War with Britain could have been avoided. In England the winter of 1811-1812 was one of the worst on record. Crops failed. Wheat prices soared. With non-intercourse with Britain in effect, the once lucrative export market to America for manufactured goods dried up. As factories closed, workers rebelled and rioted. Britain needed American markets. A debate raged in Parliament about rescinding the Orders in Council.[1]
The talk of war in American newspapers threatened the British. [2] On May 11, 1812, a deranged man assassinated the British prime minister, Spencer Percival. As the government scrambled to reorganize, the debate on rescinding the Orders in Council was shoved aside.[3] It was not until June 16, 1812 that Lord Castlereagh, the new head of the foreign office, announced Britain’s Orders in Council were rescinded. It was too late. News had yet to cross the Atlantic by ship. Two days later, unaware of the news, the United States declared war on Britain.
Even though impressment was one of the reasons for going to war, New Englanders were against the war. A new breed of westerners agitated for war. John Randolph, a congressman from Virginia in the House of Representatives, dubbed them the “War Hawks.”[4]
Next: Who were the War Hawks?
[1] Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, V. I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962) 401-2; Henry Adams, History of the United States of American during the Administrations of James Madison (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1986) 478.
[2] Adams, History of the United States, 489.
[3] Morison and Commager, 401; Adams, History of the United States, 490-1.
[4] Morison and Commager, 402.
