“We live indeed in an age when it is not lawful for any civilized Nation to be unprepared for or incapable of War. Never, with an aching Heart I say it, never did the warlike Spirit burn with so intense a flame throughout the civilized World as at this moment. Never was the prospect of its continuing to burn and becoming still fiercer, so terrible as now. It would perhaps not be difficult to show that the State of War has become indispensable to the existence both of the French and British _Governments_. That in Peace they would both find their destruction....”
John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams
“ ... You know how deeply I was disappointed at the breaking out of our War,[3] precisely at the moment when I entertained the most ardent and sanguine hopes that War had become unnecessary. Its Events have hitherto been far from favourable to our Cause, but they have rather contributed to convince me of its necessity, upon principles distinct from the consideration of its Causes.... Our Means of taking the British possessions upon our Continent are so ample and unquestionable that if we do not take them it must be owing to the want of qualities, without which there is no Independent Nation, and which we must acquire at any hazard and any loss.
“The acquisition of Canada, however, was not and could not be the object of this War. I do not suppose it is expected that we should keep it if we were now to take it. Great Britain is yet too powerful and values her remaining possessions too highly to make it possible for us to retain them at the Peace, if we should conquer them by the War. The time is not come. But the power of Great Britain must soon decline. She is now straining it so excessively beyond its natural extent that it must before long sink under the violence of its own exertions. Her paper credit is already rapidly declining, and she is daily becoming more extravagant in the abuse of it. I believe that her Government could not exist three years at Peace without a National Convulsion. And I doubt whether she can carry on three years longer the War in which she is now engaged, without such failure of her finances as she can never recover. It is in the stage of weakness which must inevitably follow that of overplied and exhausted strength that Canada and all her other possessions would have fallen into our hands without the need of any effort on our part, and in a manner more congenial to our principles, and to Justice, than by Conquest.