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James Madison Speech - War Message
Without going back beyond the renewal in 1803 of the war in which Great
Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior magnitude,
the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts hostile to the
United States as an independent and neutral nation.
British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating the
American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing and carrying
off persons sailing under it, not in the exercise of a belligerent right
founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal
prerogative over British subjects. British jurisdiction is thus extended
to neutral vessels in a situation where no laws can operate but the law of
nations and the laws of the country to which the vessels belong, and a
self-redress is assumed which, if British subjects were wrongfully
detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of force for a resort
to the responsible sovereign which falls within the definition of war...
The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects alone that,
under the pretext of searching for these, thousands of American citizens,
under the safeguard of public law and of their national flag, have been
torn from their country and from everything dear to them; have been
dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation and exposed, under the
severities of their discipline, to be exiled to the most distant and
deadly climes, to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors, and
to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own
brethren.
Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt to
avenge if committed against herself, the United States have in vain
exhausted remonstrances and expostulations, and that no proof might be
wanting of their conciliatory dispositions, and no pretext left for a
continuance of the practice, the British Government was formally assured
of the readiness of the United States to enter into arrangements such as
could not be rejected if the recovery of British subjects were the real
and the sole object. The communication passed without effect.
British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights
and the pace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and
departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions they have added the
most lawless proceedings in our very harbors, and have wantonly spilt
American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction...
Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate force and
sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has
been plundered in every sea, the great staples of our country have been
cut off from their legitimate markets, and a destructive blow aimed at our
agricultural and maritime interests....
Not content with these occasional expedients for laying waste our neutral
trade, the cabinet of Britain resorted at length to the sweeping system of
blockades, under the name of orders in council, which has been molded and
managed as might best suit its political views, its commercial jealousies,
or the avidity of British cruisers...
It has become, indeed, sufficiently certain that the commerce of the
United States is to be sacrificed, not as interfering with the belligerent
rights of Great Britain; not as supplying the wants of her enemies, which
she herself supplies; but as interfering with the monopoly which she
covets for her own commerce and navigation. She carries on a war against
the lawful commerce of a friend that she may the better carry on a
commerce with an enemy—a commerce polluted by the forgeries and perjuries
which are for the most part the only passports by which it can succeed...
In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain toward the United States our
attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just renewed by the savages
on one of our extensive frontiers a warfare which is known to spare
neither age nor sex and to be distinguished by features peculiarly
shocking to humanity. It is difficult to account for the activity and
combinations which have for some time been developing themselves among
tribes in constant intercourse with British traders and garrisons without
connecting their hostility with that influence and without recollecting
the authenticated examples of such interpositions heretofore furnished by
the officers and agents of that Government.
Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have been heaped
on our country, and such the crisis which its unexampled forbearance and
conciliatory efforts have not been able to avert...
Our moderation and conciliation have had no other effect than to encourage
perseverance and to enlarge pretensions. We behold our seafaring citizens
still the daily victims of lawless violence, committed on the great common
and highway of nations, even within sight of the country which owes them
protection. We behold our vessels, freighted with the products of our soil
and industry, or returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested from
their lawful destinations, confiscated by prize courts no longer the
organs of public law but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their
unfortunate crews dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British
ports into British fleets...
We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain a state of war against
the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace
toward Great Britain.
Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive
usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force in
defense of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into the hands
of the Almighty Disposer of Events, avoiding all connections which might
entangle it in the contest or views of other powers, and preserving a
constant readiness to concur in an honorable reestablishment of peace and
friendship, is a solemn question which the Constitution wisely confides to
the legislative department of the Government. In recommending it to their
early deliberations I am happy in the assurance that the decision will be
worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a
powerful nation.
June 17, the Senate voted nineteen to thirteen in favour of war and
President Madison signed the Declaration of War on June 18. 1812
James Madison
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