Marc Liebman's Blog, page 8

1813 Amphibious Assault at Fort George

In October 1812, the New York State Militia under General Stephan van Rensselaer was supposed to attack the British at Fort George at the northern end of the west bank of the Niagara River. General Alexander Smith was supposed to support Rennselaer with a contingent of the U.S. Army. Unfortunately, Smith decided on his own that the attack was not worth the effort and returned to Black Rock Naval Base.

Undeterred, Rensselaer began a bombardment of Fort George from his position at Fort Niagara. Fort George got the worst of the attack which set several of the buildings on fire in the town next to the fort.

Rensselaer crossed the river with the troops under his command in an attempt to take Fort George. His assault was repelled at what is known as the Battle of Queenston Heights with heavy casualties and Colonel Winfield Scott was the senior American officer captured.

In a different action, the U.S. Navy squadron in Lake Erie landed about 600 men from the U.S. Army and New York State Militia at York (modern-day Toronto) in October 1812 and captured the town and a large quantity of military supplies. After holding the city for several days, the Americans withdrew to the lake’s south shore.

Some of the supplies were moved to Fort Niagara where Colonel Winfield Scott, who had been paroled during the winter in an exchange of officers, was now commander of the U.S. forces in the area. He was also General Henry Dearborn’s, the man we would call today the theater commander’s chief of staff. Scott reorganized the forces at the eastern end of Lake Erie and began to plan an operation to take Fort George.

Scott and the senior Naval officer, Oliver Hazard Perry in the area decided to take Fort George by landing his men from ships in Lake Ontario, rather than trying to cross the Niagara River. Scott had 4,000 men, most of whom would be carried in 12 armed schooners and who would come ashore in four waves.

Preceding the amphibious assault, the guns at Fort Niagara would bombard Fort George with hot shot – cannon balls heated until they were glowing before they were shoved down the cannon’s barrel and fired. The corvette Madison and the brig Oneida would provide naval gunfire support to the landing along with the cannon on the schooners.

Scott’s army quickly established a beachhead and moved toward Fort George.

Defending Fort George, the British Army had about 1,300 men and several heavy cannon. Their attempts to repulse the landing led to heavy British casualties. Each time the British Army tried to counterattack, the guns from the schooners, Madison and Oneida helped force the British back.

Within a day, Fort George was captured. The U.S. now had control of the Niagara River and could move ships from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. The U.S. held the fort until the war’s end when it was returned to the British as part of the Treaty of Ghent.

Map of the Battle of Fort George was created by Benson Lossing.

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Logistics of the Lakes

Unless one lives on the Great Lakes in Canada or the United States, you probably don’t realize that in terms of area, they are the largest series of connected bodies of fresh water in the world. By water volume, they are number two.

It’s the Great Lakes location and their size that makes them vital to Canada and the U.S. as what are called SLOCs – sea lines of communications. During the American Revolution and the War of 1812, the Great Lakes were the locations of several major naval battles.

Much of the ground fighting during the War of 1812 was along the U.S.’s northern border and the lakes were the interstate highways of the day. Control the lakes, and one can move troops and supplies freely.

Another contested major inland body of water was the 107-mile-long Lake Champlain that borders Canada, New York, and Vermont. The deep-water lake runs roughly north south. At the northern end is the Richelieu River which empties into the St. Lawrence River, and Fort Ticonderoga dominates the south.

The British and the Americans needed three different fleets to fight for control the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain. Thanks to the natural barrier of Niagara Falls and its 167-foot drop, both countries built ships in an attempt to control the four western lakes – Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior – and a separate task force to fight on Lake Ontario. The third squadrons were built for fighting on Lake Champlain.

The lead-up to the Declaration of War led to a naval arms race on the Great Lakes and on Lake Champlain. At the time, the U.S. only had the brig Adams near Detroit, and it was still fitting out when the war began. The Royal Navy had the sloop-of-war Queen Charlotte and the brig General Hunter already on Lake Ontario. With them, the Royal Navy quickly gained naval supremacy on the lake.

Both countries brought experienced shipwrights to the area. The Americans came mostly from the New England States, and the Brits across the Atlantic from England.

The Royal Navy had dockyards at York (now part of Toronto) and Kingston on Lake Eire. Smaller ships, ideal for sailing on Lake Champlain were built at Île aux Noix, an island on the Richelieu River and floated down to the lake.

On the south sides of the lakes, the U.S. began building ships near modern Toledo, Sackets Harbor in New York, and Presque Isle, near modern Lake Erie. As we did during the American Revolution, the ships for Lake Champlain were built around Whitehall and Vergennes, NY.

Building larger and larger warships to fight the enemy became a necessity which led the Royal Navy to commission H.M.S. St. Lawrence which is, still today, the largest warship ever to sail on the Great Lakes. Displacing 2,300 tons, it mounted 102 guns.

St. Lawrence’s lower gun deck had twenty-eight 32-pounders and two 68-pounder carronades while the middle gun deck had thirty-six 32-pounders. Its upper deck had thirty-two 32-pounders plus two more 68-pounder carronades. St. Lawrence needed a crew of 700 men to sail it. This first-rated ship-of-the-line was larger and carried more guns than Nelson’s H.M.S. Victory! Before the war ended, the Royal Navy had planned to build two more ships of this class that would carry even more cannon, but the war ended before they were built.

Victories by the U.S. Navy in the naval war on the Great Lakes and on Lake Champlain had a direct impact on the 1814 Treaty of Ghent which ended the War of 1812. The naval competition on the lakes also led to the 1817 Rush Bagot Agreement that demilitarized the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, and the St. Lawrence River now known as the St. Lawrence Seaway.

C.H.J. Snider’s Painting of H.M.S. St. Lawrence.

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Rule of 1756 and the War of 1812

During the Seven Years’ War, which we in the U.S. refer to as the French and Indian War, the British government passed what was known as the Rule of 1756. England was at war with France and Spain, and Parliament passed a law stating Great Britain and its colonies would not trade with those countries who traded with the enemy, i.e., France.

The law was upheld by the Admiralty Court, and the Royal Navy was charged with enforcing the law. American political leaders and businessmen were well-aware of the Rule of 1756. In fact, when the Jay Treaty was signed in 1794, the U.S. agreed to abide by the Rule of 1756 in one of its clauses.

Why the Americans agreed to this is beyond the scope of this post other than to note that while the Jay Treaty granted the U.S. “most favored nation” status for our goods and services being sold to customers in England or brought to the U.S. The Jay Treaty (see 6/11/2020 post – The Jay Treaty and Our First Use of Arbitration in an International Dispute – https://marcliebman.com/the-jay-treaty-and-our-first-use-of-arbitration-in-an-international-dispute/ ) was an attempt to get the British to leave the land they ceded to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris and stop inciting the Native Americans against settlers moving west.

When the Jay Treaty was signed, England was again at war with France. U.S. exports to Europe, not just Great Britain, increased dramatically.

Politically, the U.S. was neutral. Commercially, Great Britain was our largest trading partner. France was second by a wide margin.

The Rule of 1756 was amended in 1758 and stated that a ship from a neutral nation that took on cargo from a nation at war with Great Britain could be seized. When the Napoleonic Wars began in May 1803, American businessmen came up with an innovative work-around to the Rule of 1756.

The British Parliament repeatedly announced it would task the Royal Navy to enforce the Rule of 1756. U.S. flagged vessels would pick up cargos destined for France in the Caribbean and stop in a U.S. port. The cargo would be physically unloaded, and the paperwork changed so that the originating port was in the United States and the cargo was reloaded. The ship would then sail to any country, including England, thus observing the Rule of 1756.

The Brits weren’t buying it. They knew that Great Britain was our largest trading partner. By the time the war was declared in June of 1812, 80% of the cotton grown in the U.S. went to English mills and 50% of our manufactured goods were destined for English customers.

Parliament wanted to pressure the United States to join their side, so they began to apply economic pressure by seizing U.S. ships. In 1805, Parliament reinstated the Rule of 1756 and by the time war was declared in 1812, over 1,500 U.S. merchant ships were seized under the Rule of 1756. That’s 200+ ships a year!

Businessmen up and down the U.S. coast were outraged and demanded action by our government. Jefferson tried sanctions against the British with the Embargo Act of 1807 and succeeded in causing the U.S. economy to contract by 5%. (see 4/16/23 post -We Tried Embargos Before – https://marcliebman.com/weve-tried-trade-embargos-before/ ) the British failed to live up to its commitments to leave its forts on what was now American soil. Yes, the Royal Navy was impressing U.S. citizens into service. But the run up to the War of 1812 was all about money.

For four frustrating years, Madison tried diplomacy until he felt he had no choice but to declare war.

1814 John Archibald Woodside painting “We owe allegiance to no crown”

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Battles of the Lakes

During the American Revolution and even more so during the War of 1812, the lakes in the northern portion of the country were crucial to the success of the British and the Americans. While we read about the Battle of Lake Erie which was a resounding victory for the American Navy, it was just one of many battles that occurred on lakes and rivers in New England, upstate New York, and in what was known as the Northwest Frontier.

While the Battle of Bladensburg and the subsequent burning of Washington by the British Army receive most of the attention in history books, when one studies the war, most of the fighting was along our northern border. Control of the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and Lake Champlain and the rivers that feed them meant one could move troops and supplies more freely than your opponent.

Both U.S. and British forts along the lakes became vulnerable to who controlled the lakes and rivers. Who controlled the Great Lakes enabled one to dictate which fort could be cut off or which group of soldiers could be cut off. The accompanying map, taken from an Army publication shows the main rivers and lakes.

The lakes and rivers of this part of the U.S. and Canada were the interstates of the era. There were few roads and at the time, the country was covered with thick forests.

During the War of 1812, there were four distinct theaters – (1) along the Atlantic coast; (2) the Gulf Coast; (3) the Mississippi River and (4) the Canadian/U.S. border.

Most of the ground combat took place along the U.S./Canadian border which was further divided, at least by historians, into three sectors – (1) Great Lakes; (2) Niagara Frontier which is the area between New York and the Canadian province of Ontario along the Niagara River and the falls; and (3) the Saint Lawrence River which is the boundary between Canada and New York but is also close to the northern borders of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Remember, Maine was still part of Massachusetts during the War of 1812 and did not become a state until 1820.

In 1812, there were 11 along the St. Lawrence River, 21 on the Great Lakes, four on the Niagara Frontier, and just two on the Mississippi River. All these were fought in just six months since war was not declared until June 18th, 1812.

As important as the naval battles were in the Atlantic where the young U.S. Navy became an ugly surprise to the Royal Navy and proved to the British that ship for ship, we were their equal, if not better. Nonetheless, the battles on the lakes and rivers were just as significant.

In the coming weeks, this blog will delve into some of the more significant engagements on the lakes and why they were so important in what many historians say was the United States Second War for Independence.

Map of the Northern Frontier taken from American Military History, Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army

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When Does a State Become a State?

By the turn of the century, the Founding Fathers knew that in the vast territory ceded to the new United States, more states would be created. The first three, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, came quickly, so by 1800, the U.S. had 16 states.

In 1791, Vermonters settled their land dispute with New Yorkers and became a state number 14. Kentucky was formed out of the “western districts of the State of Virginia” and became the 15th state in 1792. The westward movement into Tennessee led to its accession in 1796.

Citizens of the United States were pushing westward and were demanding statehood. Members of Congress knew that it was only a matter of time before new states would be added from the Northwest Territories and the land west of Georgia.

The Admittance Clause (States Relations, Article VI, Second 3, Clause 1) provides high-level guidance by stating, “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

By 1802, the population of the Ohio Territory had passed 60,000 souls who believed Ohio was now entitled to become a state. So, the question facing the Congress was “what’s the process for Ohio and by definition any future states?”

Enter the Enabling Act of 1802. It was a follow-on piece of legislation to the Land Ordnance of 1784 that was passed by the Continental Congress and accepted by the Congress under the new Constitution. (See post 4/21/24 post Rules of Engagement for Statehood – https://marcliebman.com/rules-of-engagement-for-statehood/ ).

Through the Enabling Act of 1802, the residents of the Ohio Territory were told to hold a Constitutional Convention and vote on forming a state government and writing a constitution. The Congress required the state government to follow the precepts of the U.S. Constitution. If Ohio’s citizens did so, they would be granted one representative in the House until the next census assigned the number of representatives. Once they were granted statehood, they could elect two Senators.

However, there was a caveat. If Ohio were to become a state, land would be set aside for schools and 5% of any land sales by the government must be dedicated to creating roads within the state boundaries. (See 4/28/24 post The Land Ordinance of 1785 Facilitates Public Schools – https://marcliebman.com/land-ordinance-of-1785-facilitates-public-schools/)

The act was very specific in stating that the money should be applied to laying out and making public roads, leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to said state and through the same, such roads be laid out under the authority of Congress, with the consent of the several states through which the road shall pass.

Congress passed legislation on February 19th, 1803, declaring Ohio, by the formation of its Constitution, had become one of the United States. However, there was no official date for Ohio statehood in the Congressional Record until the 83rd Congress passed a joint resolution on August 7th, 1953, that set March 1st, 1803, as the date Ohio became a member of the United States of America. Sometimes, in the excitement and rush of getting things done, one forgets to do the i’s and cross the t’s

Map of Ohio’s county boundaries in 1803 courtesy of the Ohio History Connection.

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The Fertile Mind of Benjamin Franklin

Even if you have read a modicum of U.S. History, one should have heard about Benjamin Franklin, one of our Founding Fathers. Besides his role in the Continental Congress, the writing of the Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution, he was a printer, publisher, writer, inventor and diplomat. Franklin’s diplomatic skills convinced France to support our revolution and ultimately enter the war on our side.

What follows is a list of eight lesser-known ideas and inventions of Benjamin Franklin, the inventor and the year they became known.

Swim fins. (1717) Franklin created paddle-like devices that could be attached to one’s hand via leather straps to swim faster. Fabricated from wood, they were about 10 inches long and 6 inches wide.

The Franklin Stove. (1742) Wanting to improve the efficiency of wooden stoves used in homes, Franklin figured out how to use baffles in the rear of the stove to increase airflow. The result was less smoke and a hotter fire that generated more heat.

Mail order. (1744) As the Postmaster for North America, Franklin conceptualized the idea of a business issuing a catalog of products that would be mailed to prospective customers. They, in turn, would place their orders by mail, which would be shipped to them. Hello Amazon!

Lightning rod. (1749) Franklin’s experiments with electricity and study of lightning strikes led him to install metal rods at the highest point of his house, which would be connected to rods driven into the ground. Thus, a bolt of lightning would be attracted to the rod, and the electricity would dissipate harmlessly in the ground.

Flexible urinary catheter. (1752) Franklin’s made of small segments of metal tubes hinged together with wire. Another wire was inserted into the tube to enable it to be inserted.

Armonica. (1762). This is a musical instrument a.k.a. glass harmonica. It was Franklin’s take on a demonstration in which an Englishman, Edmund Delaval, struck notes using water-filled wine glasses. Franklin’s armonica had 37 crystal bowls mounted on a spindle and partially filled with water. The musician turned the arrangement using a foot-powered treadle as he/she tapped or rubbed on the bowls. Each bowl’s rim was painted a different color to denote its note.

The Gulph Stream (c. 1768). While he didn’t invent the Gulf Stream, Franklin is the first to accurately plot it. Using information from merchant ship captains and fisherman, he drew a chart of the river in the Atlantic he called the Gulph Stream. Franklin took the map to the Royal Mail and the Royal Navy. Neither were interested because it was based on the “musings of Colonial sea captains.”

Bifocals. (1784). As he aged, Franklin had difficulty reading the printed and written word. So, in the 1760s – the exact date is not known, he developed a set of glasses with two lenses. The one on the top helped him see at a distance, and the bottom half magnified the words on the page. The first public depiction of them was in a political cartoon in 1784.

Born in 1706, Franklin died in 1790. His fingerprints are all over the U.S. Constitution, specifically his insistence that clauses be inserted to enable the Federal government to establish a U.S. Post Office, a patent office to protect intellectual property and take a census. Franklin was more interested in where one lived and how many were in the household because he saw them as customers of the Post Office as well as knowing where all the taxpayers lived.

1778 painting of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis.

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Setting the Conditions for the Louisiana Purchase

In 1791, the slaves in France’s flagship colony of Sainte-Dominque revolted. At the time, there were about 450,000 slaves and about 40,000 Europeans in the French colony on the western side of the island known as Hispaniola. Within weeks, the rebels controlled about a third of Sainte-Dominque. The Spanish side of the island was not affected by the revolt.

Horrified and fearful that France would lose Haiti and its very profitable production of sugar, molasses, and rum, the French National Assembly outlawed slavery in 1793. The declaration helped pacify the rebels but didn’t remove the other danger.

France was now at war with Britain, Spain, and their allies in the War of the First Coalition and feared the Spanish would capture Sainte-Dominque with help from the British.

The French National Assembly recognized Toussaint Louverture as the slave leader and enlisted his help in defeating British and Spanish attempts to seize Sainte-Dominique. The French defeated the Austrians at Marengo, which caused the Austrians to end its alliance with Great Britain. Napoleon made peace with the Kingdom of Naples and Russia to isolate Britain.

And, in the secret 1800 Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain agreed to cede its territory north of Mexico to France, the land known as Louisiana. Spain acquired the land via the 1763 Treaty of Paris thanks to its siding with the British in the Seven Years’ War. These setbacks caused the government of William Pitt the Younger to fall which led to the 1802 Treaty of Amiens between England and France which became effective in March 1802.

The foregoing just touches on the events between the beginning of the slave revolt and the Treaty of Amiens because what happens next led to Napoleon’s eagerness to sell the United States what became the Louisiana Territory.

In December 1801, Napoleon sent an army to Sainte-Dominique to prevent the freed slaves under Louverture and other leaders from creating an independent country. Over the next two years, the French Army, under the leadership of Napoleon’s brother-in-law, General Charles LeClerc failed. Desperate to put down the rebellion, the French National Assembly passed the Law of May 1802 that re-instituted slavery in Sainte-Dominque, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana.

In the two-year campaign, 20 French generals and between 35,000 and 40,000 French troops died, mostly from yellow fever and other tropical diseases. Disillusioned, in late 1803, Napoleon ordered his troops home, and rebel leaders named their newly independent country Haiti.

The defeat also changed Napoleon’s strategic thinking. No longer did he want a major colony in North America. Now he concentrated on what land he could conquer in Europe. To do so, Napoleon needed money.

Fearful that the revolt might spread to the U.S., Jefferson initially sided with Napoleon. Later, he switched positions, cut off trade, and allowed munitions to be sent from U.S. ports to the rebels.

Jefferson was between the proverbial diplomatic rock and a hard place. In the 1783 Treaty of Paris that gave the U.S. its independence, we also guaranteed the British free access to the Mississippi. During the Quasi-War, the Spanish, encouraged by the French, revoked our rights to free passage from the Gulf of Mexico to the Mississippi River. Now, neither our ships nor those from Great Britain could stop in New Orleans or sail up the Mississippi.

When Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to Paris to purchase New Orleans from the French, the U.S. negotiators thought the French had title to the land they were selling. Au contraire.

For more on how the Louisiana Purchase came about, read these posts.

3/28/21 – Jefferson’s Big Land Buy – https://marcliebman.com/jeffersons-big-land-buy/ . U.S. negotiators went to France to buy land around New Orleans but bought something bigger and more expensive and the U.S. didn’t have the money to pay for it.

4/4/21 – Financing the Louisiana Purchase –https://marcliebman.com/financing-the-louisiana-purchase/ . In the middle of the Napoleonic Wars where Britain and France are looked in a life and death struggle, a British bank finances the purchase of French territory to the U.S. so that Britain’s enemy has more money to wage war against Britain.

4/11/21 – What Did Jefferson Really Buy – https://marcliebman.com/what-did-jefferson-really-buy/ . Short answer, we didn’t know….  The boundaries were only vaguely defined, but we bought it.

8/21/22 – Jefferson’s Constitutional Gamble – https://marcliebman.com/jeffersons-constitutional-gamble/ . Jefferson was afraid Congress would not ratify the purchase. What did he do?

Image is a topographical map of the island of Hispaniola.

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Treaty of Mortefontaine’s Far-Reaching Effect

As wars go, the Quasi-War between France and the U.S. between 1798 and 1800 was more of a spat than an actual war. Yes, people were killed and injured. Yes, ships and their cargo were taken by both sides as prizes to be resold. Yes, we signed a treaty to end the conflict, but the Quasi-War set in motion events that would ultimately transform the United States. For more on the Quasi-War, see 6/20/21 post The Undeclared War Against France https://marcliebman.com/the-undeclared-war-against-france/.

From France’s perspective, it needed to end the Quasi-War as fast as possible. In 1800, France, and its ally Spain, were embroiled in the War of the Second Coalition against England, Prussia, Russia, the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and a long list of small states who wanted to restore Bourbon rule of France.

France desperately wanted the U.S. to remain neutral despite our arbitrarily abrogating the 1778 Treaty of Friendship and Alliance and ending payments on French loans from the American Revolution. When Napoleon came to power via a coup in 1799, most of the French Navy was blockaded in ports. French merchant ships were being taken by the U.S. and Royal Navy ships and British and American privateers.

Wealthy merchants who supported Napoleon wanted to use U.S.-flagged ships to carry rum, sugar, and molasses from the French-held islands in the Caribbean. Napoleon also wanted a neutral U.S. so French privateers could bring their prizes into U.S. ports to sell the ships and cargo and tax the privateers’ profits.

Napoleon’s reasons weren’t just economic. He wanted land in North America from which he could threaten Canada. Through the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed in October 1800, Spain agreed to transfer what we now call the Louisiana Territory to France.

The U.S. also had motivations to end the fighting. French military officers were found in U.S. territory surveying land on fortifications could be built to defend Louisiana. This discovery was one of the reasons behind the 1798 Alien and Sedition Act which Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans used some of the provisions of the law to help win the election of 1800. See 7/10/22 post The Legacy of the Alien And Sedition Act of 1798 – https://marcliebman.com/the-legacy-of-the-sedition-and-alien-acts-of-1798/.

Both sides met in Mortefontaine, a small-town northeast of Paris. French Foreign Minister Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord wanted an amiable solution that kept the U.S. out of the ongoing conflict in Europe. While Talleyrand was meeting with the American delegation led by Oliver Ellsworth, he was also encouraging the Russians to create The Second League of Armed Neutrality in which the signers – Russia, Denmark-Norway, Sweden, and Prussia – hoped would stop the Royal Navy’s practice of stopping ships on the high seas to search for military supplies that could be going to England’s enemies. The First League of Armed Neutrality during the American Revolution had worked, and the signatories hoped the second would as well.

The signing of the Second League of Armed Neutrality gave Talleyrand confidence that French merchants could trade with the U.S., and the principle of freedom of the seas would be upheld. He then could proceed with negotiations with the Americans to end the Quasi-War.

When one reads the 27 clauses of the Treaty of Mortefontaine, a.k.a. the Convention of 1800, it becomes evident that it is more a commercial treaty than a peace treaty. Yes, it ended the conflict, but what the agreement does more than anything else is facilitate trade between France and its overseas possessions and the United States.

However, disagreements in Congress over how U.S. ship owners and merchants would be compensated for losses during the Quasi-War held up American ratification of the Treaty until December 21st, 1801, long after it was signed. The last damage claim covered by the treaty was not paid by the U.S. government until 1915!

With the Treaties of Mortefontaine and San Ildefonso in place and a neutral U.S., Talleyrand and his boss, Napoleon, now had the pieces they needed to begin a campaign to re-establish the French presence in North America that was lost during the Seven Years War.

History, however, tells us a different story.

Painting by Victor-Jean Adam is of the Signing of the Treaty of Mortefontaine.

 

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Jefferson’s Undeclared War

Wars start when one side attacks the other and the country now on the defense, declares war. Or one side declares war and attacks, and the country attacked reciprocates with its own declaration. However, the war against the Barbary Pirates started differently.

Relations between Pasha Yusuf Karamanli, the leader of Tripoli, and the U.S. had been deteriorating for years. We had agreed to pay the three primary states – Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli – one million a year ($24,926,111 in July 2024). In turn, their pirates would stop seizing ships registered in the U.S. and enslaving their crews. By 1800, payments to the Barbary States amounted to more than 20% of the Federal budget!

Karamanli was unhappy and wanted more money and he greeted newly elected President Jefferson with a note demanding an increase in the annual tribute payments.

When the payments were first approved in 1794, Washington was president, and the U.S. did not have an army or navy. Both had been disbanded in 1783, and the country could not protect its merchant ships anywhere in the world.

In 1794, Congress appropriated $800,000 in July 1794 ($22,841,382 in July 2024) to ransom sailors held in Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis. On September 5, 1795, Joseph Donaldson negotiated a peace treaty with the Dey of Algiers a payment of $642,000 in silver coins ($18,330,208 in July 2024) plus $21,600 ($616,717 in July 2024) every year. Payments made to the Dey of Algiers were similar to those made to Tripoli and Tunis, and the coinage given did not include the cost of gifts made to the three Barbary states.

This treaty and other payments did not stop the piracy. Karamanli’s note to Jefferson demanded an additional $225,000 ($6,424,139 in July 2024).

By now we had a navy that had proved itself against the French during the Quasi War and a small squadron of three frigates and a schooner was dispatched to the Mediterranean to blockade Tripoli to prevent the pirate ships from leaving.

On May 10th (some sources say May 14th), Karamanli ordered his soldiers to cut down the flagpole at the U.S. Consul and deliver a note saying he was declaring war on the U.S.

Jefferson didn’t know about Karamanli’s declaration of war until about six weeks later. He then ordered much larger naval task force to the Mediterranean. At the same time, he went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Tripoli.

After the election of 1800, the Democratic-Republicans held solid majorities in both houses but refused to give Jefferson his declaration of war. Instead, Jefferson received an authorization to use force that authorized the Navy to seize Tripolitan ships and cargoes and to commission privateers.

The U.S. had allies in this fight. Sweden sent three frigates because many of its ships had been taken by the pirates and their sailors enslaved. The Kingdom of Sicily offered port facilities, food and naval stores in Palermo, Syracusa and Messina because it was tired of its towns being raided by pirates based in North Africa. It took until 1805 before the Tripolitans and the other Barbary States saw the error of their ways and negotiated an end to their piracy.

Note, in the 20th and 21st Century, Congressional authorizations to use force have been used in lieu of a declarations of war. Since 1945, American servicemen and women were sent into battle in conflicts such as Korea, Vietnam, Libyan Civil War to unseat Ghaddafi, supporting rebels against Assad in the Syrian civil war, the Tanker Wars of the 80s, the fight against ISIS, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The lesson here is that a formal Declaration of War is a statement of national will by We the People that we as a nation intend to do what is needed to fight and defeat the enemy politically and on the battlefield. Without the consensus needed to pass a declaration of war, our politicians and military leaders follow risk-averse policies and strategies that get members of the U.S. Armed Forces killed and wounded unnecessarily.

1878 drawing by CAPT William Bainbridge Doff’s of Enterprise defeating the Tripolitan ship Tripoli.

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Distributing the Declaration of Independence to We the People

The Declaration of Independence didn’t come about by accident. At the time, our Founding Fathers were engaged in a war for independence against the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. And the war wasn’t going well.

In the Continental Congress, Richard Henry Lee, a representative from Virginia, made a motion that the Congress ought to put on paper why we were fighting the British. Keep in mind that many pamphleteers, such as Thomas Paine, had laid out some of the arguments for independence.

Five men – John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson – were assigned the task in mid-June 1776. Since Jefferson had the best “hand” and was a more “polished writer,” he was given the task of writing and wordsmithing the document outlined earlier by Adams.

About two weeks later July 4th, 1776, the finished document was read and ratified by the Continental Congress. Now, the problem was disseminating it to the people, so they understood its content.

The Founding Fathers faced several problems. Remember this was well before the Internet, Federal Express, and the Interstate Highway system, so how was the document distributed the document throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Problem two was literacy. Not everyone – Loyalists and Patriots alike – were literate. Problem three cost. Paper and ink were expensive, and the British attempted to tax every sheet of paper consumed in the Thirteen Colonies.

The first copies were printed in Franklin’s print shop and the first public readings occurred on July 8th, 1776. A copy was taken to the Continental Army to be read to all the soldiers, so they understood why they were fighting.

Copies of the original document were then sent by either courier or on packet ships that sailed up and down the Atlantic Coast. In 1776, about 200+ newspapers and gazettes were being published in the Thirteen Colonies, and each publisher had a printing press.

However, back in the late 18th Century, the type had to be set by hand, letter by letter, and set backwards in the frame. The process was time consuming and cumbersome. The printers then made copies which were, posted as billboards, given to each member of the colonial legislatures, and private individuals.

To reach those who could not read, there were “readings” in taverns or in public squares where a citizen would read the document to the audience. Discussions would follow so everyone understood its content. Wealthier citizens had gathering in their homes to do the same. By the end of the summer of 1776, the Declaration of Independence had been promulgated and even read in Parliament.

When the 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence, they were also signing their death warrant because in the eyes of the British government, they were admitting that they were committing treason.

The Declaration of Independence is the first of its kind in modern history. Its words and phrases have been used by those in other countries wanting to become independent from a colonial power. Many of the signers were also members of the Constitutional Convention where they created a document that would provide the framework for the country’s government.

On the eve of this July 4th, 2024, the 248th anniversary of the birth of the United States, We the People need to reflect on the sacrifices our Founding Fathers made and the risks they accepted by signing the Declaration of Independence. It would take another five years and two months, almost to the day when on September 3rd, 1783, the Brits signed the Treaty of Paris, and the United States of America was independent.

Image is an 1824 reproduction of the original printed versions of the Declaration of Independence

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