From VOA Learning English, welcome to The Making of a Nation, our weekly program of American history for people learning English. I’m Steve Ember.
The United States declared war on Britain in 1812. It did so because Britain refused to stop seizing American ships that traded with France—Britain's enemy in Europe. Sometimes there were also seizures of American sailors. These seizures were known as impressment.
Britain finally suspended its orders against neutral trade, after a change in government. But the British acted too late. The United States had already declared war. Today, we continue the story of the War of 1812.
Most of Britain's forces were battling the soldiers of Napoleon Bonaparte in Europe. Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor says that, as a result, the British could send only a small force to the United States.
“And so the British were basically fighting the war against the United States on the defensive in Canada, while trying to raid the American coast using their advantage in the more powerful Royal Navy.”
For its part, the United States was far from ready to fight. The United States had not fought a war, or needed an army, for a long time. There were only 8,000 American soldiers. The soldiers who were young knew little about war. And the officers who knew about war were old enough to have led troops in the American Revolution.
President James Madison named two top generals: 62-year-old Henry Dearborn and 63-year-old Thomas Pinckney.
The United States had only a few warships and gunboats with which to face the British navy—the most powerful naval force in the world.
Historian and professor Alan Taylor says the American people were divided about the war.
“A majority of them supported the Madison administration, and agreed that they tried the embargo and it failed, and that something had to be done because national honor, they felt, was at stake. And that they needed to stop the British practice of impressment. And they were also upset about the British military aid to these Indian peoples who were restricting American expansion.”
Alan Taylor says for those reasons, many Americans supported the war, particularly in the southern, western and mid-Atlantic states.
“But in New England most of the people supported the opposition party, the Federalists, and they were very bitter about the war. They felt that it was really being waged for illegitimate reasons, that diplomacy could have just papered over the disagreement over impressment. And so they did their best to obstruct the war effort. They not only didn’t want to contribute to the war effort, but they wanted to block it as best they could.”
Church bells were rung and flags were lowered in New England when the declaration of war was announced.
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