The War of 1812

The Battle of Lake Erie

"To have shrunk, under such circumstances, from manly resistance, would have been a degradation blasting our best and proudest hopes; it would have struck us from the high ranks where the virtuous struggles of our fathers had placed us, and have betrayed the magnificent legacy which we hold in trust for future generations.

It would have acknowledged that on the element which forms three-fourths of the globe we inhabit, where all independent nations have equal and common rights, the American people were not an independent people, but colonists and vassals."

President James Madison,  November 1813


"President James Madison signed a war declaration against America’s former colonial ruler, Great Britain, after Congress — for the first time in American History — voted to declare war against another nation. It became known as the War of 1812, although its many detractors, mostly members of the opposition Federalist Party, preferred calling it “Mr. Madison’s War,” especially when, in 1814, the war was going so badly for America that the British faced little resistance when they invaded Washington, D.C., and burned down several government buildings, including — famously — the White House.

America’s casus belli was Great Britain’s attempt to blockade all trade, including American trade, with Britain’s traditional enemy, France, which was badly hurting America’s fledgling economy. Also, needing crews to man its expanding navy, British ships were stopping American ships on the high seas and “impressing” — essentially hijacking — American seamen to serve as crew on British ships, which was a violation of international law and an affront to America’s pride.

The actual war was a see-saw affair and although British military forces dwarfed America’s, as they did during the American Revolution, the British army (like all invading armies) faced myriad logistical, communications and re-supply disadvantages. What’s more, its navy, by far the world’s greatest, was unable to impose its will on an overmatched but scrappy American navy that gained a number of victories in the Great Lakes and Atlantic. At the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813, for example, American frigates defeated a British fleet and gained control of the key city of Detroit, while another American fleet wrestled control of Lake Champlain from the British, thereby thwarting their intended invasion of New York.

It also helped the American cause that British attempts to prevent neutral nations from trading with France necessitated that much of the British fleet be devoted to that effort. As a result, Britain was essentially fighting two wars on both sides of the Atlantic costing, by some estimates, 11 million pounds a year. Roughly speaking that meant it cost Britain $50,000 a year for every American seaman its navy “impressed,” which was hardly a cost-effective way to staff its ships.

Thus Great Britain was as amenable to ending the war as America, actually approving the war-ending Treaty of Ghent two months before the U.S. Senate did. That treaty satisfied neither party, although it ultimately led to the permanent end of the British presence in America and gained for America a new international respect. Thus 'Mr. Madison’s War' not only did not hurt him politically, as his Federalist opponents hoped, it gave America a new sense of confidence that it was finally an independent member of the family of nations."

Bruce Kauffmann, Mr. Madison's War

Remembering the 155th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg - July 1 to 4, 1863

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

The National Park Service and the Civil War Trust have posted on youtube a large collection of videos.  The NPS presents the individual tours of the major areas of the battlefield, as conducted by the Park Rangers. Most of them are quite informative.  A few could have benefited from a wind noise reduction microphone.   I have taken most of them with my family over the years.

The Tragic Failure of the Democratic Establishment And Their Contemptible Betrayal of the New Deal

"There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past."

Ryszard Kapuściński


"Every president since 1988 attended an Ivy League university. Not only does this perspective from the professional class cross party lines, their orthodox worldview extends far beyond politics. It is based on an ideology that has served elites well – (semi) free-market capitalism and continuous economic growth. It is an orthodoxy that values corporate interests and personal gain over public good. It permeates all fields of society and American culture.

In their book Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky laid out the media propaganda model of journalism, in which they describe the small parameters of discourse allowable in mainstream media, due to factors such as advertising, corporate ownership, and the dominant elite mindset. The media propaganda model they describe is akin to the Ivy League orthodoxy of which Frank speaks.

Disciplines cater to a small span of acceptable dialogue and thought based upon shared assumptions. Within that realm, diversity exists, but that diversity does not usually breach understood boundaries. Some voices reach the periphery of the border, but retract from crossing the line through caveats.

Those who traverse boundaries tend to be marginalized, regardless of the substance, depth, and validity of their arguments and ideas. This orthodoxy is maintained chiefly through tacit self-censorship and is internalized by those who practice it."

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class

The Democratic leadership is caught in a credibility trap of repeated failures to do the right thing out of self-interest.     The Republicans are so bent that they are most likely beyond redemption.