circumstances inseparable from its early stages could promise. Our public
ships and private cruisers, by their activity, and, where there was
occasion, by their intrepidity, have made the enemy sensible of the
difference between a reciprocity of captures and the long confinement of
them to their side. Our trade, with little exception, has safely reached
our ports, having been much favored in it by the course pursued by a
squadron of our frigates under the command of Commodore Rodgers, and in the
instance in which skill and bravery were more particularly tried with those
of the enemy the American flag had an auspicious triumph. The frigate
Constitution, commanded by Captain Hull, after a close and short engagement
completely disabled and captured a British frigate, gaining for that
officer and all on board a praise which can not be too liberally bestowed,
not merely for the victory actually achieved, but for that prompt and cool
exertion of commanding talents which, giving to courage its highest
character, and to the force applied its full effect, proved that more could
have been done in a contest requiring more.
Anxious to abridge the evils from which a state of war can not be exempt, I
lost no time after it was declared in conveying to the British Government
the terms on which its progress might be arrested, without awaiting the
delays of a formal and final pacification, and our charge d'affaires at
London was at the same time authorized to agree to an armistice founded
upon them. These terms required that the orders in council should be
repealed as they affected the United States, without a revival of blockades
violating acknowledged rules, and that there should be an immediate
discharge of American sea men from British ships, and a stop to impressment
from American ships, with an understanding that an exclusion of the sea men
of each nation from the ships of the other should be stipulated, and that
the armistice should be improved into a definitive and comprehensive
adjustment of depending controversies.
Although a repeal of the orders susceptible of explanations meeting the
views of this Government had taken place before this pacific advance was
communicated to that of Great Britain, the advance was declined from an
avowed repugnance to a suspension of the practice of impressments during
the armistice, and without any intimation that the arrangement proposed
with regard to sea men would be accepted. Whether the subsequent
communications from this Government, affording an occasion for
reconsidering the subject on the part of Great Britain, will be viewed
in a more favorable light or received in a more accommodating spirit
remains to be known. It would be unwise to relax our measures in any
respect on a presumption of such a result.
The documents from the Department of State which relate to this subject
will give a view also of the propositions for an armistice which have been
received here, one of them from the authorities at Halifax and in Canada,
the other from the British Government itself through Admiral Warren, and of
the grounds on which neither of them could be accepted.
Our affairs with France retain the posture which they held at my last
communications to you. Notwithstanding the authorized expectations of an
early as well as favorable issue to the discussions on foot, these have
been procrastinated to the latest date. The only intervening occurrence
meriting attention is the promulgation of a French decree purporting to be
a definitive repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees. This proceeding,
although made the ground of the repeal of the British orders in council, is
rendered by the time and manner of it liable to many objections.
The final communications from our special minister to Denmark afford
further proofs of the good effects of his mission, and of the amicable
disposition of the Danish Government. From Russia we have the satisfaction
to receive assurances of continued friendship, and that it will not be
affected by the rupture between the United States and Great Britain. Sweden
also professes sentiments favorable to the subsisting harmony.
With the Barbary Powers, excepting that of Algiers, our affairs remain on
the ordinary footing. The consul-general residing with that Regency has
suddenly and without cause been banished, together with all the American
citizens found there. Whether this was the transitory effect of capricious
despotism or the first act of predetermined hostility is not ascertained.
Precautions were taken by the consul on the latter supposition.
The Indian tribes not under foreign instigations remain at peace, and
receive the civilizing attentions which have proved so beneficial to them.
With a view to that vigorous prosecution of the war to which our national
faculties are adequate, the attention of Congress will be particularly
drawn to the insufficiency of existing provisions for filling up the
military establishment. Such is the happy condition of our country, arising
from the facility of subsistence and the high wages for every species of
occupation, that notwithstanding the augmented inducements provided at the
last session, a partial success only has attended the recruiting service.
The deficiency has been necessarily supplied during the campaign by other
than regular troops, with all the inconveniences and expense incident to
them. The remedy lies in establishing more favorably for the private
soldier the proportion between his recompense and the term of his
enlistment, and it is a subject which can not too soon or too seriously be
taken into consideration.
The same insufficiency has been experienced in the provisions for
volunteers made by an act of the last session. The recompense for the
service required in this case is still less attractive than in the other,
and although patriotism alone has sent into the field some valuable corps
of that description, those alone who can afford the sacrifice can be
reasonably expected to yield to that impulse.
It will merit consideration also whether as auxiliary to the security of
our frontiers corps may not be advantageously organized with a restriction
of their services to particular districts convenient to them, and whether
the local and occasional services of mariners and others in the sea port
towns under a similar organization would not be a provident addition to the
means of their defense.
I recommend a provision for an increase of the general officers of the
Army, the deficiency of which has been illustrated by the number and
distance of separate commands which the course of the war and the
advantage of the service have required.
And I can not press too strongly on the earliest attention of the
Legislature the importance of the reorganization of the staff establishment
with a view to render more distinct and definite the relations and
responsibilities of its several departments. That there is room for
improvements which will materially promote both economy and success in what
appertains to the Army and the war is equally inculcated by the examples of
other countries and by the experience of our own.
A revision of the militia laws for the purpose of rendering them more
systematic and better adapting them to emergencies of the war is at this
time particularly desirable.
Of the additional ships authorized to be fitted for service, two will be
shortly ready to sail, a third is under repair, and delay will be avoided
in the repair of the residue. Of the appropriations for the purchase of
materials for ship building, the greater part has been applied to that
object and the purchase will be continued with the balance.
The enterprising spirit which has characterized our naval force and its
success, both in restraining insults and depredations on our coasts and in
reprisals on the enemy, will not fail to recommend an enlargement of it.
There being reason to believe that the act prohibiting the acceptance of
British licenses is not a sufficient guard against the use of them, for
purposes favorable to the interests and views of the enemy, further
provisions on that subject are highly important. Nor is it less so that
penal enactments should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious
intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason nor yet embraced by
any statutory provisions.
A considerable number of American vessels which were in England when the
revocation of the orders in council took place were laden with British
manufactures under an erroneous impression that the non-importation act
would immediately cease to operate, and have arrived in the United States.
It did not appear proper to exercise on unforeseen cases of such magnitude
the powers vested in the Treasury Department to mitigate forfeitures
without previously affording to Congress an opportunity of making on the
subject such provision as they may think proper. In their decision they
will doubtless equally consult what is due to equitable considerations and
to the public interest.
The receipts into the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th of
September last have exceeded $16.5 millions, which have been sufficient
to defray all the demands on the Treasury to that day, including a
necessary reimbursement of near $3 millions of the principal of the
public debt. In these receipts is included a sum of near $5.85 millions,
received on account of the loans authorized by the acts of the last
session; the whole sum actually obtained on loan amounts to $11 millions,
the residue of which, being receivable subsequent to the 30th of September
last, will, together with the current revenue, enable us to defray all the
expenses of this year.
The duties on the late unexpected importations of British manufactures will
render the revenue of the ensuing year more productive than could have been
anticipated.
The situation of our country, fellow citizens, is not without its
difficulties, though it abounds in animating considerations, of which the
view here presented of our pecuniary resources is an example. With more
than one nation we have serious and unsettled controversies, and with one,
powerful in the means and habits of war, we are at war. The spirit and
strength of the nation are nevertheless equal to the support of all its
rights, and to carry it through all its trials. They can be met in that
confidence.
Above all, we have the inestimable consolation of knowing that the war in
which we are actually engaged is a war neither of ambition nor of vain
glory; that it is waged not in violation of the rights of others, but in
the maintenance of our own; that it was preceded by a patience without
example under wrongs accumulating without end, and that it was finally not
declared until every hope of averting it was extinguished by the transfer
of the British scepter into new hands clinging to former councils, and
until declarations were reiterated to the last hour, through the British
envoy here, that the hostile edicts against our commercial rights and our
maritime independence would not be revoked; nay, that they could not be
revoked without violating the obligations of Great Britain to other powers,
as well as to her own interests.
To have shrunk under such circumstances from manly resistance would have
been a degradation blasting our best and proudest hopes; it would have
struck us from the high rank where the virtuous struggles of our fathers
had placed us, and have betrayed the magnificent legacy which we hold in
trust for future generations. It would have acknowledged that on the
element which forms three-fourths of the globe we inhabit, and where all
independent nations have equal and common rights, the American people were
not an independent people, but colonists and vassals.
It was at this moment and with such an alternative that war was chosen. The
nation felt the necessity of it, and called for it. The appeal was
accordingly made, in a just cause, to the Just and All-powerful Being who
holds in His hand the chain of events and the destiny of nations.
It remains only that, faithful to ourselves, entangled in no connections
with the views of other powers, and ever ready to accept peace from the
hand of justice, we prosecute the war with united counsels and with the
ample faculties of the nation until peace be so obtained and as the
only means under the Divine blessing of speedily obtaining it.
***
State of the Union Address
James Madison
December 7, 1813
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
In meeting you at the present interesting conjuncture it would have been
highly satisfactory if I could have communicated a favorable result to the
mission charged with negotiations for restoring peace. It was a just
expectation, from the respect due to the distinguished Sovereign who had
invited them by his offer of mediation, from the readiness with which the
invitation was accepted on the part of the United States, and from the
pledge to be found in an act of their Legislature for the liberality which
their plenipotentiaries would carry into the negotiations, that no time
would be lost by the British Government in embracing the experiment for
hastening a stop to the effusion of blood. A prompt and cordial acceptance
of the mediation on that side was the less to be doubted, as it was of a
nature not to submit rights or pretensions on either side to the decision
of an umpire, but to afford merely an opportunity, honorable and desirable
to both, for discussing and, if possible, adjusting them for the interest
of both.
The British cabinet, either mistaking our desire of peace for a dread of
British power or misled by other fallacious calculations, has disappointed
this reasonable anticipation. No communications from our envoys having
reached us, no information on the subject has been received from that
source; but it is known that the mediation was declined in the first
instance, and there is no evidence, notwithstanding the lapse of time, that
a change of disposition in the British councils has taken place or is to be
expected.
Under such circumstances a nation proud of its rights and conscious of its
strength has no choice but an exertion of the one in support of the other.
To this determination the best encouragement is derived from the success
with which it has pleased the Almighty to bless our arms both on the land
and on the water.
Whilst proofs have been continued of the enterprise and skill of our
cruisers, public and private, on the ocean, and a trophy gained in the
capture of a British by an American vessel of war, after an action giving
celebrity to the name of the victorious commander, the great inland waters
on which the enemy were also to be encountered have presented achievements
of our naval arms as brilliant in their character as they have been
important in their consequences.
On Lake Erie, the squadron under command of Captain Perry having met the
British squadron of superior force, a sanguinary conflict ended in the
capture of the whole. The conduct of that officer, adroit as it was daring,
and which was so well seconded by his comrades, justly entitles them to the
admiration and gratitude of their country, and will fill an early page in
its naval annals with a victory never surpassed in luster, however much it
may have been in magnitude.
On Lake Ontario the caution of the British commander, favored by
contingencies, frustrated the efforts of the American commander to bring on
a decisive action. Captain Chauncey was able, however, to establish an
ascendancy on that important theater, and to prove by the manner in which
he effected everything possible that opportunities only were wanted for a
more shining display of his own talents and the gallantry of those under
his command.
The success on Lake Erie having opened a passage to the territory of the
enemy, the officer commanding the Northwestern army transferred the war
thither, and rapidly pursuing the hostile troops, fleeing with their savage
associates, forced a general action, which quickly terminated in the
capture of the British and dispersion of the savage force.
This result is signally honorable to Major-General Harrison, by whose
military talents it was prepared; to Colonel Johnson and his mounted
volunteers, whose impetuous onset gave a decisive blow to the ranks of the
enemy, and to the spirit of the volunteer militia, equally brave and
patriotic, who bore an interesting part in the scene; more especially to
the chief magistrate of Kentucky, at the head of them, whose heroism
signalized in the war which established the independence of his country,
sought at an advanced age a share in hardships and battles for maintaining
its rights and its safely.
The effect of these successes has been to rescue the inhabitants of
Michigan from their oppressions, aggravated by gross infractions of
the capitulation which subjected them to a foreign power; to alienate
the savages of numerous tribes from the enemy, by whom they were
disappointed and abandoned, and to relieve an extensive region of country
from a merciless warfare which desolated its frontiers and imposed on its
citizens the most harassing services.
In consequences of our naval superiority on Lake Ontario and the
opportunity afforded by it for concentrating our forces by water,
operations which had been provisionally planned were set on foot against
the possessions of the enemy on the St. Lawrence. Such, however, was the
delay produced in the first instance by adverse weather of unusual violence
and continuance and such the circumstances attending the final movements of
the army, that the prospect, at one time so favorable, was not realized.
The cruelty of the enemy in enlisting the savages into a war with a nation
desirous of mutual emulation in mitigating its calamities has not been
confined to any one quarter. Wherever they could be turned against us no
exertions to effect it have been spared. On our southwestern border the
Creek tribes, who, yielding to our persevering endeavors, were gradually
acquiring more civilized habits, became the unfortunate victims of
seduction. A war in that quarter has been the consequence, infuriated by a
bloody fanaticism recently propagated among them. It was necessary to crush
such a war before it could spread among the contiguous tribes and before it
could favor enterprises of the enemy into that vicinity. With this view a
force was called into the service of the United States from the States of
Georgia and Tennessee, which, with the nearest regular troops and other
corps from the Massachussets Territory, might not only chastise the savages
into present peace but make a lasting impression on their fears.
The progress of the expedition, as far as is yet known, corresponds with
the martial zeal with which it was espoused, and the best hopes of a
satisfactory issue are authorized by the complete success with which a
well-planned enterprise was executed against a body of hostile savages by a
detachment of the volunteer militia of Tennessee, under the gallant
command of General Coffee, and by a still more important victory over a
larger body of them, gained under the immediate command of Major-General
Jackson, an officer equally distinguished for his patriotism and his
military talents.
The systematic perseverance of the enemy in courting the aid of the savages
in all quarters had the natural effect of kindling their ordinary
propensity to war into a passion, which, even among those best disposed
toward the United States, was ready, if not employed on our side, to be
turned against us. A departure from our protracted forbearance to accept
the services tendered by them has thus been forced upon us. But in yielding
to it the retaliation has been mitigated as much as possible, both in its
extent and in its character, stopping far short of the example of the
enemy, who owe the advantages they have occasionally gained in battle
chiefly to the number of their savage associates, and who have not
controlled them either from their usual practice of indiscriminate
massacre on defenseless inhabitants or from scenes of carnage without a
parallel on prisoners to the British arms, guarded by all the laws of
humanity and of honorable war. For these enormities the enemy are equally
responsible, whether with the power to prevent them they want the will or
with the knowledge of a want of power they still avail themselves of such
instruments.
In other respects the enemy are pursuing a course which threatens
consequences most afflicting to humanity.
A standing law of Great Britain naturalizes, as is well known, all aliens
complying with conditions limited to a shorter period than those required
by the United States, and naturalized subjects are in war employed by her
Government in common with native subjects. In a contiguous British Province
regulations promulgated since the commencement of the war compel citizens
of the United States being there under certain circumstances to bear arms,
whilst of the native emigrants from the United States, who compose much of
the population of the Province, a number have actually borne arms against
the United States within their limits, some of whom, after having done so,
have become prisoners of war, and are now in our possession. The British
commander in that Province, nevertheless, with the sanction, as appears, of
his Government, thought proper to select from American prisoners of war and
send to Great Britain for trial as criminals a number of individuals who
had emigrated from the British dominions long prior to the state of war
between the two nations, who had incorporated themselves into our
political society in the modes recognized by the law and the practice of
Great Britain, and who were made prisoners of war under the banners of
their adopted country, fighting for its rights and its safety.
The protection due to these citizens requiring an effectual interposition
in their behalf, a like number of British prisoners of war were put into
confinement, with a notification that they would experience whatever
violence might be committed on the American prisoners of war sent to Great
Britain.
It was hoped that this necessary consequence of the step unadvisedly taken
on the part of Great Britain would have led her Government to reflect on
the inconsistencies of its conduct, and that a sympathy with the British,
if not with the American, sufferers would have arrested the cruel career
opened by its example.
This was unhappily not the case. In violation both of consistency and of
humanity, American officers and non-commissioned officers in double the
number of the British soldiers confined here were ordered into close
confinement, with formal notice that in the event of a retaliation for the
death which might be inflicted on the prisoners of war sent to Great
Britain for trial the officers so confined would be put to death also. It
was notified at the same time that the commanders of the British fleets and
armies on our coasts are instructed in the same event to proceed with a
destructive severity against our towns and their inhabitants.
That no doubt might be left with the enemy of our adherence to the
retaliatory resort imposed on us, a correspondent number of British
officers, prisoners of war in our hands, were immediately put into close
confinement to abide the fate of those confined by the enemy, and the
British Government was apprised of the determination of this Government to
retaliate any other proceedings against us contrary to the legitimate modes
of warfare.
It is fortunate for the United States that they have it in their power to
meet the enemy in this deplorable contest as it is honorable to them that
they do not join in it but under the most imperious obligations, and with
the humane purpose of effectuating a return to the established usages of
war.
The views of the French Government on the subjects which have been so long
committed to negotiation have received no elucidation since the close of
your late session. The minister plenipotentiary of the United States at
Paris had not been enabled by proper opportunities to press the objects of
his mission as prescribed by his instructions.