Volume 2 / Part 2 — CHAPTER XLIX.
Reading edition
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.[184] 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.[185]
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.[186]
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."[188]
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.