Reasons For The War Of 1812

The war of 1812 was the first declared war. The most often given reason for the war of 1812 was the British impressment of American sailors. They were kidnapped and forced into British servitude. Some of them were actually British sailors working aboard American ships. Some British sailors wanted to pretend or be an American, one of those reasons is that the British at the time were fighting Napoleon. Britain’s impressment policy allowed them both to disrupt American shipping to France and to get new British sailors to make their military stronger (Beyer 6).

War Hawks were a group known for pushing the war. A famous one was Kentucky’s Henry Clay (Hickey 29). They took the impression of sailors as an affront to American national honor and also

The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war proved how necessary the war had been. No territory changed hands - when negotiation stated in August of 1814, the British asked for northern Maine and some territory to create an independent nation for the Indians in the Northwest. But none of that happened, in conclusion, the Treaty returned everything to the status quo. The war confirmed that the United States would exist. After that, Britain invade America in 1961. The war also spelled the end of the Federalist Party, which tried in 1815 with the Hartford Convention to change the Constitution. (Norton

This period was also called the "Era of Good Feelings" because between 1812 and 1836 there was really only one political party (Hickey 3). This period also saw many Americans move away from producing for themselves on independent farms and started to produce goods for sale to others, with prices set by competition with other producers. In many ways this was the beggining of the modern commercial and industrial economy, in the whole world. Comparing this period to the 18th century, technology in communication and transportation would be the biggest chalenge for the people during the 18th century, so they would trade only in close areas. New transportation changed this context, better roads came, which were financed by tolls. The federal government was involved also, building the National Road, which reached all the way from Cumberland, Maryland accross to Wheeling, West Virginia. As important, the steamboat was created and made it possible to transport trhough the canals, which was cheaper and efficient. More than 3000 miles of canals were built. Furthermore, the most important new transportation was the railroads. By 1860, there were more than 30,000 miles of rails in the United States. On the communicartion side, the telegraph was invented in 1832. It allowes merchants to know when to expect their shipments and how much they could expect to sell them for. In addition, another