This practice, called impressment in the American popular press, grew to be a detested evil. In December , with tensions increasing between Great Britain and the United States, President Thomas Jefferson sought grounds for amicable settlement of grievances through a new treaty, negotiated by James Monroe and William Pinkney.
Its principal aims were to obtain the end of impressment of U. When the two diplomats faced British intransigence, however, they yielded on some points and failed to follow their instructions on the issue of impressment. When they returned with the treaty in early , Jefferson refused to submit it to the Senate for ratification.
Following this diplomatic fiasco, Jefferson had to cope with the most serious threat to peace since his assumption of the presidency. The following day, several miles out, Humphreys signaled the Chesapeake to heave to. The British boarding officer demanded that Barron have the crew mustered, which the commodore refused to do, and minutes later the Leopard opened fire on the unprepared U.
Barron ordered the colors struck and submitted to the British, who mustered the crew of the Chesapeake and took off four men, claiming them to be British subjects and deserters. Humphreys refused to accept Barron's sword and allowed him to proceed back into port, a disgraced man in a wounded and disgrace d ship.
This outrageous act incensed the American populace and President Jefferson could have gone to war immediately, but he was content merely to proclaim the British warships unwelcome visitors in U. He did not believe the time had come for hostilities and was wedded to the concept of economic warfare. Jefferson's method of extracting concessions from the British would henceforth be that of withholding trading privileges.
Thus, the Embargo Act of and various non-importation acts were intended to damage the British economy in the midst of its war against France. The effects, Jefferson hoped, would persuade England that it needed U. British officials viewed his attempts at economic coercion as the efforts of a weak nation that did not have the will or the resources to commit to war.
In effect, the president had failed to understand the nature of the balance of the power in Europe and the degree to which British policy reacted to French actions, not those of the United States. The government of Napoleon Bonaparte took advantage of the U. The U. Indeed, Napoleon's restrictive decrees increased the danger of U. Such was his Berlin Decree of November 21, , which placed the British Isles under blockade, forbidding commerce with them and authorizing the confiscation of ships suspected of trading with the British.
Retaliation came in the form of the British Orders in Council of November , forbidding trade with France and its allies. Responding with his Milan Decree on December 17, Napoleon declared that even vessels that were searched by the British or that obeyed the Orders in Council were subject to seizure. Despite these offensive measures, President Jefferson took no effective action to oppose the French.
He had hoped that France would force Spain to cede the Floridas to the United States in gratitude for his anti-British posture. Fearing Great Britain more than France, Jefferson played the French card but was ultimately to be disappointed. President James Madison also felt the sting of French duplicity. If either France or Britain removed their restrictions on U. On hearing that Congress had passed Macon's Bill No.
Contrarily, Napoleon also ordered the sequestration of U. The Duc de Cadore, however, wrote Madison that the decrees had already been revoked, and the United States halted commerce with Great Britain and opened trade with France. The letter of the Duc de Cadore became well-known as the document that duped Madison and his foreign policy officials, the second Republican administration to fail in an attempt to play the French against the British.
During almost ten years of attempted economic coercion and failed diplomatic efforts, two U. Following the passage of Macon's Bill No. In , Congress finally contemplated preparation for war, while the mood of the American people and their government vacillated between fear and boastful posturing. The second war with England, which began in June, and lasted into , was the most unpopular war that the United States ever waged, not even excepting the Vietnam conflict.
The war declaration on June 18 passed by a vote of seventy-nine to forty-nine in the House, and nineteen to thirteen in the Senate. Eight out of ten New England senators and eleven out of fourteen New York representatives voted against it, and twenty-five percent of the Republicans in Congress abstained, for there was a strong anti-war faction within President James Madison's own party, led by John Randolph of Roanoke.
Although the South and the West were keen for the war when it began, their enthusiasm soon evaporated, judging from recruitment statistics. The War Department could never build up the regular army to half its authorized strength, and obtained only ten thousand one-year volunteers out of fifty thousand authorized by Congress. Even Henry Clay's Kentucky furnished only four hundred recruits in Interestingly enough, the loyal minority in the New England states more than compensated for the discouraging stand of the Federalist state governments; those five states provided the regular army with nineteen regiments as compared to fifteen from the middle states and ten from the southern states.
The truth seems to be that Hull's surrender to the British at Detroit had shown that the war would be no walkover. Support for it waned throughout the country, popularity returning after the war had ended. The Federalists opposed the war for several specific reasons. Although Federalist opposition to the war could be found throughout the nation, it was most intense in New England. By , Federalists there were eager to bring the conflict to an end.
But Madison held fast, unwilling to make any concessions to the British. It appeared to some New Englanders that the war might drag on for several more years. Leading Federalists in New England believed that the best way to register their displeasure with the conflict was to oppose it visibly and vigorously.
Ultimately, New England Federalists became so angered at the prosecution of the war that they staged a meeting at Hertford, Connecticut, in the winter of Explore This Park. Politics and regional interests.
The Market Revolution - textile mills and the cotton gin. The Market Revolution - communication and transportation. The Market Revolution - impact and significance. Irish and German immigration. Practice: The s and the Market Revolution. Next lesson.
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