Hopefully this post will be a bit better constructed, since I have time to actually say everything I want.
When you're fighting a war and militarily winning, you want concessions, obviously, but that's after the war starts. Britain had rescinded the impressment orders days before the war began. This news arrived in Washington after war had begun.
I am aware of this. What's your point? If the news had arrived beforehand, it would've been one thing, and the war might not have started (or at least not started in the same way) but it didn't. A related point is that the old British prime minister was very anti-American (as opposed to the newer one, whose name I can't remember, who wanted to work with America). The news of his assassination would've only just reached Washington, if it had reached it at all by the time war was declared. So it certainly wasn't expected that the impressment issue would be resolved. I think you're thinking in 21st century instant communication terms. Remember, neither Britain nor America knew what the situation in the other nation was like. Even if Britain had gone to some absurd extreme to ease tensions and offered America thousands of pounds for all impressed soldiers, and things like that, America wouldn't have known, and war would've still been declared. So the impressment issue really isn't relevant to the declaration of war.
America began the gung-ho war when diplomacy could have prevailed (it in fact did). Thsi was agression.
While I agree the war was unnecessary and diplomatic discussions would be preferable (for more than one reason; America didn't even really stand to gain what it thought it did), hindsight is 20/20. Besides, impressment wasn't exactly America's only reason for entering the war. It wasn't even mentioned in America's declaration of war. You
did kill our citizens, you know. That's kind of a big thing.
It continued after its justification was gone. I repeat myself for emphasis.
That's not how war works. Once you've let slip the dogs of war, you can't easily recall them. I for one can't really see this happening:
US Secretary of State James Monroe: Hey, King Britain, sorry about the whole invading Canada and killing a bunch of your dudes thing. You wanna have peace?
King Britain: Yeah, sure, it's all cool.
Monroe: Ooops. While we were spending weeks sending letters back and forth across the Atlantic, my guys burnt down York. Sorry about that!
Britain: S'okay.
I don't know every in and out of the trade war, but Britain's goal was certainly got to break and re-colonise America, it was to prevent France gaining war materiel.
By Macon's Bill, if Britain agreed to stop impressing American ships, we would've stopped trade with France. You didn't do that until it was too late.
The consequences for America were side-effects and America could have helped relieve them by negotiation rather than trying to get concessions by throwing troops at British territory.
With the new British Prime Minister? Probably. With the old one? Hell no. And war was declared before or within days after Washington heard about new guy's ascension. Washington had no reason to believe that old guy would negotiate, since he was rabidly anti-American, and had no reason to believe he would suddenly get assassinated. No president of America nor prime minister of Britain had been assassinated by that point. It was shocking.
If we're getting worked up over exact wording, this implies that Britain had sucessfully compromised America's sovereignnty by 1812. That's silly. We didn't even want to.
You didn't want to?
Before France's Continental System, Britain's Let's-Screw-France Policy (sorry, can't remember the name) and America's embargo were enacted, over half of our sea-bound exports were headed to Britain. Those screwed up trade, so when we re-established trade numbers might've been slightly different. Either way, that's a massive portion. Another huge portion went to Canada. Britain wanted to end our trade with the European mainland.
So who else would we trade with, selling that other less than 50% of our exports?
France? No, that's who Britain was trying to screw.
Russia? Nah, that was part of Napoleon's Continental System.
German states? Nah, that was also part of the Continental System.
Mexico?
Kongo, for god's sake?
Most of the other half of our goods would be headed straight towards Britain. A tiny market means demand drops, which means prices drop, and America's headed straight towards becoming slowly economically reliant on Britain, unless the restrictions were later eased. Even if that was only a side effect of what Britain really wanted, it was something that would've happened to some extent. America wasn't blind to this fact, and neither was Britain. This is why America was afraid of Britain dominating the continent once again, and I'm sure the Britain didn't exactly see this as a negative fact. I think given the economic crisis of the time, American fears were inflated even more.
Then it doesn't really merit being called that and we shouldn't call it that at all,
It's more an older term. I haven't actually seen people call it that anymore, just the War of 1812. I brought it up because it expressed the views of the time.
but I'm talking about all the people on the internet today who do think we wanted to "re-colonise" America.
Ah, okay. Yes, they're wrong.
And as I said, we didn't. If there hadn't been a Great French War, there wouldn't have been a blockade. It was a side-effect, not a goal, of British policy.
That doesn't make it any less real.
If a side effect of America's War in Iraq was that Americans intentionally shot and killed innocent British, took thousands more as slaves, and wrecked your economy, I'm sure you'd take exception. I doubt you'd shrug it off as "Well, yeah, they did it all intentionally, and it kinda fucks me and my people over, but it's not like it's their goal!"
We didn't instigate your sympathy towards our mortal enemy, did we?
Again, we had the same embargo for France as Britain. The British saw us as a threat because we were friendly with France, but we weren't actually doing anything with that friendship. Sympathy towards your mortal enemy does
not give you the right to enslave, murder, etc.
Impressment was a vlid complaint, but A) we ended it as I said and B)
Again, invalid. It's easier to start a war than to end it, and the war had already started.
it wasn't our policy to kidnap Americans. This often happened because the RN was strapped for men and ruthless, but the official policy was to recover "deserters", including Britons naturalised as Americans.
Again, policy or not, it happened. Not with one American. Not with two Americans. With hundreds of Americans. With thousands of Americans. Plus 900 ships seized. Plus many others illegally searched. If they were naturalized as Americans, which we agree on, then you had no right to take them; they were no longer yours to take, and we were neutral.
We instigated the strong expansionist currents in American politics? And I agree that annexing Canada wasn't a main aim anyway.
Britain was annoyed at what was technically the illegal sale of Louisiana to America, not America having an eye at Canada. We were seen as a threat, particularly since we were friendlier at that point with your enemy.
Why on Earth would we have attacked?
Because you had already threatened it? The Macon Bill said we'd re-establish trade with Britain and France. If one nation stopped impressing our sailors, we'd stop trade with the other, until that nation stopped impressing. The idea was it'd end up better for both France and Britain to stop impressing our citizens. What had followed was Bonaparte saying "Yeah, Madison, I'll stop impressing your sailors. *snort, maybe a little giggle at his own cleverness*" but then not actually going through with it, to hurt the British economy at no cost of his own. Madison was skeptical, seeing through Napoleon's ploy, and prepared to back off and re-establish trade with Britain. So King Britain or the British prime minister or whomever said "Oh no you don't, America! You
better give us trade, or we're going to attack you! *smug*" Now, we had already made plans to re-establish trade, but the threat had been made, and there was no way to retract it. We knew Britain was willing to attack, or at least threaten to attack, if things didn't go its way. So, our invasion of Canada was a pre-emptive strike. When economic and diplomatic pressure failed, we decided to try a different tact. And, no, it didn't work the way we planned, but it's not like Britain was innocent in all this.
As you said yourself, diplomatically speaking the war ended up being more beneficial to America, by breaking the status-quo with the Indians around the lakes.
I wasn't talking about the Native Americans. That land would've been ours soon enough anyway, by hook or by crook (we had purchased the land in treaty, plus the inexorable tide of settlers, means either the Native Americans leave peacefully or get crushed soon after... moral it was not, but that was the reality of the time). I was talking about America gaining Mobile, West Florida/Alabama (sorry, Spain!), and Britain agreeing to return any slaves it took. The Treaty of Ghent leaned towards the Americans, not just the effects outside the war.
We would rather the changes it brought on had never occured, and of course we needed all our resources to fight Napoleon, and were quite happy to accept a status-quo peace when we could have hung on, beaten Boney, and sent Wellington and a formidable army over to bring the USA to its knees... if we thought it would have been worth the expense.
That's not at all why Britain stopped the war. Not at all. Honestly, the men you were sending over to America was nothing compared to what was going on in France. It was because the average, run of the mill Brits thought to themselves "Wow, we're really being douchebags over in the colonies. Why are we sending our soldiers to fight and die against guys who really haven't done that much to us?" Popular opinion was
massively against the war. That's why Britain decided to go to peace, and that's why it settled for a peace beneficial to America. You had achieved your basic aim (make sure America can't really re-establish trade with France) and defended Canada, so what would there be to gain by continuing the war?