They were trading with the french, supporting a dictator whose greed for power knew no limits .... the french! - think about it - oh where has that anti-frog fervour gone
You know what US faction was most opposed to the warhawks starting up their project? - New England shipping interests, the very people you'd think would be objecting to RN actions, if indeed RN actions were considered serious enough to form casus belli
You know from whom Whitehall bought the great majority of its provisions for North America operations in 1812-14? - New England shipping interests, the very people you'd think would be objecting to RN actions, if indeed RN actions were considered serious enough to form casus belli
That whole 'impressment' line in warhawk rhetoric is such a crock, read the speeches and you'll see how transparent it is, the hypocrisy is clear not only in what they did when they got their war going, but in what they said to their base audience .... Calhoun, Clay, there's a couple of others as well, i haven't looked for the raw speeches online but i should think they'd be out there somewhere .... rational moderate* voices did exist, and their newspaper editorials provide some of the best exposure of slaver/warhawk motivation .... which was entirely greed for the lands of others - robbing indians and canadians was the central purpose of the neocons of that day
* - that'll be 'moderate' as per proper Oxford definition, not that used by certain SIers, lol |
