Summing up all of the veterans’ letters was a note from George Washington's grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. He wrote him that he was proud of what his grandfather and his troops had accomplished in making a new nation and now worried about what would happen to it. He said the United States was “an empire of reason, proudly arisen amid the oppressions of a suffering world. May the last of the republics long be preserved in the pure & benevolent spirit of her Constitution & laws; great within herself, may she stand as a monument of virtue amid the storms of conflicting empires & present to future ages the inestimable blessings of rational liberty.” He did not want to see that empire perish.9
College students were ready to put down their books and pick up muskets, too. The president's nephew Alfred Madison wrote him from the campus of the College of William and Mary that “at this critical juncture of our affairs it is thought by many that war, or measures leading to a war, will probably be the result of the deliberations of Congress. Consequently, there are many young men in my acquaintance ready to become applicants for commission in the army,” and he said he thought his friend William Pendleton would apply (Pendleton did enlist and fought in the war until its very end in 1816).10
An angry family friend, John Tyler, a state legislator from Virginia, wrote from Richmond that he not only supported Madison's get-tough policies but also wished they were even stronger. “I would seize British goods found on land, lock up every store [owner] and hold them responsible for consequences…I would imprison every British soldier in the states. By God in heaven, if we go on this way [no action], our nation will sink into disgrace and slavery.”11
Madison's attorney general, Caesar Rodney (a nephew of Caesar Rodney, signer of the Declaration of Independence, who had also served as Jefferson's attorney general) kept asking Madison what he was waiting for. As early as 1810, the attorney general told the president that “from both [England and France] we have received sufficient cause for commencing hostilities. We have thus far avoided them, with either, by the pacific line of conduct adopted. Can we stand on this course any longer with safety?” Rodney added that a war would not be just for victory but “those rights which God & nature have given an independent nation.”12
Madison had been receiving so many hundreds of letters of support, and calling for war, that he asked the public, through the National Intelligencer newspapers, to please stop writing him. He could hardly get through half of those mailed in from all over America.13
States and cities joined the war chorus, too. In New York, Commodore John Rodgers was ordered to take charge of five naval ships and prepare to sail. Over one hundred men in a local militia company were ordered to man a fort on the shore in New York City. Hundreds of militiamen in Boston did the same. Various legislatures announced plans to raise local militias to dramatically increase the size of the American army and navy. Newspapers supported the war and suggested that each state should build and donate one frigate to the navy and join together to raise dozens of large militia companies. States and cities printed lists of the cannon, muskets, and ammunition they had available. Municipalities called large general meetings to discuss the conflict and what they could do to help the federal government. One newspaper referred to the British disdainfully as “the unprincipled wretches.”14
Most of the newspapers in the nation printed a letter from President Madison that urged all citizens to help. “I do, moreover, exhort all the good people in the United States as they love their country, as they value the precious heritage derived from the virtue and valor of their fathers…exert themselves in preserving order in promoting concord, in maintaining the authority and the efficacy of the laws and in supporting and invigorating all the measures…for obtaining a speedy, a just and an honorable peace,” he wrote.15
The papers printed letters such as one from a group of Marylanders to President Madison back in 1810 that claimed that there was nothing like a war to bring the feuding parties in American politics together. The men from Maryland told the president that “one desirable result [of war] will follow; it will unite the friends of our republican form of government by whatever names they may be distinguished.”16
The nation's newspapers began covering the war right away. One New York newspaper even announced that it was printing a special weekly paper each Saturday called War that would cover nothing except the conflict ($2 per year subscription). Hundreds of amateur poets, using their own names or pseudonyms, such as the “Patriot Muse” for a New York paper, began writing poems about Great Britain, which were published in journals throughout the country. Booksellers began running lengthy advertisements selling nothing but military books. Amateur musical composers penned songs to be sung for the conflict, such as “War Song,” published in the Philadelphia Aurora, which reminded singers in one of its verses that “for soldier foes we have steel and lead, for traitors we have hanging.”17
Newspapers continued to publish news of seized and searched ships and the names of American seamen captured by the British Navy. Writers contributed letters and columns to newspapers denouncing the British. Some were political and some were religious; the religious reminded readers that God was clearly on the American side of the dispute. Statements by President Madison and others in the American government were printed, along with editorials supporting whatever they said. Copies of letters leaked to the press, such as a heated one from Secretary of State James Monroe to the British ambassador, were reproduced word for word. Earlier, President Madison, using his friendship with Samuel Smith, the editor of the National Intelligencer, leaked confidential letters to him from high-ranking British and French diplomats to help generate and sustain public anger.18
Local artillerists opened up schools and held classes for amateurs to learn how to load and fire heavy cannon and muskets and how to use new artillery machinery. Men who fancied themselves military experts mailed plans for large new forts to President Madison and state governors. One man in New York built a detailed wood model of a new fort he wanted the city to construct in the battery, at the southern tip of New York City, so American artillery could pound any British ships in sight in the bay. He reminded readers that his new fort came complete with outdoor protection for artillerists so that they could fire away in rain and snowstorms.19
Newspaper editors used colorful language in hundreds of editorials supporting the war. “By the blessing of divine Providence, our country will yet emerge with renovated glory from the clouds and tempests that rage in her horizons and obscure her destiny,” wrote one excited editor.20
All applauded Madison's declaration of August 20 as a national day of prayer, and his decision was lauded by the leaders of the different churches in America. Most of the states, such as Massachusetts, also declared their own day of prayer (Massachusetts governor Caleb Strong, however, asked that the almighty work hard not to bring victory to America, but to bring both sides to the peace table, and quickly).21
Newspapers ran letters from any American who had just returned from England or had sailed past England or recently met an Englishman, so that their readers could be current with news of the vile enemy.
Americans, now at war with England, began to applaud the French, the British enemy whom they had been denouncing for high-seas atrocities for years. The French navy, which had been sinking and capturing American ships all spring and summer, was suddenly and repeatedly thanked for turning over American seamen they had taken off British ships and put on board American vessels bound for home. States frantically disbursed arms for their militias. New York announced one week after war was declared that it had already shipped five thousand stands of arms to its western district to army troops there who might be involved in an invasion of Canada (ironically, the British rescinded their 1756 Orders of Council, which permitted their sea policy toward America, a victory for Madison and his Non-Intercourse Act, on the very day that the United States declared war, making the scuttling of the orders a moot point).22
Every tiny vill
age in the country seemed ready for war. The town of Lynn, in Massachusetts, appropriated a $7 per week salary for any local resident who joined the army in addition to his regular federal army pay. Another Massachusetts town bragged that its local militia now numbered 1,200 men and was growing daily. Banks in Newport, Rhode Island, ordered British companies to withdraw their money. Several towns and counties urged an immediate draft to raise a huge army. Maryland began to raise militia units with a goal of six thousand men and prepared to pay them out of state funds.23
Rumors flew. One man reported that, without question, the British had six frigates lying in harbors in Bermuda ready to attack American seaports.24
Not all Americans favored an armored clash with Britain, though. Many New Englanders were against it. In a column in the Federalist Palladium, a paper that Madison hated, a writer argued that England had a huge army and the United States only had one thousand men. England had a mammoth navy and the American navy consisted of just a handful of ships sailing under inexperienced captains. The war could cost as much as $25 million, perhaps even more, he argued, and Congress had appropriated little money for the army in 1812. It was not a winnable war, and, he added, it was a war that would not be popular with the people.25
Another writer argued that President Madison had overstepped his boundaries as commander in chief in declaring the war. He said that Massachusetts had been at the forefront in the revolution because America needed to separate from Britain and form a new, democratic government. Now, he argued, fears that the new, powerful government would run amok were all coming true.26
As early as 1810, New Englanders, including Madison's friends, were arguing that most of the sailors impressed by the British were English deserters anyway, so why go to war over that? Weren't the English right? “What right has the United States to protect a deserter from the service of a foreign nation, whilst in the practice of punishing its own citizens guilty of a similar offense…a war with Britain at once unites us as an ally to Bonaparte and will dissolve the union,” wrote one friend, Dr. George Logan.27
Many Americans were afraid that the United States would not only lose the war but be humiliated, too. Even Mrs. William Gale, the wife of the editor of the National Intelligencer, Madison's friend, was afraid of that. She wrote her mother that the British had a plan, that she was certain would succeed, under which the capital would be captured by their troops and the president, vice president and the entire cabinet arrested. It would “render this nation a laughing stock to every other in the world,” she said.28
In a special session of the Massachusetts legislature, many members stood and spoke openly against the war. One legislator scoffed at Madison's reasons for the conflict. “This cursory view of the alleged causes of hostility, compared with your own observations, and recollection of the course of events, will enable you to judge not only of the sincerity of the administration, but of the solidity of their motives,” he said.29
And it was in Massachusetts where the phrase “Mr. Madison's War,” which would stick throughout the conflict and all of history, was coined by veteran essayist John Lowell, who made that the title of one of his 1812 political pamphlets. Another man who used the popular phrase about the struggle said he did so because “nobody else would father it” and then proceeded to blast the president for running it. He called it “a war of paradoxes” and added that “future historians will be extremely puzzled to know the hidden springs, the secret cause, of so paradoxical and extraordinary measure.” The writer joked that Madison's war policy must come from the secret files of the Paris police department.”30 That writer argued that since New England dominated American shipping, it was New England that would suffer the most from a war. New Englanders urged the administration to work out some peaceful solution to the navigation problems American vessels had with Britain.
A New Englander wrote a friend from Washington that anti-British riots in Baltimore the previous week were an unwelcomed opening to the conflict. “The intention is to overawe all opposition by means of mobs, and the ‘reign of terror’ by our mad-caps is approved. May heaven protect our betrayed country.”31
Some newspaper editors attacked Madison with his own words. They dug up copies of the Federalist papers and reprinted Madison's essays stating that states’ rights were just as important as federal rights and that America could not let the federal government overwhelm the states. They said that was exactly what Madison was doing now, as president.32
The Palladium attacked the war against England with venom. “The cruel and unnatural war, into which the folly and wickedness of our rulers, entangled in the wiles of Bonaparte, has plunged our ill-fated country leads to speculation and inquiries in which we meet with much doubt and uncertainty. What is to be the fate of our country?” its editor asked.33
Officials of several New England towns and counties jointly protested the war in a long letter to President Madison printed in numerous New England newspapers. They called the war “an injustice” and “morally wrong” and said that the federal government was now treating residents of New England as enemies of the country, and not as friends. They were friends, too, they added with great pride, that had helped win the revolution.34
Two weeks after the conflict was declared, nearly seventy New England town officials called a special convention in Ipswich, Massachusetts, to see what the New England states should do about what a local newspaper called “the ruinous war.” Two weeks later, in a lengthy statement, the convention came out against the conflict. “It is impossible to submit in silence,” the chair wrote, “[when] a great people find themselves oppressed by their government, their rights neglected, their interests overlooked.” Citizens of Plymouth and other towns did the same thing, and most of them voted to oppose the war.35
Nearly two thousand citizens of Rockingham County, in New Hampshire, met at a convention to denounce it. “We have witnessed, with sincere and deep regret, a system of policy pursued by the general government, from the embargo of 1807 to the present time, tending most obviously, in our view, to the destruction of the commerce of the states,” the convention's official statement read.36
One man sneered, “I give you joy. I give you joy, friends from the bottom, the very bottom of my heart. A war with England! Thanks be to Mr. Jefferson. Thanks be to Mr. Madison. Thanks be to their illustrious fellow laborers, the very exact thing I wished !”37
One critic from Virginia, Madison's home state, expressed fears that everybody's taxes would be raised by the war. He said that the eleven million dollars the nation had to borrow to start the conflict would increase as the years of combat passed, and he assured friends that new taxes would be levied in each state to pay off the loans.38
The president ignored all of his critics. He found himself working alone more and more; he got things done. And the American president was in complete control of the war at all times. “Mr. Madison governs by himself,” wrote the French minister.39
The war caused newspaper editors throughout the country to weigh in on the 1812 presidential election, just a half a year away, in which Madison would surely seek a second term. Some supported him, some denounced him, and some wondered if he decided until the summer to start a war to garner timely patriotic support for his re-election bid. Would he suspend the election because of the war?
To some Federalists editors, it did not matter. They just hated him. “We allude to the deficiencies of the present administration with affectionate regret, and solely with a view to their amelioration. The ministers of the President are responsible to him and he is responsible to the people for their adequacy in the duties of office. And our duty to our country will not suffer us to witness in silence the growing complaints of the insufficiency of [Madison].”40
It did not matter whom the Federalists nominated; they were behind him. That opposition candidate was a question mark for months, though, and wound up as a surprise. In the spring, New York Republicans, sour on Madison because of the embargo and transfixe
d by charismatic New York mayor DeWitt Clinton, sailed out of the Republican mainstream and nominated Clinton at their own convention. The Federalists, with no candidate, decided to back Clinton, too, in a “fusion” movement.
Most Republican newspapers supported Madison, but some supported Clinton. “The time when this nomination is urged demands its warmest support and forbids the admission of the faintest idea of postponing it. The administration must be stimulated to their best exertions, or the reputation of prosperity of the country sink into the most alarming jeopardy,” wrote one Clinton supporter.41
The Palladium wrote that the election of anyone but Madison “would bind the union, which seems now ready to be dissolved by the distracted doings of Madison and Co.” The editor noted that 91 of the 215 electoral votes were from New England and added that another few dozen anti-Madison votes could be round up in the Middle Atlantic States.42
Madison's opponents made fun of his height throughout the campaign, constantly referring to him as “the little man,” “the little president” and “the little man in the palace.”43
The highly personable DeWitt Clinton, eager to be president, decided to be all things to all voters. He was prowar, antiwar, and maybe-war. He was a nationalist and a states’ rights champion, all in the same speech. He and his supporters were certain this big-tent approach would work.
Clinton's strategy failed miserably. Madison won the election, garnering 128 electoral votes to just 89 for Clinton. Observers attributed most of his success to the patriotism and support caused by the war (he was the first president to be re-elected in wartime. No president running for re-election in wartime has ever lost).
None of this criticism bothered James Madison. He moved on with dramatic steps. The president leaked the complete strength of the United States Army, with a list of officers and men, to the National Intelligencer, which immediately published the information. All the leading newspapers in the country reprinted the lists.44
James and Dolley Madison Page 28