If Only Madison Had Known
The U.S.’ relations with the United Kingdom had been deteriorating ever since the French Revolutionary Wars broke out in 1792. The British government sided with the royalists who wanted to keep Louis XVI as the French ruler and suddenly, Europe was aflame. For the umpteenth time since 1066, Britain and France were at war.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, wanted to keep the U.S. neutral and out of the war. We declared our neutrality even though England was our largest customer by far. U.S. traders had customers and suppliers in France, The Dutch Republic, Prussia, Spain, and the kingdoms on the Italian peninsula.
There were a series of policy decisions made by the English government loosely lumped into a term called “Orders in Council.” These occur when the reigning monarch and the Privy Council, which consists of members of the House of Lords and House of Commons, advise the crown on matters of domestic and foreign policy.
Between 1792 and 1812, the Privy Council met dozens of times. Many of the decisions and handed down as Orders in Council restated England’s strategy of blockading France’s and Spanish ports when Spain sided with France. Other edicts were attempts to restrict any country trading with the U.K.’s enemies.
From an American perspective, it was the decrees issued on January 7th and November 11th, 1807, and April 26th, 1809, that irritated the U.S. the most. For example, the Privy Council’s January and November 1807 rulings forbade English businessmen from trading with any country allied with France or that has declared itself neutral. They also required that any ships going to a port in Europe must stop in an English port and be inspected. Ships that did not do so would be seized, their cargo confiscated and, along with the ship, sold in Admiralty courts. The April 1809 order tightened the earlier restrictions.
Needless to say, American businessmen who had both suppliers and customers in almost every major port in Western Europe were furious. Jefferson tried to counter with the Embargo Act of 1807, but besides failing to force the British, who were still our largest trading partner to change its policies, the act caused the U.S. economy to contract by over 10%.
Add in the increasing numbers of American merchant seamen being impressed into the Royal Navy – it would eventually total 25,000+ and continued incitement by the British government of native Americans in the Northwest Territories to resist and attack U.S. settlers and one had the conditions that led to the War of 1812. It was a war which neither country wanted. Madison, rightly so, determined that U.S. sovereignty was at stake. Some historians contend what became the War of 1812 was really the U.S.’ Second War of Independence.
But, what if modern communications existed back in the spring of 1812? Could the War of 1812 have been avoided? The answer is most likely yes. Why? There was a sequence of events in England that, due to the time it took for news to travel across the Atlantic, were not known to Madison.
First, on May 12th, 1812, the British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated. As a member of the Privy Council, Perceval would be considered a “hardliner,” and pushed for the draconian measures in the Orders in Council that irritated the U.S.
Second, his death meant that a new government had to be formed. It was led by Lord Liverpool. On June 16th, 1812, two days before Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war, Lord Castlereagh, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, announced in Parliament that the Orders in Council that affected trade with the U.S. would be suspended.
Think about this… If just the telegraph cable between the U.S. and England had been laid, Madison would have known about the change within in hours. Or, if the Internet existed, probably within minutes. Given the U.S. lack or preparedness and its desire to declare as a last resort, had Madison known, he would never have asked for a declaration of war.
On June 23rd, 1812, Lord Liverpool announced that Parliament had repealed the Orders in Council affecting the U.S. It took, however, 43 days for the news to reach Washington D.C. and by then, the U.S. had declared war.
1909 illustration of the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval by William Stanley Britteny