Partisan American Politics and the War of 1812

If you can imagine it, the United States was deeply divided in 1812 along party lines. The parties were the Federalists, based mainly in the Northeast and favorably disposed toward Britain, and the Republicans, who were mostly Southerners, unfavorably disposed toward Britain and keen to go to war on the Northern border. The president, James Madison, was a Republican and a Virginian, the anointed heir of Thomas Jefferson, who was president before him. They thought that going to war was a swell idea, even though Jefferson and  the Republicans had been instrumental in dismantling the standing army (standing armies could not be trusted, and cost money) and also the navy (same deal). It was Jefferson who said that the taking of Canada would be a "mere matter of marching." Nobody ever asked him what the Canadians would be doing while the Americans were marching.

At last the irritations of rampaging Indians and forcible impressment of American seamen, to say nothing of the lust for Canadian land, became too much to bear, and Madison declared war. Here's how the legislative branch voted on the declaration:

• All the Federalists, most from Northern states, voted no.
• Thirteen Republicans, four of them from New Jersey, voted no, led by John Randolph of Virginia, who felt that Madison was selling out Republican principles.
• A few, including those representing the western territories (Mississippi and Indiana), abstained.
• The rest of the Republicans, led by the War Hawks, voted to pass the declaration, and the United States was off on its ill-prepared adventure.

You can read all about this and many other aspects of that war in The Encyclopedia of the War of 1812 by David Stephen Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, from the Naval Institute Press.

You'll be happy to know that after the War of 1812 was over the Federalists faded away and everybody got along with everybody else in a time officially known as the "Era of Good Feeling."

I'm afraid it didn't last.