There was in the count not an item, indeed, which could not have been charged against Great Britain in the fall of 1807, when the public clamored for war after the Chesapeake outrage. Four long years had been spent in testing the efficacy of commercial restrictions, and the country was if anything less prepared for the alternative. When President Madison penned this message he was, in fact, making public avowal of the breakdown of a great Jeffersonian principle. Peaceful coercion was proved to be an idle dream.
So well advised was the Committee on Foreign Relations to which the President's message was referred that it could present a long report two days later, again reviewing the case against the adversary in great detail. "The contest which is now forced on the United States," it concluded, "is radically a contest for their sovereignty and independency." There was now no other alternative than an immediate appeal to arms. On the same day Calhoun introduced a bill declaring war against Great Britain; and on the 4th of June in secret session the war party mustered by the Speaker bore down all opposition and carried the bill by a vote of 79 to 49. On the 7th of June the Senate followed the House by the close vote of 19 to 14; and on the following day the President promptly signed the bill which marked the end of an epoch.
It is one of the bitterest ironies in history that just twenty-four hours before war was declared at Washington, the new Ministry at Westminster announced its intention of immediately suspending the orders-in-council. Had President Madison yielded to those moderates who advised him in April to send a minister to England, he might have been apprized of that gradual change in public opinion which was slowly undermining the authority of Spencer Perceval's ministry and commercial system. He had only to wait a little longer to score the greatest diplomatic triumph of his generation; but fate willed otherwise. No ocean cable flashed the news of the abrupt change which followed the tragic assassination of Perceval and the formation of a new ministry. When the slow-moving packets brought the tidings, war had begun.
The dire calamity which Jefferson and his colleagues had for ten years bent all their energies to avert had now befallen the young Republic. War, with all its train of attendant evils, stalked upon the stage, and was about to test the hearts of pacifist and war-hawk alike. But nothing marked off the younger Republicans more sharply from the generation to which Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin belonged than the positive relief with which they hailed this break with Jeffersonian tradition. This attitude was something quite different from the usual intrepidity of youth in the face of danger; it was bottomed upon the conviction which Clay expressed when he answered the question, "What are we to gain by the war?" by saying, "What are we not to lose by peace? Commerce, character, a nation's best treasure, honor!" Calhoun had reached the same conclusion. The restrictive system as a means of resistance and of obtaining redress for wrongs, he declared to be unsuited to the genius of the American people. It required the most arbitrary laws; it rendered government odious; it bred discontent. War, on the other hand, strengthened the national character, fed the flame of patriotism, and perfected the organization of government. "Sir," he exclaimed, "I would prefer a single Victory over the enemy by sea or land to all the good we shall ever derive from the continuation of the non-importation act!" The issue was thus squarely faced: the alternative to peaceable coercion was now to be given a trial.