Secession!

Most Americans, when they hear that the Texans want to secede from the union, immediately think the case parallels the Civil War (aka the War Between the States). They do not think of the War of 1812, when the New Englanders nearly seceded. Yes, folks, in those days it was the Yankees who couldn't stand the bull from Washington anymore. They even went so far as to meet in Hartford to go forward with their plans for secession. Here's how it went down.

First of all the New England merchants and farmers were sore at President James Madison. They hadn't voted for him, but for DeWitt Clinton, the Federalist candidate. When he declared war on Great Britain they were filled with alarm and venom. The war quickly began to go badly. The British blockaded all trade. The merchants lost money. In spite of New England's refusal to support the war with money or men, the federal government continued to fight against the British.

After two years of things not going their way, the Yankees decided they weren't going to take it anymore. In December of 1814, with the war dragging on, delegates came to Hartford from all over Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, as well as a few from New Hampshire and Vermont. Nobody knows how the treasonous meetings went, for they kept no minutes, possibly for fear of being hanged. In the end they backed down from outright secession and made a list of amendments they wanted made to the Constitution. They sent a delegation to Washington to put their list before the Republicans in charge of Congress, without hope of winning them over, but thinking to embarrass them.

The delegation arrived in Washington to make their constitutional demands about the same time that the news arrived that the Treaty of Ghent had been signed, Jackson had whupped the British in New Orleans, and the war was over. How embarrassed they must have been. The New England Federalist cause was irrelevant now. As a result not only the New England secessionist movement but the entire Federalist party lost all influence in the country, and withered away completely.

The Texans might want to think about that.

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.