and of the measures
to which they gave rise, had not the French Revolution intervened to
aggravate the distresses of Great Britain, and to constrain her to
violent methods, is bootless to discuss. It remains true that, both
before and during the conflict with the French Republic and Empire,
the general character of her actions, to which the United States took
exception, was determined by the conditions and ideas that have been
stated, and can be understood only through reference to them. No
sooner had peace been signed, in 1783, than disagreements sprang up
again from the old roots of colonial systems and ideals. To these
essentially was due the detailed sequence of events which, influenced
by such traditions of opinion and policy as have been indicated,
brought on the War of 1812, which has not inaptly been styled the
second War of Independence. Madison, who was contemporary with the
entire controversy, and officially connected with it from 1801 to the
end of the war, first as Secretary of State, and later as President,
justly summed up his experience of the whole in these words: "To have
shrunk from resistance, under such circumstances, would have
acknowledged that, on the element which forms three-fourths of the
globe which we inhabit, and where all independent nations have equal
and common rights, the American People were not an independent people,
but colonists and vassals. With such an alternative war was
chosen."[53] The second war was closely related to the first in fact,
though separated by a generation in time.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Order in Council was a general term applied to all orders touching
affairs, internal as well as external, issued by the King in Council.
The particular orders here in question, by their extraordinary
character and wide application, came to have a kind of sole title to
the expression in the diplomatic correspondence between the two
countries.

[2] Instructions of Madison, Secretary of State, to Monroe, Minister
to Great Britain, January 5, 1804. Article I. American State Papers,
vol. iii. p. 82.

[3] Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. ii. pp. 508, 546.

[4] Annals of Congress. Thirteenth Congress, vol. ii. pp. 1563;
1555-1558.

[5] Niles' Register, vol. iv. p. 234. Author's italics.

[6] Diary and Letters, vol. ii. p. 553.

[7] Ibid., p. 560. Those unfamiliar with the subject should be
cautioned that the expression "right of search" is confined here, not
quite acc