Southern Campaign against the Creek Indians.-Act of Congress for taking pos- session of that part of Louisiana which Spain withheld as part of Florida.- Mobile seized by General Wilkinson.-Tecumseh and his Brother, the Pro- phet, visit the Creeks to rouse them to War.-Spanish connivance with Eng- land for this purpose.-Creek Revolt and Civil War.-Fort Mitchell.-Indian Patriot and Peace Party, the young for war, the old oppose it.-Outbreak.- Desultory murders.-Massacre at Fort Mimms.-Georgia and Tennessee under- take their own defence.-Georgia Militia.-Generals Floyd and Flournoy.- Tennessee Militia.-Generals White, Claiborne, Coffee, Carroll, Jackson.- Battles of Tallushatchee, Talledega, Ecconochacca, and Hillabee.-Militia and Volunteers of Tennessee and Georgia insubordinate.-Many of them go home.-Campaign suspended for want of troops.-Character of sudden levies for short service.-Reinforcements.-Andrew Jackson.-Battle of Emuchfau or the Horse-Shoe.-Indians subdued-Dispersed-Sue for Peace.-Weather- ford surrenders himself to Jackson.-Meeting of Generals Pinckney and Jack- son at Toulouse.-Spanish Treaty of 1795.-Negotiated by Pinckney, enforced by Jackson.-Reflections on the past and future actions of those two generals -As to the effects of the Creek campaign.-President's Message to Congress Commercial and Belligerent Foundations of American Navy.-Nelson's view of it. -Seizure of Frigate Chesapeake.-Impressment and commercial wrong.-Dis- cipline and confidence of the American Navy.-Want of discipline and over- confidence of British.-American superiority.-English Navy unequal in force to American, in America in 1812.-English Ships enumerated-And American. -Culpable negligence and timidity of American Government.-Determined to lay up Navy as port defences when it might have subdued that of England.- English views of that subject.-Mr. Gallatin's Scheme.-Visit of Captains Bainbridge and Stewart to Washington.-Their remonstrance against disman- tling the Navy.-Madison yields to it.-Frigate Constitution's first Cruize and capture of the Guerriere contrary to orders.-Chase of the Constitution by English Squadron.-Chase of the Belvidera by American Squadron.-Seaboard sentiment concerning Navy.-Dread of England.-Capture of the Guerriere. -English views of it.-Capture of the Queen Charlotte and Detroit on Lake Erie.-Frolic by Wasp.-Macedonian by United States.-Java by Constitu- tion.-Peacock by Hornet.-Bainbridge.-Decatur.-Hull.-Capture of Chesa- peake by Shannon.-Lawrence.-His Challenge of La Bonne Citoyenne.--Lieu- tenant Cox.-His Court Martial.-Salutary National Effects of the loss of the Chesapeake by counteraction of Eastern disaffection.-Salutary Naval Effects of Lawrence's indiscretion.—Mr. Quincy's Resolutions in the Senate of Massa- chusetts.-Navy adopted by the Nation.-Cruises of the Frigates President, Congress, and Essex.-Naval American Capacity.-Inefficiency of English Ma- rine. Comparative cost of war and peace by sea.-Lake Warfare.-On Cham- plain-On Ontario.-Chauncey's pursuit of Yeo.-Running fight.-Yeo's Es- cape and Chauncey's omission to destroy the English Fleet.-Contest of Ship- building. Enormous expense of lake conflicts by land and water.-Lord Cochrane's Resolutions in the House of Commons.-Comparison of American and English Marine.-Captures of the two from each other in 1812 and 1813. -Superiority of the American.-Causes of it.-War of 1812 made American Navy from long-prepared materials.-Its character-And rewards CHAPTER XII. Provisional Armistice, July, 1812, between Baynes and Dearborn.-Rejected by 443 HISTORICAL SKETCH. CHAPTER I. DECLARATION OF WAR. — EFFECTS. — CAUSES AND CHARACTER BY In this historical sketch I shall endeavour to submit the truth in an account of the contest between Great Britain and the United States of America, declared by act of Congress, approved the 18th of June, 1812. It enacted that war was thereby declared to exist between the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland and the Dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their Territories; and that the President of the United States was thereby authorized to use the whole land and naval force of the United States to carry the same into effect, and to issue to private armed vessels of the United States commissions, or letters of marque and general reprisal, in such form as he should think proper and under the seal of the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the government of the said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the subjects thereof. This short act is the first declaration of war by law enacted through all the deliberative forms, debates and sanctions of the public proceedings of two distinct and independent houses of national representatives in congress, assembled from the distant regions of a republic of confederated states, approved by an elective chief magistrate, pursuant to the provisions of an organized VOL. I.-2 written constitution, that such congress alone shall declare war. The judicial, an independent department of American government, with the common proneness to diversity of judgment, differed radically in opinion whether legislative declaration of war imparts to the executive and enforces on the community the whole belligerent power of forcibly executing it against enemies, depriving them of liberty and property, and life if need be, without further more specific legislative enactment. Be that as it may, as will hereafter be examined, constitutional transfer of the war-declaring faculty from the executive to a legislature is an inestimable pledge of peace and preventive of wanton war, first conferred on mankind by American republican institutions. This short and comprehensive act was drawn by William Pinkney, then Attorney-General of the United States, in which office, not long before, he succeeded Cæsar Augustus Rodney. The war of the Revolution began in tumult and rebellion, was waged by the imposition of martial law for regular authority; and closed by an act of national bankruptcy, leaving an imperfect union of barely confederated States, discontented and exanimate, poor and intractable. During the Revolution the country was rent by civil discord; the tories could, with some reason, plead the merits of loyalty. The war of 1812, solemnly declared in constitutional method, was waged in due subordination to law, opposed on less justifiable grounds, and terminated with manifold meliorations, since as generally acknowledged as those of the peace of independence. Commerce, manufactures, navigation, agriculture, national character, the respect of other nations, Great Britain especially, and confidence in republican institutions, till then by no means great, even among Americans themselves; derived from less than three years of excitement by war, advantages which peace could not have conferred. The war of the Revolution left unpaid a national debt of near 360 millions of dollars; whereas, not long after the war of 1812, a debt of 123 millions was paid. An American historian, Ramsey, considers that the talents of the people of the United States were improved by the war of the Revolution, but that their morals were deteriorated. The physical and mental capacities of the country were all advanced by the war of 1812, without moral or political detriment. The government since has been as republican as before; while the tone of public and private morality has been much more impaired by long peace since, than it was by that war. Like the Revolu tion, the war of 1812 was inevitable and defensive; put off longer before extorted from intolerable wrongs; undertaken for vindication, not aggrandizement, although Canadian conquest was to be one of its means. The cause was as just; the preparation greater; also the forbearance; and the consequences as beneficial. Moral, physical, and mental independence were achievements of the conflict of 1812 as much as political emancipation that of 1775. The common, perhaps salutary impression, that the Revolution was more unanimously supported, is a mistake. The majorities in Congress on all the essential principles in 1774 were extremely small. The Declaration of Independence was carried with difficulty, if not by accident. Most of the great questions of measures and men from 1774 to 1778, were decided in Congress by the vote of a single state, and that often by the vote of one man. The nation was more divided in the war of the Revolution than in that of 1812. There was no overt treason in the latter. Destiny seems to delight to bring about great results from insignificant and doubtful beginnings, inexplicable commotions, like vast conflagrations from mere sparks. It may be questioned whether any great revolution originated with the will of a majority. Where freedom prevails, submission of minorities to ostensible majorities becomes a fundamental doctrine. However small the majority, it means all the nation. In monarchies, the monarch, or his minister rules instead of the majority. In republics, that mysterious and overruling power, the sovereignty of the people, seen nowhere, felt everywhere, resides in a mere majority; and in war, as was the case in that of 1812, large, acrimonious minorities, which exasperate, may corroborate the majority, and elicit great national exploits. Republicans deride the dogma of kings' divine right: Americans can hardly comprehend it. Their government rests on an antagonist principle. Yet philosophically analyzed, is the sovereignty of the people perfectly obvious? Invisible and intangible reality governing all, where is it palpable? Directly it makes none of the laws of which it is indirectly the sole author. It is diffused throughout the mass whose will begets and controls public opinion by individual agency, and its voice may be compared to that of the Deity in power, inscrutable and irresponsible. War between the principles of popular sovereignty and the divine right of kings, begun by the American Declara |