PEACE | Dec. 24–200 Years, USA and Britain (Comment)

A Celebratory Poster of the Treaty, 1814.
Note the Union Jack does not show the St.
Patrick's Saltire, which was added in 1800,
nor do the stars show on the Stars and Stripes. 

(The following post was published in the East Hampton Star of December 25, 2014. This may be the only newspaper in the United States that took note of the 200th anniversary of peace between Britain and America.)

The Treaty of Ghent “A Treaty of Peace and Amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America” was signed on December 24, 1814.

James Madison declared war originally because British Orders in Council made it harder for the United States to trade with France, and because the British Navy was seizing (“impressing”) sailors on colonial ships and putting them on Navy ships.

The British Government repealed the Orders in Council, ending the curb on trading, but impressment remained. If the British had given up the right to impress American sailors, Madison might have called off the war.

Russia's Czar Alexander I in March 1813 offered to host negotiations, but the British were winning and refused. In the fall of 1813, British foreign minister Lord Castlereagh offered to negotiate directly with the United States. The two countries picked Ghent in Eastern Flanders as the venue because it was a neutral city. Everyone's goal was to end the fighting, which was much too expensive for both countries. The two teams were:

• For the United States - John Quincy Adams, chief negotiator; Henry Clay, the hawk (the "bad cop"); Albert Gallatin, Treasury Secretary; James A. Bayard, moderate Federalist; and Jonathan Russell, chargé d’affaires for Madison in Paris. It took the Americans six weeks or more to communicate with Washington, D.C. so they were negotiating largely on their own. The U.S. team wanted to restore territory to what it was before the war, the status quo ante bellum.  
• For the British - Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh and Secretary for War and the Colonies, Lord Bathurst, who chose not to attend the talks and instead, they sent a less-skilled team -  admiralty lawyer William Adams; impressments expert Admiral Lord Gambier; and Undersecretary for War and the Colonies Henry Goulburn. The British negotiators wanted uti possidetis, that each side could keep what it had won militarily, such as Detroit and Mackinac Island.

Admiral of the Fleet James Gambier (L, with Treaty) shakes hands with the
U.S. Ambassador to Russia, John Quincy Adams, as the British
Undersecretary of State for War and the Colonies, Henry Goulburn
 (R, with red folder), and other negotiators look on.

The outcome of the Treaty was favorable for the United States, perhaps because the war was going well for the Americans at the time the Treaty was signed:

• The Americans seemed to be losing early in the war with the burning of Washington. But Lieutenant General Sir George Prévost and a naval squadron under Captain George Downie engaged in Plattsburgh with New York and Vermont militia and U.S. Army regulars, under the command of Brigadier General Alexander Macomb, supported by ships commanded by Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough. The British failed to take Lake Champlain and fled north after the battle. Fort McHenry in Baltimore then withstood a severe attack and inspired the National Anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner".  News of these two battles was the last information that negotiators in Ghent received. 
• The British did not get respect for the independence of Native lands in the state of Ohio, and in the Indiana and Michigan Territories. The British wanted this reserved land to be a buffer state to protect Canada from American annexation, but Clay would not give it up. The British did not get any territory in northern Maine, or demilitarization of the Great Lakes or navigation rights on the Mississippi. Lord Castlereagh asked the Duke of Wellington and his advice was for them to take the status quo ante bellum. 

On December 24 the negotiators agreed on the 3000-word Treaty. After approval by the two governments, hostilities ended and “all territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war” were restored to what they were before the war.  The United States is considered to have won the war, as the Canadian historian and War of 1812 expert Donald E. Graves concludes:  What Americans lost on the battlefield, "they made up for at the negotiating table.” The United States never did get the British to promise not to impress American sailors, but as hostilities in Europe ended, this issue ceased to be such a concern.

After the signing of the Treaty and before the combatants got word, the British attacked New Orleans on January 8, 1815 with a large army. It was overwhelmed by a smaller and less experienced American force under General Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) in the greatest U.S. victory in the war. The news of the Treaty and the outcome in New Orleans reached a delighted American public at about the same time.

Comment

It is remarkable that the Treaty of Ghent has held up for 200 years. But the Treaty does not imply a  "Special Relationship", just a cessation of hostilities. In fact, with the opposition of many Irish Catholics to the U.S. entry on the side of Britain in the Great War, the Special Relationship is really not cemented until the threat of Hitler brings together the United States and Britain, first with Lend-Lease and then with the U.S. declaration of war in 1941.

September 17 – Birthday of the U.S. Constitution

The Constitution of the United States, signed today, 1787.

The Warrior Family Foundation takes note of Constitution Day, commemorating the birthday in 1787 of the U.S. Constitution, which was born largely out of military disarray and created the written document that has been admired throughout the world since then.

It creates the system whereby the President and Commander-in-Chief of U.S. military forces is elected along with a House and Senate. The Commander-in-Chief's budget must be initiated by the House and senior appointments and treaties must be approved by the Senate.

In 1787 The war with Britain had officially ended four years before, in 1783. But the new American government was not functioning. The United States was vulnerable to another British invasion. Yes, the Second Continental Congress had created the Articles of Confederation to outline the rights of the federal government.

But Americans were reluctant to get rid of a tyrant in London only to succumb to a new one in America. As a result:
- Not one state was paying all of its federal taxes.
- The Federal Government had no way to force collection.
- Pirates were attacking American ships with impunity.
- Troops were deserting and states felt defenseless.

Congress technically had the authority to wage war, regulate currency, and conduct foreign policy, but it had no way to force the states to supply money or troops. So James Madison and other leaders convened the Constitutional Convention to get the states to create a unified central government. In May 1787, the 55 delegates spent four months in a hot summer in Philadelphia, fighting off bloodthirsty bugs. The average age of the delegates was just 42, but overall they were highly educated. The delegates included:
• Benjamin Franklin, who at 81 had to be carried around Philadelphia in a sedan chair because he could no longer walk.
• Alexander Hamilton, who was lax in attendance but afterward emerged as the principal author of the Federalist Papers, famous essays arguing why the Constitution should be ratified.
• James Madison, who showed up every single day, took detailed notes on all the proceedings, and argued tirelessly for a strong central government. Madison was small, 5'6" and 120 pounds, but he became known as the best informed person at the convention and became known as "the Father of the Constitution."
• Governor Morris, a charming man with a peg leg, who did more than flirt with other mens' wives, gave 173 speeches and wrote the Constitution's Preamble.
• George Washington, who was immediately elected president of the Convention and rarely spoke throughout the convention.

The resulting document was not just a revision of the Articles of Confederation. It became a new document, a Constitution of the United States. The delegates eventually came to an agreement on the essential purposes of government, a system of checks and balances, the division of powers between federal and state governments, rules for interstate trade, war-making powers and representation according to population.

(John Tepper Marlin, Ph.D., is Chief Economist of the Warrior Family Foundation. His summary of the Convention is abbreviated and adapted from Garrison Keillor's comments on the day in The Writer's Almanac.)