m the
merchants of New York, led by John Jacob Astor. War-meetings were held
in various places, and the whole country was in a tumult of excitement.
Finally, on the 17th of June, the Bill, with some amendments, was passed
in the Senate by a vote of nineteen against thirteen. It was sent back
to the House on the morning of the 18th, when the amendments were
concurred in. The Bill was engrossed on parchment, and at three o'clock
in the afternoon of that day became law by the signature of the
President [who next day declared war against Great Britain]. In the
House, the members from Pennsylvania, and the States of the South and
West, gave sixty-two votes for it to seventeen against it. In the
Senate, the same States gave fourteen for it, to five against it,
'Thus,' says a late writer [Edwin Williams], 'the war may be said to
have been a measure of the South and West to take care of the interests
of the North, much against the will of the latter.'" (Lossing's Field
Book of the War of 1812, Chap. xi., pp. 227, 228.)

The minority of the members of the House of Representatives who voted
against the war, addressed a protest, signed by them all, to their
constituents, exposing the impolicy and objects of the war, and
indicating their own conduct. We quote two sentences of this able paper:

"As to the invasion and seizure of Canada, which was a part of the
programme of the war party, they considered an attempt to carry out that
measure as unjust and impolitic in itself, very uncertain in the issue,
and unpromising as to any good results."--"It cannot be concealed that
to engage in the present war against England is to place ourselves on
the side of France, and expose us to the vassalage of States serving
under the banner of the French Emperor."]

[Footnote 185: The distinguished Joseph Quincy, of Boston, leader of the
Federalist party, said, in his place in Congress, "I have evidence
satisfactory in my own mind, that the Secretary of War has made it a
principle not to appoint any man to a command in that army who is not an
open partizan of the existing Administration. If it be denied, appoint a
Committee of Inquiry. If the intention had been to unite the nation as
one man against a foreign enemy, is not this the last policy that any
Administration ought ever to have adopted? Is not a partizan army the
most dreadful and detestable of all engines, and most likely to awaken
suspicions and to inspire discontent?" (Hildreth, Second