The War of 1812: A History From Beginning to End

by Hourly History

opposed strong centralization and supported states’ rights even to the extent of allowing states to nullify a federal law.

The voices of war that Tecumseh, Prévost, and many others heard were the voices of the War Hawks in the United States Congress. The War Hawks originated out of the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party. Jefferson dreamed of an agrarian nation of independent landowners. He disliked the growth of cities, industry, and trade, which he associated with corruption and inequality. The Democratic-Republicans were also anti-Federalist because the Federalists were interested in developing exactly the opposite trends: banking, trade, industry, and economic growth. Alexander Hamilton, until his death in 1804, had been the leader of the Federalists. Under presidents Jefferson, Madison, and afterward, Monroe, for 24 years, the Democratic-Republicans dominated the executive branch of government and often all of Congress as well. Their agrarian policies fueled westward expansion.

Just days after war was declared, the publisher of a Federalist newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland, was determined to express his point of view, but Democratic-Republicans saw any anti-war talk as unpatriotic and worthy of severe punishment without any due process of law.

After such losses, the Royal Navy became more cautious choosing its encounters, but these victories were all cheerful news for the Americans who were simultaneously stinging from defeats on land in Canada. The first major land movement in the war came from Michigan Territorial Governor General William Hull who led American forces into Canada from Detroit. The governor was a veteran of the Revolution and a lawyer not skilled in military tactics. Hull met Brock’s forces and Tecumseh’s warriors and was pushed back across the border into Fort Detroit which he surrendered on August 16, reportedly without firing a shot. Convicted of cowardice and neglect of duty, Hull was sentenced by military court to death. Madison upheld the judgment but set aside the sentence. Hull’s surrender at the outset of the war had a damaging effect on national morale.

When General Andrew Jackson led his militia against 800 Creek warriors at Horseshoe Bend, he won national attention with a victory that gave the United States a treaty ceding more than 21,000,000 acres of Creek lands.

General Gordon Drummond.

Pakenham,

The combatants who lost everything in the War of 1812 were the native tribes.

No one cared to consider the costs to the Native Americans.

The United States’ first experiment with declaring war produced the one war agreed by many historians as the most hated in American history.

The one lesson that was not learned for a very long time was when a country is built on equality, it cannot function without including all the people living within its borders.