The War of 1812 was really the second war of American Independence for many reasons. The first major reason is that like the First War of Independence this war also was fought between America and United Kingdom., and secondly because the war was fought due to the autocratic policies of UK. American Revolution ended in 1783 but the United State was very much aggravated by British because the British were not ready to withdraw their backing of the Indians on America’s frontier and also because the British were quite reluctant to sign the commercial agreements which was favorable to United States.
During the period Britain and France both were the dominating countries and they were strong rivals of each other. France dominance was on the continent while Britain was powerful and influential on the seas. British and French naval policies resulted into many crises with United States. According to United States its rights were being violated by the two countries. The resentment was especially for Great Britain who had the power on seas. The discontent grew more when British started claiming that it had a right to take all the British sailors from American merchants thus this impressments became the major cause of grievance. At first the American tried to solve the problem by peaceful means but when all the efforts of peaceful means failed the economically depressed Americans started arguing for the declaration of the war.
The Congress was elected in 1810 and met in November 1811. The Congress was persuaded to wage war against Great Britain by a group of people which was called “War Hawks.” War Hawks were the group of about 20 democratic Republicans who were the young members from the South and the Western US who were voted into the House during mid term Congressional election 1810. “War Hawks” included the leaders like John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and Felix Grundy of Tennessee.
The United States wanted war against Britain as it was the question of their honor and they also wanted to change the British policies through the invasion of Camada. Basically the intensity was to conquer Canada. The battle led to great feeling of American nationalism because this battle gave the confidence to the Americans that they could defeat the British. After the victory of the war of freedom this was the second victory of Americans on British. At first the British were dominating such as in the incident of Burning of Washington. But in the battle of New Orland the over confidence of the British destroyed with the victory of America. This victory brought a great confidence among the American people and it also created and developed a sense of strong nationalism among them. And a sense of patriotism grew among the people of the nation and it started reflecting in the American literature.
Hartford Convention became responsible in the demise of the federal party in America. Actually Hartford Convention was an event in United States during the period of 1914 and 1915. Under President James Madison, the event that made an end of the Federal Party is regarded as the Hartford Convention. In this event the idea of succession by member states of the United States was first discussed actively. This led to the demise of the Federal Party which was nation’s first political party.
This war was basically a naval war. In this war the United States had to lose 2260 soldiers while the British had to lose 1600 soldiers. The economic loss also was tremendous. Both the nations had to suffer remarkable economic loss. The morale of the American people became high because they were successful in getting the victory against one of the strongest military powers and not only this but they had succeeded in surviving their nation.
Of course this war led to innumerable human as well as economic loss from both sides that is the dark side of the war but still the war according to me was necessary because British empire taught a lesson from this war that they could not keep the whole world under their control. Somebody was there to challenge them and secondly because the war helped American to grow the feeling of nationalism among them.
