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The War of 1812 Essay

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The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and England. Ending in 1815 with the Treaty of Ghent, the war did not accomplish any of the issues it was being fought over. For the US, the War of 1812 seemed to just be one failure after another. Although the military suffered great failure during the war, these were the direct consequence of the failure of the citizens to unite for the causes of the war. Because of these failures, it is quite valid to call the War of 1812 "America's worst-fought war".

When the war began, it was being fought by the Americans to address their grievances toward the British. This seemed like a justifiable cause for a war, however not all of the citizens shared the same sense of unity about …show more content…

The Southern States were somewhat along the same line as the New England States as Britain bought most of their cotton and tobacco, and a war with Britain would definitely cut off the trade and leave many southern planters with extensive idle inventories of product. The Federalists also had one great apprehension towards the war. At this time, the Federalists were a dying party, partly because of their loss of power in the government, and because of their failing leadership and organization within the party. They feared that citizens of British Canada would infiltrate into the United States. The Federalists feared these Canadian "Commoners" because they would support the Jeffersonian Republicans if they did come into the United States, not the federalists. The Canadians were common workers, not aristocrats like dying breed who were trying in vain to keep the Federalists as an assertive party in American Politics. Because of these apprehensions toward the war, the citizens were not able to unite and join together to support the war that was going on around them.

Even though the extremely weak military contributed toward the title of "America's worst-fought war", it was not the direct source of this title. However, the military did suffer very bad defeats for several reasons. One of the main reasons was that the military was extremely unprepared to go into war. During

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