Indian threat was the "overmastering" concern of the West is incorrect
• Lack of evidence for the Hacker thesis is that western newspapers and congressmen lack evidence that they needed/desired these lands
• By avoiding farming lands, Westerners were accused of "agrarian cupidity", they invented the British-Indian menace as a mask

Other Motivations

• Fur trade may have been the real motivation behind the War of 1812
• The Lexington Reporter stated on 1 February 1812 that they can "cut up the English fur trade" with a numerous force between England and the Indians in Upper Canada
• Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky spoke of the British monopoly of the fur trade due to their control of the Indians
• Desire of West for the fur trade might very well have been behind its concern with the British influence over the savages and the British-Indian alliance
• A pamphlet in London in 1811 by the Northwest Company of Canada claimed that the organization kept 12,000 warriors under British influence
• Henry Clay asked: "Is it nothing to us to extinguish the torch that lights up savage warfare? Is it nothing to acquire the entire fur trade connected with that country... ?"
• According to Pratt, the fur trade might possibly have been a contributing cause of the War of 1812

Ohio Valley

• There is no evidence that the Ohio Valley newspaper disclosed a territorial motive
• Hacker used John Randolph's charges in Congress, and the idea that the Northwest thought that the good lands of the US to be nearly all utilized
• Randolph was trying to sting opponents and divide their following

Claims for Expansion

• Hacker states that: "Wasteful and inefficient methods of agriculture resulted in rapid exhaustion of the soil, and forced the advanced guard of settlement to be constantly on the move."
• The question remains: why would the Ohio Valley turn to Canada when there was land?
• Hacker states prairies did not tempt the Ohio Valley
• Unpeopled timbered land had a vast area of timbered including a third of Ohio, nearly all of Indiana, and fringes of Illinois timbered with hardwood; all of Michigan, Wisconsin and much of Minnesota bearing hardwood or pine
• Absence from all mention of those "good fat fields across the St. Lawrence" as one of the objects, is best explained by the there were plenty of "good fat fields" at home

Western Hardship

• The West was not in such desperate straits for land as Hacker states, and the West was suffering from depression in the period 1808-1812
• George Taylor notes in a singular interpretation of the causes of the War of 1812, the West's awareness of its economic condition during the prewar period
• Indians and their alleged British abettors was a "lofty pretension' to cloak some less avowable motive, such as a 'secret policy of agrarian expansion'
• The evidence shows that the Western demand for the invasion of Canada arose in large part from the conviction that the British were in league with the Indians, and that only by destroying that alliance could the West be secure from savage attack
• Although the Indian-British alliance has a rather slender basis, the West did believe that a menace existed

Maritime Grievances

• Neglecting the maritime grievances against Great Britain "is with no wish to belittle them"
• "Without them, it is safe to say, there would have been no war, just as the writer feels safe in saying that without the peculiar grievances and ambitions of the West there would have been no war"
• Maritime rights and those peculiar to the West were essential causes for the war
• It is assumed that the West had no interest in the maritime rights question, but a careful look at the sources shows otherwise

Kentucky Legislature

• Governor Greenup made no mention of Canada and in no way coupled the British with the Indian disturbances in the Kentucky legislature (December 31, 1807)
• During his message, the legislature mentioned only the violations of American rights on the high seas in listing the English offenses
• The West's major grievance was the issue of maritime rights
• Kentucky legislature adopted resolutions, assuring the Federal government of its support on whether war, a total non-intercourse, or a more rigid execution of the embargo system (1808)
• There was no reference to the British-Indian league or to Canada
• Those who defy England have been interpreted through narrow nationalism, and a more complete record of their statements reveals their true grievances

Rights Issue

• Johnson spoke extensively of the maritime rights issue by stating, "Before we relinquish the conflict, I wish to see Great Britain renounce the piratical system of paper blockade; repeal her Orders in Council; and cease, in every respect, to violate our neutral rights"
• Grundy says that "the true question in controversy" between the United States and Great Britain "is the right of exporting the productions of our own soil and industry to foreign markets"
• Calhoun declared that he cannot dare to value shipping, commercial, and agricultural losses under the British system of blockade
• Farmers saw "in the low price of produce, the hand of foreign injustice... the deep and steady current of supply will glut that of Great Britain"
• Clay stated "Today we are asserting our claim to the direct trade—the right to export our cotton, tobacco and other domestic produce to market"
• Desha of Kentucky stated: "the liberty of carrying our products to foreign markets... in which agriculture is particularly interested, I would fight in defense of"

Economic Self-Interest

• Bibb of Georgia notes interdependence of agriculture and commerce
• Annual surplus products of the planter and farmer are the foundations of commerce, and their value depends on the demand/facility/manner it may be conveyed/marketed
• The West was greatly concerned with the Indian problem and that frontiersmen saw the expulsion of the British from Canada as the only solution
• Kentucky legislature "added to Great Britain's violations of American rights at sea her practice of inciting the savages" (February 1812).
• West's major grievance was that of maritime rights, which it considered responsible for its depressed economic condition

War Spirit

• Recent historians were much perturbed by the paradox of western support for the ostensibly commercial War of 1812
• They have all assumed that the West was scarcely affected by British policies, and that the region was untouched economically and therefore had nothing to gain
• Students have searched for reasons that the West as a sectional unit desired the war other than maritime
• They assumed there was no relation between what Great Britain and the war did in the West
• George Rogers Taylor has produced abundant evidence to show that the West was deeply concerned about the effect of British actions upon its foreign market
• Craven writes: "The West in the War of 1812 can better be understood as a section thwarted in its struggle for satisfactory markets and lodging the failure against Great Britain, rather than as a region bent on expansion or drunk with patriotism."

Commercial Coercion

• Taylor says that The West was a marginal area in relation to world markets
• Petition to Congress shows that US was unnaturally afflicted (legislature of Ohio)
• It has almost put a stop to Ohio's circulating medium
• Payment of installments of purchases for money have been rendered impracticable
• Jefferson received support from Western congressmen in commercial coercion
• Western farmer was believed to agree that it was impossible so long as Great Britain restricted West Indian market, and burdened American imports
• Depression of 1808 was the result of the belligerents' decrees and orders in council, and there was desire to retaliate
• Economic self-interest was the underlying reason

Economic Grievances

• Anderson of Tennessee: "it is carried on with the produce of our own country because the interest of the farmer is related to the merchant and we abound in fertile land here
• Pope of Kentucky: "The dispute between us and the belligerents is