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Opposition to the War of 1812

Federalist Party

Federalists were opposed to war with Great Britain before 1812, which can be seen in their opposition to the Embargo of 1807. While many Democrat-republicans thought of the war as a “test of the Republic”, Federalists denounced calls for war, with John Randolph advising Madison to abandon the thought of war, as it would threaten United States commerce. All members of Congress that voted for war were Republicans, while 22 opposed war, along with 40 Federalists. Following Madison’s declaration of war, the Federalist minority in the House of Representatives released “An Address...to their constituents on the war with Great Britain”, which identified the Federalists as the party of peace, rebuffing many of the points Madison made in his declaration of war.

As the war continued, New England Federalists maintained their opposition. But this is not to say the region as a whole opposed the national war effort. Much of the financing and a substantial portion of the army and navy came from the region. In number of recruits furnished the regular army, only New York supplied more. Elbridge Gerry, the Vice President, and William Eustis, the secretary of war, hailed from Massachusetts. A top army general, Henry Dearborn, came from New Hampshire, and illustrious naval officers such as Isaac Hull, Charles Morris, and Oliver Hazard Perry were New Englanders. As important, New England sent more officially sanctioned privateers to sea than other areas.

Throughout the war, Federalists in Congress stifled bills that levied more funding for the war, and in September 1814, when Madison issued a conscription bill to increase the amount of men within the professional army, Federalists publicly opposed the bill, and likened it the Napoleon's levée-en-masse, once again conflating Republicans with the French dictator.

The Federalists had no control of national policy, however. As the war dragged on, they grew increasingly frustrated. Eventually, some in New England, began to advocate constitutional changes that would increase their diminished influence at the national level. The Hartford Convention, with 26 delegates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and dissident counties in Vermont and New Hampshire, was held in December 1814 to consider remedies. It was called to discuss proposed Constitutional amendments. Its final report called for several Constitutional amendments. Many federalists within Massachusetts believed that the Hartford Convention was the only way to save the Union from Republicans, and from civil war. However, when convention representatives arrived in Washington to advocate their changes, they were greeted with news of a peace treaty with Britain, the Treaty of Ghent, which essentially restored the pre-war status quo, as well as the great American victory at the Battle of New Orleans. This undercut their position, leaving them with little support. They returned home, and the decline of the Federalist Party continued.

Popular opposition[edit]

At the outbreak of war, there was widespread resistance by many Americans, with many militias refusing to go to war, and bankers even refusing to back a Federal currency, and relieve the government of its debt. A Massachusetts paper, the Salem Gazette, reprinted Madison’s Federalist No. 46, in which Madison made the argument for defending states’ rights against a national government, in response to the national government trying to press the state militia into national service.

While a sense of patriotism offered support for the war, outside Federalist strongholds, as the war dragged on and the U.S. suffered frequent reversals on land, opposition to the war extended beyond Federalist leaders. As a result, the pool of army volunteers dried.

For example, after the British seized Fort Niagara and sacked the town of Lewiston, New York, General George McClure tried to call up the local militia to drive them back, but found that most would not respond, tired of repeated drafts and his earlier failures. Even those who did appear, McClure wrote, were more interested "in taking care of their families and property by carrying them into the interior, than helping us to fight." There were many examples of other militias refusing to enter Canada, and either disobeying or simply refusing orders to move into Canadian territory. Political opinions even interfered with communication between officers at the beginning of the war.

This was shown in national recruitment efforts as well. While Congress authorized the War Department to recruit 50,000 one-year volunteers, only 10,000 could be found, and the Army never reached half of its authorized strength. A national conscription plan was proposed in Congress, but defeated with the aid of Daniel Webster, though several states passed conscription policies. Even Kentucky, home state of the best-known war hawk Henry Clay, was the source of only 400 recruits in 1812.[ citation needed] It was not until the war was concluded that its retrospective popularity shot up again.

Backlash[edit]

Many members of the Democratic-Republican Party viewed opposition as treasonous or near-treasonous once war was declared. The Washington National Intelligencer wrote that, "WAR IS DECLARED, and every patriot heart must unite in its support... or die without due cause." The Augusta Chronicle wrote that, "he who is not for us is against us."

This sentiment was especially strong in Baltimore, at the time a boomtown with a large population of recent French, Irish, and German immigrants who especially hated Britain. In early 1812, several riots took place, centering on the anti-war Federalist newspaper the Federal Republican. Its offices were destroyed by a mob. Local and city officials, all war hawks, expressed disapproval of the violence, but did little to stop it. When the editors of Federal Republican tried to return, they were removed from protective custody in a jail by a mob, on the night of July 27, and tortured; one Revolutionary War veteran, James Lingan, died of his injuries. Opponents of the war then largely ceased to openly express their opposition in Baltimore. However, Federalists did take advantage of the incident to publicize Lingan’s funeral in stories that were widely printed about around the country.

The Baltimore riots were the height of violent backlash during the war, whose popularity dropped through 1813 and 1814. However, after the war, when the Hartford Convention's proceedings became public just after a peace treaty was signed with Britain, there was a longer-term backlash against the Federalist Party, which became associated with secession and treason. The party never regained national predominance, fielding its last Presidential candidate in 1816 and fading away entirely by the end of the 1820s.

Legacy[edit] The War of 1812 was the first war declared by the United States, as the U.S., and so some historians see it as the first to develop widespread antiwar sentiment. (However, there was also anti-war sentiment during the Quasi-War and the First Barbary War.) There is little direct continuity between the opponents of the War of 1812 and later antiwar movements, as the Federalist party's objections weren't based on pacifism, and as this same "antiwar" party effectually disappeared soon after peace was concluded. The end of the war also influenced the growing unpopularity of the Federalist party, as The Hartford Convention was quickly condemned by Republicans, especially in light of the American victory at New Orleans.

Sources

BICKHAM, TROY. WEIGHT OF VENGEANCE: the United States, the British Empire, and the War of 1812. OXFORD University Press, 2017.

Buel, Richard. America on the Brink: Federalism during the Jeffersonian Ascendancy, 1800-1815. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Brown, Roger H. The Republic in Peril: 1812. W.W. Norton and Company, 1971. Page 42

STRUM, HARVEY. “New York Federalists and Opposition to the War of 1812.” World Affairs, vol. 142, no. 3, 1980, pp. 169–187. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20671825.

Stoltz, Joe. “Joseph F. Stoltz III.” Joseph F. Stoltz III, josephfstoltz.com/.

Notes on improvements:

Add to section to Federalist party to talk about how the Battle of New Orleans solidified the Republican's power/position on starting the war, and how the Battle of New Orleans supposedly showed that a militia was more pragmatic, as opposed to the standing army that Federalists wanted. In addition, Stoltz mentions how there was a Northern/Southern culture divide, with Federalists in the north looking unpatriotic, as they allowed the British to invade Washington DC, and how many agrarian republicans were hailed as heroes of the war. Strum 171 also mentions how Federalists championed the war as a continuation of the Embargo of 1807, which split the Federalists and the Democrat-Republicans. Strum 172 also gives evidence showing that many northern federalist troops refused to enter Canada, and that the army encountered frequent mutinies at the beginning of the war. There was also evidence given by Strum talking about how Federalists and Republican officers didn't get along. New York experienced a Federalist resurgence during the war within the State Legislature, which I hope to show was correlated with the success of the war at the time, as many Federalists saw the war as an opportunity to enlarge the party, and enhance anti-war sentiment. This correlation would explain why the Federalist party lost a lot of support after the end of the war, and with the expansion of Republican propaganda that agrarian militia men were the saviors of the American people. Under the legacy section, I would like to include information about how the War of 1812 left a poor legacy on the Federalist party as a whole, and how it contributed to the fall of the party after the war. In addition, from my readings I feel like Federalist newpapers and journals used many fear-mongering tactics, spreading rumors about a French invasion, American regulars disbanding and looting, which may have affected both how Republicans acted and how Federalists were viewed after the war, as none of the popularized rumors ever came to fruition. I would also like to find some more sources that deal with polling, and how the War of 1812 was perceived by Americans, and whether or not it was supported by a majority or minority of American voters.

This section will serve as a guide for evaluating articles about the War of 1812

Topic: Opposition to the War of 1812

Looking at the section, there isn't a lot of information regarding how Congress reacted to the initial outbreak of the War of 1812, or the Congressional action that occurred prior to the declaration. I would like to add in congressional debates and letters that really show how much of this war was due to party politics, as opposed to people voting based on whether they thought impressment was a good enough excuse to go to war. In addition, there isn't a lot of information regarding widespread opposition to the war, or the effects of British opposition to the war. I would like to also expand upon this, and maybe also discuss how the threat of a slave revolt was used to quell opposition to the war.

Bibliography:

Beating Plowshares into Swords: The Political Economy of American Warfare 1606-1665, Paul Koistinen

American Military Policy, CJ Bernardo

Mr. Madison's War, J.C.A. Stagg

America on the Brink, Richard Buel

The Republic in Peril, Richard Brown

Potential Topics:

Topic 1- Congressional actions- Although there are entries about how Congress deliberated about the decision to declare war, I think that there aren’t enough specific details, such as other options that may have been proposed instead of declaring war outright. In addition, there isn’t a lot of information regarding how political affiliations affected one’s opinion of the war, and how political affiliations affected the decision to go to war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_War_of_1812_in_the_United_States

Topic 2- British view of the war- The wikipedia entry doesn’t focus too much on how the British felt about the war, or how it was viewed within Britain and Europe as a whole. I’d like to see how much information there is talking about whether the War of 1812 was overshadowed by Napoleon, and how much of a political focus the war was for the English Parliament both before the war, and during. In this respect, I think that too much focus is placed on how Americans viewed the war and its struggles, as opposed to a country that was already involved in a large ground war on their own continent, and then had to move to invade another country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812#Memory_and_historiography

Topic 3- American/British/Indian troops- The main page doesn’t give a lot of specific information regarding the training or weaponry that ground forces had at the time, and the differences between different factions when it came to their equipment and tactics. I think that bringing in more information about differences and similarities between these groups will help show how American militia troops gained more experience throughout the war, until they were able to match the British in pitched battle. Attributing the success of a particular battle to drilling and weaponry may be too far of a stretch to make on the topic, but perhaps it had separate effects on morale and support for the war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812#Forces