From this fact, Bickham concludes that the United States won the war. “[T]he true primary issue of the war of 1812—whether or not the United States would be respected as a sovereign nation rather than humbled as a quasi-part of the British Empire—was resolved, and Britain had lost,” he writes. Most historians, in contrast, see the British as the victors, since they yielded none of the points on which America declared the war: the commercial maritime rights of neutrals, the impressments of sailors from American merchant ships, and Britain’s involvement with the American Indians living within the United States borders.
Bickham’s assessment isn’t quite persuasive. American entered the war determined to annex Canada, and it completely failed in that endeavor—so much so that it never tried to do so again. It is therefore difficult to see how America became more committed to an expansionist policy. As Bickham says, even while it was preoccupied with fighting Britain throughout the war, the US also pursued an undeclared quasi-war with Spain over the Floridas, aided a rebellion in Texas, and fought a series of wars with the American Indians. Long before Britain and America fought their second war, the US had purchased Louisiana, declared West Florida to be a US possession, and acquired much of Indian territory. The US was always going to expand, regardless of its war with Britain.
Nonetheless, his broader point is correct. America emerged from the War of 1812 far more self-confident and sure of its sovereignty than it had been previously. Britain never again attempted to rule its former colonies, even informally. America is far more familiar with its Revolution, but its conflict with Britain that concluded in 1815 should not be overlooked.
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"For Bickham, the War of 1812 was of major significance in that it killed the last vestiges of Anglophobia in the United States, and committed Americans to republican rule."
You might want to fix this, I'm sure the writer meant Anglophilia. Thanks for this review. I'm particularly interested in the War of 1812 because my late father, Dr. Sam Meyer, wrote a book about Francis Scott Key entitled Paradoxes of Fame: The Francis Scott Key Story.
#1 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Wed 27 Jun 2012 at 03:03 PM
"The result was a bloody, unexpectedly lengthy, and wholly avoidable conflict ..."
Just like every U.S. war since.
#2 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 27 Jun 2012 at 03:08 PM
The War of 1812 was "America's first neocon war."
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/birth_of_the_war_hawks/
A must-read.
#3 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 27 Jun 2012 at 03:14 PM
The War of 1812 was inevitable.
Jefferson and Madison tried everything they could do to avoid it, but England and Napoleon had America's nuts in a vise.
They both screwed with our shipping, and we couldn't tolerate that. In practice, not just in principle. Shipping was the lifeblood of our existence.
Jefferson, the eternal pacifist, tried everything - even pushing New England to the brink of secession with the Embargo Act - to avoid war, but the only sure way of doing it - by aligning with England and Spain would have meant taking on Napoleon - a task that in 1812 seemed suicidal (though he contemplated doing exactly that).
As for the "determination to annex Canada".. Where does this come from?
Sure we invaded Canada in a failed three-prong attack, but there was no national consensus to annex Canada. Indeed, doing so was the LAST thing the New England states wanted - they sure didn't want any more agrarian states and they made more money dealing with England than they did dealing with the southern states.
The very notion of any hardened expansionist intent is dispelled by the fact that the American delegation had agreed to the Treaty of Ghent (which returned all occupied land and maintained borders) BEFORE Jackson's famous defense of New Orleans. In fact, the ink was already dry on the treaty when the battle raged.
The War of 1812 would have been avoided if Jefferson had grown some stones and built a Navy instead of trying to screw with the free market with sanctions and embargoes. Our sailors were better than English sailors and our boats were better, than English boats and when war finally came, and when we starting kicking some English navy ass, it didn't take long for England to give up and go home.
Let's deal with history the way it is.
#4 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 27 Jun 2012 at 04:21 PM
The war was necessary for Madison and fellow Hamiltonian Federalists who salivated for their crony-run national bank, which would finance the war debt. (Some things never change.) Jefferson was no pacifist; he hardly even lived up to his own non-interventionist ideals.
#5 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 28 Jun 2012 at 10:22 AM
I don't think you can so easily discount the attacks on our shipping and trade by both the British and the French. More than 5000 American sailors were impressed by the British navy and both countries banned our ships from trading with the other country. We couldn't exist without trade.
We were between a very large rock and very hard place. I don't see how we could have done anything else politically to avoid war without blowing apart the country.
Had we built a navy, however, as Jefferson refused to do, I believe we could have easily defended our merchant trade and thus prevented the war. France wanted out of the New World anyway after Haiti fell and England had become happy trading with the New England states. It did not take a whole lot of adversity and expense to convince England to cut and run.
Jefferson took all kinds of heat for his attempt to fix the problem with sanctions, and he nearly sent the New England states into an alliance with England over the deal. I've seen it written that during the war, the New England states sent more money to the Exchequer of England than they did to Washington. It is to his credit that he chose not to seek a third term in 1808, but I doubt he would have won if he had tried.
Of course, adversity is the mother of invention... It is rather convincingly argued that the Embargo Act (and the subsequent war it failed to prevent) each contributed to the birth of the American Industrial Revolution, which put us into a position to put the heat on the Europeans to stay out of the Civil War.
#6 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Thu 28 Jun 2012 at 07:26 PM
The reviewer's claim that "American entered the war determined to annex Canada" is very much open to dispute. One of the more important US historians on this war, Donald Hickey, as well as other historians, have disputed the claim. Annexation was a possibility, but the conquest of Upper Canada (Ontario) and at least part of Lower Canada (Quebec) was intended to pressure Britain to negotiate an end to its maritime practices that the US opposed.
#7 Posted by Harry A, CJR on Fri 29 Jun 2012 at 07:58 AM
I agree with others here--the reviewer needs to re-check his history. The annexation of Canada was not the goal of all Americans or even the major war aim, and plenty of Americans talked about it after the war, too. I bothered to read the book, and it goes into great detail about it as a war aim and how divisive it was (in Canada too).
And also to the reviewer--since when did we determine a victor in war according to the propaganda reasons belligerent government gave for declaring it????
I couldn't believe the reviewer was actually complaining about the war opposition being covered in this book! Hardly a fitting comment for CJR. More early American history should include how controversial these wars were at the time so present politicians can stop pretending how in the good old days of early America everyone loved going to war and patriotism was measured by how much someone blindly supported the government. So I say kudos to the author for covering the opposition rather than giving us yet another blow-by-blow analysis of who flanked right and why.
#8 Posted by Dan S., CJR on Sat 30 Jun 2012 at 09:34 AM
Yes. Since when was war just about the battles, as the reviewer would have it? Instead of criticizing the author for taking a fresh approach why not thank him? I heard the author on the Diane Rehm show last week. The show made me think the war was worth learning more about. A lot more to it than the national anthem and battles (which didn't seem to matter much anyway and neither side managed to conquer anything).
#9 Posted by Sarah KT, CJR on Sat 30 Jun 2012 at 10:18 AM
Jordan Michael Smith seems to have read wikipedia and then judged the book against this limited knowledge. The is a subjected in which I am interested, and I can say categorically that the review as a host of factual errors.
All Americans were NOT determined to annex Canada. It was never listed as one of Madison's war aims. The argument was that Canada should be invaded because there was not much else the Americans could do against superpower Britain, and it would cut off the Native Americans from British guns. Sure, some Americans would have liked Upper Canada, but this wasn't a motivation for the war.
The battles are interesting if you are interested in battles, but they had little impact on the outcome of the war. The exception was the naval history, which the reviewer doesn't discuss (I don't know about the author).
In terms of victory, historians are divided over who one, and there is a lot of a debate. The war ended with neither side claiming victory in the treaty or conceding anything. The author is not novel to say the Americans won, but his argument/explanation sounds interesting. The Diane Rehm show's recent panel all agreed that America won, but gave different reasons. Bickham, who was on the panel (I think), stated that the Canadians were also winners and that the real losers were the Native Americans. But then what else is new in North American history?
That the book discusses the opposition to the war in detail makes it novel, as does the fact that it gives so much attention to the British view. Neither of these topics get much attention in standard accounts. Instead, likely to the review's delight, they are nationalistic accounts of American greatness with all sorts of details about battles the Americans generally lost.
I admit that I haven't read the book, but the review, while mixed, makes me want to read. it even more to finally read something that is not all about national myth-making and battles. The U.S. was not the center of the world back then, and acute studies of battles are not the best way to understand a war.
#10 Posted by historybuff, CJR on Sat 30 Jun 2012 at 10:42 AM