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War of 1812 Primary Source Packet Madison Becomes President Digital History ID 211 Author: John Adams Date:1809 Annotation: Distressed by the embargo's failure, Jefferson looked forward to his retirement from the presidency. "Never," he wrote, "did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power." The problem of American neutrality now fell to Jefferson's hand-picked successor, James Madison. A quiet and scholarly man, who secretly suffered from epilepsy, "the Father of the Constitution" brought a keen intellect and wealth of experience to the presidency. As Jefferson's Secretary of State, he had kept the United States out of the Napoleonic wars and was committed to using economic coercion to force Britain and France to respect America's neutral rights. In this letter, former President Adams notes Madison's ascension to the presidency. Document: Jefferson expired and Madison came to Life last night...I pity poor Madison. He comes to the helm in such a storm as I have seen in the Gul[f] Stream, or rather such as I had to encounter in the Government in 1797. Mine was the worst however, because he has a great Majority of the officers and Men attached to him Survival Strategies Digital History ID 662 Author: Tecumseh Date:1810 Annotation: Told by Governor Harrison to place his faith in the good intentions of the United States, Tecumseh offers a bitter retort. He calls on Native Americans to revitalize their societies so that they can regain life as a unified people and put an end to legalized land grabs. Document: You wish to prevent the Indians from doing as we wish them, to unite and let them consider their lands as the common property of the whole. You take the tribes aside and advise them not to come into this measure.... You want by your distinctions of Indian tribes, in allotting to each a particular, to make them war with each other. You never see an Indian endeavor to make the white people do this. You are continually driving the red people, when at last you will drive them onto the great lake, where they can neither stand nor work. Since my residence at Tippecanoe, we have endeavored to leave all distinctions, to destroy village chiefs, by whom all mischiefs are done. It is they who sell the land to the Americans. Brother, this land that was sold, and the goods that was given for it, was only done by a few.... In the future we are prepared to punish those who propose to sell land to the Americans. If you continue to purchase them, it will make war among the different tribes, and at last I do not know what will be the consequences among the white people. Brother, I wish you would take pity on the red people and do as I have requested. If you will not give up the land and do cross the boundary of our present settlement, it will be very hard, and produce great trouble between us. The way, the only way to stop this evil is for the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be now--for it was never divided, but belongs to all. No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them for all the use of his children? How can we have confidence in the white people? When Jesus Christ came upon the earth you killed Him and nailed Him to the cross. You thought He was dead and you were mistaken.... Survival Strategies Digital History ID 663 Author: Tecumseh Date:1811 Annotation: Tecumseh calls on his native brethren to join together to resist white encroachments on their lands. Document: Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pocanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before the summer sun.... Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn, without making an effort worthy of our race? Shall we, without a struggle, give up our homes, our lands, bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit? The graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us?...I know you will say with me, Never! Never! Sleep not longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws, in false security and delusive hopes....Will not the bones of our dead be plowed up, and their graves turned into plowed fields? Dissent Against the War of 1812 Digital History ID 260 Author: J.C. Jones Date:1812 Annotation: Although Congress voted strongly in favor of war, the country entered the conflict deeply divided. Many New Englanders were appalled by the thought of becoming allies of Napoleon and of the nation that had indulged in the Reign of Terror. Not only would many New Englanders refuse to subscribe to war loans, but some merchants actually shipped provisions that Britain needed to support its army. In the following selection, a committee of citizens in Boston denounces the drift toward war. Document: THE Committee appointed by the Town of Boston to take into consideration the present alarming state of our public affairs, and report what measures in their opinion it is proper for the Town to adopt, at this momentous crisis, RESPECTFULLY REPORT, THAT...while the temper and views of the national administration are intent upon war, an expression of the sense of this Town, will, of itself, be quite ineffectual, either to avert this deplorable calamity, or to accelerate a return of peace. But believing, as we do, that an immense majority of the people are invincibly averse from a conflict equally unnecessary, and menacing ruin to themselves and their posterity; convinced, as we are, that the event will overwhelm them with astonishment and dismay; we cannot but trust that a general expression of the voice of the people would satisfy Congress that those of their Representatives who have voted in favor of war, have not truly represented the wishes of their constituents; and thus arrest the tendency of their measures to this extremity. But should this be hopeless, it will enable the people to combine their operations in order to produce, by constitutional means, a change of men and measures, and rescue the Nation from ruin. From the commencement of the system of commercial restrictions, the Inhabitants of this Town (inferior we trust to none in ardent patriotism and attachment to the Union) have appeared to render themselves obnoxious to the national administration, and its partisans in this State, by their foresight and predictions of the utter inefficacy, destructive operation, and ultimate tendency of this unprecedented and visionary scheme. They could discern in it nothing but a deliberate sacrifice of their best interests, and a conformity to the views of France, with whose system it cooperates, and whose approbation it receives; and hostility to Britain, whose interests it wounds, and whose resentment it was calculated to excite. It was for the national government to determine, whether the decrees and aggressions of the belligerent powers (which commenced with the European war) would probably demand of the national honor, retaliation and resistance; or whether the peculiar character of the war, and relative situation of our country, would justify a suspension of our resentment, and an adherence to our pacific policy. In the one case, the years which have elapsed should have been occupied in warlike preparations, which now have been imposing and formidable. In the other event, it was the dictate of sound policy, to protest against the predatory systems which have annoyed our commerce, and still to have pursued it by all practicable means. But government has adopted neither of these courses. It has not prepared to vindicate our commercial rights upon the Ocean, where alone they are assailed; nor has it permitted the merchant to indemnify himself in any measure for the loss of that commerce which is interrupted, by a participation in that which is left. But by a strange and infatuated policy, under the pretense of resisting the invasion of maritime rights, it has debarred its own Citizens from the use of the Ocean; and professing to avenge the injuries sustained from France and England, it has aggravated them by its own measures. The Decrees of France, the Edicts of England, and the Acts of Congress, though intended to counteract each other, constitute in effect, a triple league for the annihilation of American commerce; and our own government, as if weary of waiting for a lingering dissolution, hastens to dispatch the sufferer, by the finishing stroke of a British war. Had the policy of government been inclined towards resistance to the pretensions of the belligerents, by open war, there could be neither policy, reason, or justice in singling out Great Britain as the exclusive object of hostility. If the object of war is merely to vindicate our honor, why is it not declared against the first aggressor? If the object is defence and success, why is it to be waged against the adversary most able to annoy, and least likely to yield? Why, at the moment when England explicitly declares her Orders in Council repealed whenever France shall rescind her Decrees, is the one selected for an enemy, and the other courted as a conqueror? These inquiries lead us into contemplations too painful to indulge, and too serious to express...
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