The War of 1812

Essay Question : The War of 1812 was essentially a war to protect the United States ' position in world trade . Yet the commercial interests in New England opposed it , and the agricultural regions of the South and the West favored it . Trace the historical reasons for this polarization of opinion

INTRODUCTION

The American-British war of 1812 to 1815 was the first war that the United States participated in after gaining independence . Since 1789 America had kept a policy of neutrality and successive administrations had kept in line with this policy until 1812

. Due to a combination of many maritime , economic and political factors , the James Madison administration found itself squeezed of options and this led to the declaration of the war in 1812 . In analyzing this , I will seek to analyze the root causes of the war as well as the reasons for the polarization of the opinions between the southerners and the New England interests

ANALYSIS

The immediate government preceding the war was the Jefferson administration . This administration had allowed the American military to stay idle in a time of international conflicts that also affected the commercial interests of American merchant ships . Due to this neutrality policy , it was clearly visible by the time Madison took over that the use of only economic channels to achieve national goals were not working again for the United States of America The war of 1812 was a culmination of long lasting philosophical differences between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson . Their differing opinions went on up to the period of the war of 1812 that led to a win by America and subsequent defeat of the federalists

Alexander Hamilton was the first secretary to the secretary of the United States . He was very critical in his duties and within his first year as the secretary of the treasury , he introduced some very disturbing reports that lead to a financial revolution in the United States , among them were the first report on public credit and the report on the manufactures

These reports attracted massive criticism from the secretary of state Thomas Jefferson and the speaker , James Madison . While Hamilton was in favor of federalism , Jefferson was a staunch anti-federalist . Their continuing conflicts between them in United States politics helped to start what some historians call the first party system in America Hamilton founded the Federalist Party while Jefferson helped form the democratic Republican Party . In addition , Hamilton helped to form the bill of rights through the ten amendments that were made to the United States constitution . The United States executive branches of government as well as the entire judiciary (through the judiciary act of 1789 ) were drafted against the criticisms of Jefferson and others . The ideological differences between Hamilton and Jefferson went on even into president Adams administration . They differed on the issue of the `French crisis which was sometimes referred to as the `quasi-war , they also differed strongly on the issue of the alien and seditions act as well as the naturalization act...