Алистер Смит - The Spoils of War - Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents

The naval bill was defeated 59–62. It is worth reiterating that few of the War Hawks’ constituents would be harmed by British naval raids on the coast. The burden of such raids would fall overwhelmingly on the residents of northeastern coastal cities, bastions of Federalist, not Republican, support. The House debates in January 1812 were explicit in providing costs of equipping an adequate navy and argued that $80 million, vast amount though it was, would be a small price compared to the losses if the British raided coastal cities.40 Yet the members of Congress were predictably unmoved by concerns over such raids.

We can compare actual congressional support for a strong navy with support for the war by examining how congressmen voted on the declaration of war and how they voted on an amendment to the navy bill for the completion of seventy-four gun frigates.41 A vote for this amendment reflects support for the building of a blue-water navy. We use this amendment rather than the final naval bill because that bill was watered down and contained little support for a permanent navy.

The votes on these two bills highlight the differences between the support for the war and its stated goals. No Federalist voted in favor of declaring war; yet 25 of them voted for an improved navy. Although 15 Republicans opposed the war, 78 supported it.42 Most interesting, only 5 of the 78 Republicans who voted for war also voted in favor of strengthening the navy. This evidence belies the contention that the war was about impressment or about the infringement of free trade on the high seas, both of which could only be defended against with a navy, not an army! Far from being what today we think of as a bipartisan foreign policy effort, the War of 1812 most clearly was about advancing Republican interests at the expense of Federalist ones—a partisan struggle between frontier territorial expansionists and representatives of the exposed seaports of America. It was a war in which the partisan divide started at the water’s edge!

Congress did approve new loans to pay for armaments. However, to the chagrin of Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, but as predicted by James Bayard, Congress refused to vote for new taxes to pay for the war. Gallatin, acutely aware of how difficult financing the war would be, responded to an inquiry from the Committee of Ways and Means, by laying out the finances of the United States and the implication of incurring $50 million in debt to fight the war.43 Gallatin believed his cost estimate was conservative. Rather than support the secretary’s measures, the War Hawks turned on him. For instance the Aurora Magazine ran stories under the title “The Rat—In the Treasury.”44 Until late in the war, Congress resisted calls for direct taxation. As war expenses rose, the much maligned Gallatin proposed some creative means for generating revenue but the War Hawks struck down his proposals. War Hawk congressman Langdon Cheves, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, stated, “I would rather see the objects of the war fail. I would rather see the seamen of the country impressed on the ocean and our commerce swept away from its bosom, than see the long arm of the Treasury indirectly thrust into the pocket of the citizen through the medium of a penal law.”45 Avoiding higher taxes apparently trumped paying for the war among electorally vulnerable politicians, again as Bayard had anticipated when he observed that “even they who are now panting after war if they cant have it without taxing the people and of course ruining their popularity will abandon the object.”

We should be in awe of how politically adept the War Hawks were. By rejecting internal taxes and relying instead on revenue from tariffs, they ensured that the economic cost of the war fell on those states most engaged in foreign commerce; that is, the Federalist strongholds. As Congressman Bleecker asked in the debate over how to finance the war, “Is it just and fair to abandon the internal taxes and impose so much of the burden of the war upon the people of the Northern and Eastern States, the majority of whom are known to be opposed to it; whose hearts and souls are not in the business; who are driven, and dragged, and forced into a war, in which they will go with you no further, nor any longer, than a patriotic obedience to the Constitution and laws of the country requires; a war which they consider unwise, impolitic, inexpedient, and ruinous; a war which must annihilate their commerce . . . “46

The Republicans—the president’s political allies—provided few assets to rectify the maritime issue upon which the war was nominally based. Federalist New England and seaboard states were most at risk from the British navy and chafed at paying for a war of expansion that they did not want. Meanwhile, Clay’s Republican backers in Kentucky, who stood to gain from expansion on the frontiers, were geographically beyond the reaches of the British navy and engaged in little foreign commerce that could be disrupted by blue-water warfare. No wonder the partisan divides were so deep. By the fall of 1814, Federalist opposition to the war was so intense that representatives of numerous New England states met in Hartford to discuss secession from the Union.

Following the December 24 Treaty of Ghent, the Republicans at last could denounce the traitorous behavior of the Federalists.

Political Winners and Losers

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1812, WHICH TOOK PLACE ABOUT FOUR months after the start of hostilities, reflected clearly who stood to benefit from the war and who bore its economic and financial costs. The Federalist candidate, De Witt Clinton, gained 89 Electoral College votes from seaboard states ranging from Delaware and Maryland up to New Hampshire. All other states returned electors for Madison (128 Electoral College votes), who had locked in the South and the West, the very places where the War Hawks were strongest. He had thrown his lot in with them and it had paid off even though his popular vote margin was less than 3 percent.

Historian Henry Adams summarized the war as “a conflict that had commenced without its participants having clear understanding of why it had done so while its conduct illustrated both an abundance of human folly and the unintended, and often irrelevant, consequences of such folly.”47 What eventually saved the United States was that the British simply did not care that much. Following the defeat of Napoleon, the British increased their presence in America, a consequence contrary to Henry Clay’s expectations. However, they utilized only a fraction of the resources freed up by their victory in Europe. At the end of the day, the British were happy just to secure their Canadian colonies, as they were far more concerned with negotiating the Treaty of Vienna and constraining future French ambition. North America had been a sideshow during the Napoleonic Wars, and even after Napoleon’s defeat it remained a sideshow.

The course of the war was almost farcical. Britain was mistress of the ocean and yet the United States did surprisingly well in its maritime engagements despite the failure of Congress to pay for a naval buildup. Privateers—this being the last war in which they were regularly used—proved particularly successful against British merchantmen. Of course, how much more could have been achieved with a real navy will never be known. In contrast, the war on land—for which the Republicans were less reluctant to pay—went very poorly. Canada remained British, although the Indian threat to western expansion was severely curtailed.

The United States had gifted political leaders, some of whom were sent to negotiate with the British. The British also had gifted men, but they were not sent to negotiate an end to the hostilities with the former colonies. The most able British diplomats were more interested in the Congress of Vienna, which negotiated treaties dealing with continental Europe after Napoleon’s defeat, and so Britain sent its diplomatic B-team to Ghent. The United States gained on virtually every issue being negotiated. The division of territory was largely a return to prewar boundaries, despite Britain’s acquisition of eastern Maine during the fighting. The issues of impressment and trade, although stated as the major causes of the war, were by this time moot points. Britain had already conceded the Orders in Council before hostilities started; and with Napoleon’s defeat, the demand for sailors had dropped so much that impressment was practically irrelevant. Tecumseh’s confederation had been smashed and the British soon neglected their commitments to their Indian allies. America had achieved little if anything on the battlefield, but made up somewhat for its losses at the negotiating table. The territorial settlement restored the status quo antebellum. All that remained was for Madison to declare victory.