CHAPTER XLIX.

DECLARATION OF WAR BY THE UNITED STATES AGAINST GREAT BRITAIN, AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE INVASION OF CANADA.

The Bill for declaring war against Britain passed the Congress June 18th, 1812, after protracted discussions: by the House of Congress, by a majority of forty--seventy-nine to thirty-nine--by the Senate, by a majority of six. The vote for the declaration of war was a purely party vote; the war itself was a purely partizan war--the carrying out of intrigue between the American Democratic President and the French despoiler of Europe--a war against the intelligence and patriotism of the American people, as well as against the independence and liberties of nations; a war in which the very selection of generals and officers were, as a general rule, partizan appointments.

The war party consisted largely of the mob or refuse of the nation--of those who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by such a war--facts which will go far to account, with three or four exceptions, for the inferior character of the American generals and officers in the war; men appointed to offices for which they had no qualifications, and to situations in which they could, without stint, rob their country of its money, if not of its reputation.

In New York, a Convention of delegates from several counties of the State was held at Albany, on the 17th and 18th days of September, 1812, in which the war was denounced as unjustifiable, unprincipled, and unpatriotic, and as subservient, simply subservient to the cause of the French Emperor against England.

The address of the House of Representatives of the State of Massachusetts presented in a still stronger light and with unanswerable argument the causes of this unjust and cruel war, as wanton and unprovoked, and the climax of the various outrages committed against Great Britain.

Yet even the English Orders in Council--made the pretext for the war by President Madison and his partizans--impolitic as those Orders were on the part of England, being founded not on sound national policy, but dictated by revenge on Napoleon on account of his Berlin and Milan decrees for the destruction of British commerce--even these British Orders in Council were actually a source of profit to American merchants from the indulgent way in which they were administered by the British authorities. The American historian, Hildreth, says:

"The comparative indulgence of the British, their willingness to allow to Americans a certain margin of profitable employment, contrasted very favourably in the minds of ship-owners with the totally anti-commercial system of France. Forgetting their late pretensions to a neutral trade, perfectly unshackled, and the loud outcry they had raised against British invasions of it, they were now ready, with characteristic commercial prudence, to accept as much of the views of British Ministers and merchants still left within their reach. A trade still profitable, however shackled and curtailed, they regarded as decidedly preferable to no trade at all. In fact, by the calculations of eminent merchants, fully confirmed by subsequent experience, the trade still allowed under the British Orders, while far more profitable, was also quite as extensive as there could be any reasonable expectation of enjoying after the restoration of general peace.

"The merchants and ship-owners had, however, but a limited influence over public opinion. Their vast profits of late years had made them objects of envy. Though their accumulations were but an index of the general enrichment of the nation, there were multitudes who more or less openly rejoiced over their present distress [arising from the American embargo.] Unfortunately, too, they were divided among themselves. Some even of the wealthiest of their number were among those who applauded the embargo, of which conduct this not very charitable explanation was given: that it would enable those who were able to wait for the revival of trade to buy up at a great discount the ships and produce of their poorer neighbours."

President Madison having declared a professedly defensive war against Great Britain for the purpose of defending maritime rights on the Atlantic Ocean, commenced by invading Canada in three "Grand Armies." The one was the Grand Army of the West, consisting of 5,000 men, under General Hull, and the base of whose operations was Detroit; the second was the Grand Army of the Centre, under the command of General Van Rensellaer, consisting of 5,000, which was to operate against Canada from Lewiston; and the third, but first in command, was the Grand Army of the North, under General Dearborn, consisting of 10,000 men, to operate from Lake Champlain against Montreal and the rest of Lower Canada.

Such, then, was the declaration of war against England by President Madison and his democratic faction; such were the false pretensions for the war; such was the confederacy between the democratic President of the United States and the Tyrant of Europe against the liberties of mankind, under pretence of war with England; such was the noble opposition of the States of New York and New England to that unholy coalition between the American President and the oppressor of Europe against human liberty--States which had been the head and the sinews and the backbone of American resistance to Great Britain during the struggle for American independence, and which, having achieved that independence, abhorred being buccaneers against the independence of Canada, and the acquisition of the Indian territories of the West and North of the United States.

FOOTNOTES:

"When the Bill reached the Senate it was referred to a Committee already appointed to consider the President's message. It remained under discussion twelve days. Meanwhile the people throughout the country were fearfully excited by conflicting emotions. A memorial against the war went from the Legislature of Massachusetts; and another from the merchants of New York, led by John Jacob Astor. War-meetings were held in various places, and the whole country was in a tumult of excitement. Finally, on the 17th of June, the Bill, with some amendments, was passed in the Senate by a vote of nineteen against thirteen. It was sent back to the House on the morning of the 18th, when the amendments were concurred in. The Bill was engrossed on parchment, and at three o'clock in the afternoon of that day became law by the signature of the President [who next day declared war against Great Britain]. In the House, the members from Pennsylvania, and the States of the South and West, gave sixty-two votes for it to seventeen against it. In the Senate, the same States gave fourteen for it, to five against it, 'Thus,' says a late writer [Edwin Williams], 'the war may be said to have been a measure of the South and West to take care of the interests of the North, much against the will of the latter.'" (Lossing's Field Book of the War of 1812, Chap. xi., pp. 227, 228.)

The minority of the members of the House of Representatives who voted against the war, addressed a protest, signed by them all, to their constituents, exposing the impolicy and objects of the war, and indicating their own conduct. We quote two sentences of this able paper:

"As to the invasion and seizure of Canada, which was a part of the programme of the war party, they considered an attempt to carry out that measure as unjust and impolitic in itself, very uncertain in the issue, and unpromising as to any good results."--"It cannot be concealed that to engage in the present war against England is to place ourselves on the side of France, and expose us to the vassalage of States serving under the banner of the French Emperor."]

"The place of the first major-general, with the command of the Northern Department, had been given to the petted favourite, Henry Dearborn, late Secretary of War, and, since Madison's accession, collector of the port of Boston--a lucrative post, kept in his family by his son's appointment to it."--"Wilkinson, the senior brigadier, just acquitted by court-martial of long-pending charges against him, had been sent to New Orleans [afterwards to Canada] to relieve Hampton [who was afterwards sent to Canada], whose command there had been a constant scene of collision and turmoil with his officers. Commissions as brigadiers, under the late Acts, had been given to Bloomfield, Governor of New Jersey; to James Winchester, of Tennessee; and to Hull, Governor of Michigan Territory. * * Hampton and Smythe had been civilians for more than thirty years, and were indebted for their present appointments rather to political than to military considerations. Of the inferiors of the old army, presently distinguished, Alexander MacNab, of the Engineers, was now a colonel, and Winfield Scott and Edmund Gaines lieutenant-colonels. A lieutenant-colonelcy in one of the new regiments had been given to Eleazar W. Ripley, a young Democrat from Maine, who had succeeded Storey, of the late Democratic Massachusetts House of Representatives. Ripley's subsequent conduct justified his appointment; but the colonel of that same regiment was afterwards cashiered for peculation; and as few of the new regimental officers had any military knowledge, so numbers of them were quite destitute of those qualities without which even that knowledge would have been of little avail." (Hildreth's History of the United States, Second Series, Vol. III., Chap, xxiv., pp. 308-310.)]

"Taking solely into consideration the time and circumstances of the declaration of the present war, the condition of the country, and state of the public mind, we are constrained to consider, and feel it our duty to pronounce it a most rash, unwise, and inexpedient measure, the adoption of which ought forever to deprive its authors of the esteem and confidence of an enlightened people; because, as the injuries we have received from France are at least equal in amount to those we have sustained from England, and have been attended with circumstances of still greater insult and aggravation, if war were necessary to vindicate the honour of the country, consistency and impartiality required that both nations should have been included in the declaration; because, if it were deemed expedient to exercise our right of selecting our adversary, prudence and common sense dictated the choice of an enemy from whose hostility we had nothing to dread. A war with France would equally have satisfied our insulted honour, and at the same time, instead of annihilating, would have revived and extended our commerce; and even the evils of such a contest would have been mitigated by the sublime consolation, that, by our efforts, we were contributing to arrest the progress of despotism in Europe, and essentially serving the great interests of freedom and humanity throughout the world;" * * "because, before the war was declared, it was perfectly well ascertained that a vast majority of the people in the Middle and Northern States, by whom the burden and expenses of the war must be borne almost exclusively, were strongly opposed to the measure." * *

"Whereas the late revocation of British Orders in Council has removed the great and ostensible cause of the present war, and prepared the way for an immediate accommodation of existing differences, inasmuch as, by the concession of the present Secretary of State, satisfactory and honourable arrangements might easily be made, by which abuses resulting from the impressment of our seamen might in future be effectually prevented. Therefore,

"Resolved,--That we shall be constrained to consider the determination on the part of our rulers to continue the present war, after official notice of revocation of the British Orders in Council, as affording conclusive evidence that the war has been undertaken from motives entirely distinct from those which have been hitherto avowed, and for the promotion of objects wholly unconnected with the interest and honour of America.

"Resolved,--That we contemplate with abhorrence even the possibility of an alliance with the present Emperor of France, every action of whose life has demonstrated, that the attainment, by any means, of universal empire, and the consequent extinction of every vestige of freedom, are the sole objects of his incessant, unbounded, and remorseless ambition. His arms, with the spirit of freemen, we might openly and fearlessly encounter; but of his secret arts, his corrupting influences, we entertain a dread we can neither conquer nor conceal. It is therefore with the utmost distrust and alarm that we regard his late professions of attachment and love to the American people, fully recollecting that his invariable course has been, by perfidious offers of protection, by deceitful professions of friendship, to lull his intended victims into the fatal sleep of confidence and security, during which the chains of despotism are silently wound round and riveted on them.

(Signed) "JACOB MORRIS, President. "WILLIAM HENDERSON, Secretary."]