1. LOUISIANA PURCHASE: in addition to the above, see J. W. Foster, A Century of American Diplomacy, 187-206; J. B. Moore, American Diplomacy, 225-231; J. K. Hosmer, The Louisiana Purchase; C. R. Fish, American Diplomacy, Chap. 12.

QUERY AND DISCUSSION

Compare the value of the steamboat and the automobile to the eras in which they were invented. Was the steamboat of equal value to the three great sections of the nation? Did statesmen of a later day look back to and copy precedents established by the Cumberland Road (p.501)? Name some important towns on that thoroughfare. Is it a famous road to-day? Why were its national and local benefits so different that it was almost abandoned in places when turned over to the states? Does the national benefit prove an argument to-day for its improvement? What were the constitutional arguments for it and against it? Were purely scientific expeditions like that of Lewis and Clark common in the world at that time? Compare Major Long's route (1820) with Pike's (1806); see map p. 201.

Section 27. Our Second War with England

President Madison inherited one knotty international dispute from the Jefferson régime. The influence of Napoleon had been world-wide and it was seldom for good; in his Napoleon's attempt to destroy British commerce, he had updecrees set all commerce. In his Berlin and Milan decrees (1806-7) he ordered the seizure of any ship which tried to enter an English port. Great Britain replied by issuing Orders in Council forbidding any ship to enter a French port without having touched first at an English port. American commerce, which had now become very thriving, was thus caught between the "Devil and the Deep Sea."

The right of search and seizure

The good wages offered by American captains had lured many Englishmen into their employ (p. 196). Some of these became naturalized and some did not. Ours was the only nation at that time which claimed that citizenship was alienable, that is, that an Englishman, for instance, could change his nationality and allegiance at will. Great Britain had always claimed and exercised the right to search our ships for these renegades, and none of the many American diplomats who had

THE PERIOD 1812-1825. (Showing battlefields of the War of 1812 and the routes of the Cumberland Road, 1818, and the Erie Canal, 1825.)

tried it had been able to secure an agreement with England to cease this practice. The worst part of the custom was the ease with which unprincipled officers could abuse it. British captains were justly angry because Englishmen, who ought to have gone to the defense of their flag in its hour of great need, skulked in our ships; but when English officers tried to seize them, naturalized Americans, and sometimes native-born Americans, were seized. The blame, as is usually the case, was not, however, all on one side. The rough treatment which sailors on British ships received almost beggars description. Again, the whole colonial trade of France that of bringing coffee or sugar from the French West Indies to our ports and then loading the ships with provisions for French ports-was now in our hands. Our need of sailors was such that wages rose from $8 to $24 a month. To secure hands American skippers encouraged the desertion of British subjects and aided them in schemes to avoid detection and capture. All this bred bad blood on both sides; American ships began to refuse to be searched; and when the British Leopard fired upon the American Chesapeake off Virginia in 1807 the indignation of our people rose to fever heat.

How bad feel

ing was occasioned

The "Embargo" Act

Jefferson was compelled to act. He chose a method of retaliation which, drawn from Revolutionary precedents, was much like the "economic boycott" proposed by the present League of Nations in 1919. His object was to introduce between nations another arbiter than war, namely, measures which would cripple an offender's commerce. By an Embargo Act (1807) he forbade our ships to leave American ports-hoping thereby to starve Europe. But Europe suffered much less than did our own shipping. New England's trade was considerably injured, though not so much as New

"Non-intercourse Act"

Englanders believed. That canny race of Yankees could make money despite British restrictions; but they were likely to lose heavily either by an embargo or by a war. This Embargo Act was repealed (1809), and a Non-Intercourse Act was passed (1809) in its stead, forbidding trade with nations which offended us. This was

repealed in 1810 and Macon's Bill was passed. This bill stated that whenever one of these European rivals (France or England) withdrew its decrees against our shipping we would return the favor by passing a Non-Intercourse Act against its rival. Napoleon was quick to see the advantage in this for him. He declared the Berlin and Milan decrees repealed (August, 1810) and President Madison kept his word and a NonIntercourse Act went into effect against England February 2, 1811.

The West, less interested in shipping than in either Canada or the fur trade, but always touchy on points of national honor, looked upon England's treatment of us as an indignity no respectable nation could endure. The West, Under the leadership of Henry Clay of Kentucky demands war and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the South

insulted,

and West joined in demanding that England's Orders in Council be repealed or that war be declared against her. Many Westerners were sure that Indian troubles on our northwestern frontier had been stirred up by English agents in Canada. General William Henry Harrison, who had crushed an Indian uprising under Tecumseh in 1811, at the Battle of Tip- Tippecanoe pecanoe, brought back evidence that the Indians

had been furnished arms and ammunition from Canada; the accusation was true, but some doubt whether the British Government was responsible for it.

War de

Madison was swept by the current of popular opinion to support a war which he was incapable of directing. Congress declared war, June 18, 1812, by a vote of 79 to 49 in the House and 19 to 13 in the Senate. The clared strong minority vote against this war prophesied accurately that the nation would not be united in the struggle. England had previously repealed the offensive Orders in Council; this news, however, arrived too late. These Orders would probably have been repealed earlier but for the influence of American pacifists like Timothy Pickering, which stimulated the arrogance of British ministers to refuse just concessions to American demands.

Our northern

border

The borderline along the Great Lakes was the scene of numerous campaigns (map p. 319) in the years of war which followed. Despite the progress we had made in settling that region from 1800 to 1812 it was still a distant frontier to man and defend, and transportation thither was exceedingly difficult. The West had boasted that the conquest of Canada could be speedily made, but it had not calculated on the immense cost of transporting thither the necessary men, provisions, ammunition, and guns. The British general and gentleman-in command along the Niagara, Brock, was equal to the emergency; he should be especially remembered for his wise handling of the Indian problems, yet he could not control many renegades who unofficially, but no less surely, fomented trouble. Northern Ohio, thinly settled, was filled with the fear of an Indian invasion, so much so that the firing of a squirrel hunter's gun, on one occasion, led six hundred country people to flee into the town of Canton, O., to spend the night!

Brock

A story of surrender and defeat

Poor leadership of our half-trained militia resulted in numerous defeats and reverses on the entire Lakes frontier. The surrender of Detroit by General William Hull (August 18, 1812) was partly due to inefficiency and partly to the wretched state of the communications. In the same year an American force was defeated by Brock at Queenston on the Niagara, the British leader being killed.

Perry's vic-
tory in the
Battle of
Lake Erie

In 1813 the Americans gained a mastery of the western lakes which was to pave the way for final success. Detroit could not be recaptured while the British dominated Lake Erie. This was clearly seen by Captain Oliver H. Perry who, by autumn, had acquired a fleet of six vessels, all well armed and well manned. Pushing out, intent on a fight, he overtook the slightly inferior British fleet off Put-in-Bay September 10th and won the famous Battle of Lake Erie. His dispatch announcing the result of the conflict "We have met the enemy and they are ours," electrified the country and made its author a national