War of 1812

On June 1, 1812, President James Madison submitted to Congress a list of abuses committed by Great Britain against the United States. Madison cited Britain's use of Indians to raid American villages along the U.S.-Canadian border in the northwest, unlawful restriction of American neutral trading rights with France through the Orders in Council of 1807, and thousands of documented cases of British impressment of American sailors on the high seas as just cause for war. With Republican control of Congress, Madison got his wish. Just three days later, on June 4, 1812, the House of Representatives voted 79–49 in favor of a declaration of war. Two weeks after that, on June 17, the Senate approved the measure by a vote of 19–13. The next day, Madison signed the bill into law, marking the beginning of the second war between the United States and Great Britain.

Understandably, the declaration of war deeply divided the nation, both geographically and politically. The Federalists in the northeast, especially in New England, saw the war as an abuse of presidential power and a contradiction of Republican policy. In 1800, and again in 1808, the Republicans had run for election as the party that would bring the government back to the people. They proclaimed a message of equality under the law, state autonomy, decreased federal taxation, and greater focus on the internal prosperity of the nation. In so doing, the Republicans decreased the size of the U.S. Army and Navy during the first decade of the 19th century, instituted an embargo on British product shipments to the United States, and promoted westward expansion to the Northwest Territory.

After the war began, New England Federalists charged that Madison and the Republican-controlled Congress simply wanted to justify expansion into Canada and the west through a costly and dangerous fight with the world's strongest power, an argument that held some truth. To Madison and his political confidant Thomas Jefferson, victory over Great Britain would allow the United States to expand across North America, providing new markets for the products the country manufactured. What they did not realize was that the end of the war would occur in the Deep South, at the port of New Orleans, two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, and the war would bring their nation together in the form of a ragtag, multicultural force of white frontiersmen, colored Creoles, Indians, and nationless privateers.