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Without going back
beyond the renewal in 1803 of the war in which Great Britain is
engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior magnitude,
the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts hostile
to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.
British cruisers have been in the continued practice of
violating the American flag on the great highway of nations, and
of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it, not in the
exercise of a belligerent right founded on the law of nations
against an enemy, but of a municipal prerogative over British
subjects. British jurisdiction is thus extended to neutral
vessels in a situation where no laws can operate but the law of
nations and the laws of the country to which the vessels belong,
and a self-redress is assumed which, if British subjects were
wrongfully detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of
force for a resort to the responsible sovereign which falls
within the definition of war...
The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects
alone that, under the pretext of searching for these, thousands
of American citizens, under the safeguard of public law and of
their national flag, have been torn from their country and from
everything dear to them; have been dragged on board ships of war
of a foreign nation and exposed, under the severities of their
discipline, to be exiled to the most distant and deadly climes,
to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors, and to
be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own
brethren.
Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so
prompt to avenge if committed against herself, the United States
have in vain exhausted remonstrances and expostulations, and
that no proof might be wanting of their conciliatory
dispositions, and no pretext left for a continuance of the
practice, the British Government was formally assured of the
readiness of the United States to enter into arrangements such
as could not be rejected if the recovery of British subjects
were the real and the sole object. The communication passed
without effect.
British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the
rights and the pace of our coasts. They hover over and harass
our entering and departing commerce. To the most insulting
pretensions they have added the most lawless proceedings in our
very harbors, and have wantonly spilt American blood within the
sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction...
Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate
force and sometimes without the practicability of applying one,
our commerce has been plundered in every sea, the great staples
of our country have been cut off from their legitimate markets,
and a destructive blow aimed at our agricultural and maritime
interests....
Not content with these occasional expedients for laying waste
our neutral trade, the cabinet of Britain resorted at length to
the sweeping system of blockades, under the name of orders in
council, which has been molded and managed as might best suit
its political views, its commercial jealousies, or the avidity
of British cruisers...
It has become, indeed, sufficiently certain that the commerce of
the United States is to be sacrificed, not as interfering with
the belligerent rights of Great Britain; not as supplying the
wants of her enemies, which she herself supplies; but as
interfering with the monopoly which she covets for her own
commerce and navigation. She carries on a war against the lawful
commerce of a friend that she may the better carry on a commerce
with an enemy—a commerce polluted by the forgeries and perjuries
which are for the most part the only passports by which it can
succeed...
In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain toward the United
States our attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just
renewed by the savages on one of our extensive frontiers a
warfare which is known to spare neither age nor sex and to be
distinguished by features peculiarly shocking to humanity. It is
difficult to account for the activity and combinations which
have for some time been developing themselves among tribes in
constant intercourse with British traders and garrisons without
connecting their hostility with that influence and without
recollecting the authenticated examples of such interpositions
heretofore furnished by the officers and agents of that
Government.
Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have
been heaped on our country, and such the crisis which its
unexampled forbearance and conciliatory efforts have not been
able to avert...
Our moderation and conciliation have had no other effect than to
encourage perseverance and to enlarge pretensions. We behold our
seafaring citizens still the daily victims of lawless violence,
committed on the great common and highway of nations, even
within sight of the country which owes them protection. We
behold our vessels, freighted with the products of our soil and
industry, or returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested
from their lawful destinations, confiscated by prize courts no
longer the organs of public law but the instruments of arbitrary
edicts, and their unfortunate crews dispersed and lost, or
forced or inveigled in British ports into British fleets...
We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain a state of war
against the United States, and on the side of the United States
a state of peace toward Great Britain.
Whether the United States shall continue passive under these
progressive usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or,
opposing force to force in defense of their national rights,
shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty
Disposer of Events, avoiding all connections which might
entangle it in the contest or views of other powers, and
preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable
reestablishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question
which the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative
department of the Government. In recommending it to their early
deliberations I am happy in the assurance that the decision will
be worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous,
a free, and a powerful nation.
June 17, the Senate voted nineteen to thirteen in favour of war
and President Madison signed the Declaration of War on June 18.
1812
James Madison |
