How The War Of 1812 Reflect The Same Tensions That Led To The American Civil War

September, 2005

Internal Assessment

Plan of the investigation

How the war of 1812 reflect the same tensions that led to the American civil war?

For this assignment I will start out by researching my topic on the internet with two websites. Then I will give evidence for my topic by stating what the authors from the websites concluded. Afterwards I will then give my analysis on the topic and answer the question in my conclusion. To conclude my paper I will provide a bibliography that gives credit to the sources I have used.

A) Summary of Evidence

In the year 1811 the United States was on the edge of war. Within the 1811 United States congress was a group of democratic-republicans from the south and western states known as the "war hawks". They developed this nickname from being known as hot headed politicians that strongly influenced war with Great Britain (Barton, 2005). The northern New England Federalists quickly established conflicts with this group.

The reason Americas war with Great Britain took place was because of England's unreasonable Trade blockade that blocked America's trade with Europe. So why did the seafaring New England oppose the war for a free sea? The answer is that pro-British Federalists in the northeast sympathized with Britain and resented the Republicans' sympathy with Napoleon whom they regarded as the "anti-Christ of the age". Federalist also opposed the invasion of Canada because it would add more agrarian states from the wild northwest (David, 2002).

Napoleon's announcement in 1810 of the revocation of his decrees was followed by British refusals to repeal their orders, and pressures for war increased. On June 18, 1812, President James MADISON signed a declaration of war that Congress--with substantial opposition--had passed at his request. The Federalist lost their fight to avoid a war with England.

During the war of 1812 the situation was particularly serious for the United States because the country was insolvent by the fall of 1814, and in New England opponents of the war were discussing separation from the Union. The Hartford Convention that met in Connecticut in December 1814 and January 1815 stopped short of such an extreme step but the Constitutional amendments proposed there reflected the delegates' hostility toward the South and West. The War of 1812 was very unpopular in commercial New England (Eisert, 1998).

C) An evaluation of sources

Using the Secession Crisis web-page was useful to help show how the Hartford convention played its role.