War Of 1812 Causes

The war of 1812, supposedly fought over neutral trading rights, was a very peculiar conflict indeed. Britain's trade restrictions, one of the main causes, were removed two days before the war started; the New Englanders, for whom the war was supposedly fought, opposed it; the most decisive battle, at New Orleans, was fought after the war ended. Before the war began, Britain and France had disrupted US shipping, confiscated American goods, taking US seamen into the British navy, and both sides had blockaded each other's ports which caused great annoyance to American traders, and Britain's abduction of American sailors especially caused great uproar and indignation at home. These forces led Americans to declare war on Britain in 1812. When
This seemed like a justifiable cause for a war, however not all of the citizens shared the same sense of unity about the political issues the war was being fought over. The US was quite upset about the continuing impressments of American sailors into the British Navy and the seizures of American merchant trading vessels by the British. In a committee report in 1811, congressmen address their complaints against Britain. The British defied an “incontestable right”, and they captured “every American vessel” that they could find. In response to these intolerable actions, The president of the United States wishes to declare war against Great Britain. A group of congressman known as the War Hawks desperately desired going to war. One of these “War Hawks,” John C. Calhoun, agrees with the committee’s report, by saying “these
Some, like the War Hawks, used the plight of the New England maritime traders as an excuse to go to war. In reality though, New England was doing better off before the war, because during which it became increasingly difficult to ship goods across the Atlantic and it was impossible to trade with Great Britain. John Randolph, a Representative from Virginia, even went as far as to say that “maritime rights” had no say in influencing the war. He believed that “agrarian cupidity” was the true influence that urged the war. By that, Randolph means that men are looking to take the fertile lands of British Canada for themselves, considering that the northern mountains did them no good. When observing the votes for war in the House of Representatives, one might notice a peculiar detail. The agrarian regions of the United states, which includes the Western Frontier, The South and The Agricultural Mid-Atlantic States, have many more yes votes than no votes. Whereas in New England, and the Maritime and Commercial Mid-Atlantic States, the no votes heavily outweighed the yes ones. The Jeffersonians claim that they want war to fight for the “maritime rights” and yet the Maritime and Commercial States stand out with a majority of no votes. Not a single Federalist voted yes for the congressional vote for war, while a large majority of Democratic-Republicans voted yes for war. Most of these Federalists were