Millions for defense but not one penny for tribute

From The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory by Robert V. Remini.  Page 6.

The War of 1812—the “forgotten war”—began when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Henry Clay of Kentucky, his principal assistant, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and other southern and western representatives, collectively known as the Warhawks, pressured President James Madison into asking Congress to declare war against Great Britain. Madison’s message listed several provocations. The British were impressing American seamen to help fight the war against Napoleon and seizing American ships. They were inciting Indians to attack the frontier, and had not evacuated forts held on American soil along the northern frontier as had been stipulated in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which had ended the American Revolution. But perhaps a more important reason than those given by Madison was the need the country felt to prove to itself and the rest of the world that this new experiment in republican government was a permanent fixture in the family of nations and that the contempt shown by Britain in persistently violating American rights would not go unchallenged or unpunished.

But the English sneered at U.S. pretensions. They insisted that these former colonies had not legitimately won their independence, certainly not by the force of arms After all, what major military triumph could the former colonists point to as proof that by their own efforts they had won their freedom? Certainly not Saratoga or Yorktown. They were simply surrenders, nothing more. The English chose to believe that American independence resulted because they had grown weary of the rebellion and the accompanying European wars and simply agreed to let the colonies go.

The years following the Revolution demonstrated continued British disdain for American independence. England by its arrogance and condescension acted as though the United States would never survive as an independent republic. And America’s great ally during the Revolution hardly behaved any better. France had guillotined its king, formed the Directory, and then succumbed to the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte. At one point in this remarkable period the United States was invited to bribe French officials as a way of obtaining recognition for its ministers. The “XYZ Affair” caused such a furor in America when it became known—“Millions for defense but not one penny for tribute,” went the cry—that a formal declaration of war almost resulted. To make matters worse, the French imitated the British in seizing American ships when they docked in French ports.

But war with France made no sense. The real enemy was Great Britain, and it remained America’s enemy for well into the nineteenth century. Only a great military victory over the English could convince the world that our independence had been fairly won and that it was permanent. Only such a military victory would give Americans the self-confidence they needed to face a hostile Europe with its kings and czars and dictators.

So the Warhawks demanded that President Madison take action to smite the nation that unceasingly humiliated and shamed the American people. When Madison finally capitulated, the House of Representatives responded with a declaration of war on June 4, 1812, by a vote of seventy-nine to forty, and the Senate followed on June 17 by a vote of nineteen to thirteen. The President signed the measure the following day. But the congressional vote revealed a dangerous split within the country. Western and southwestern states enthusiastically favored the war; but the commercial and maritime east almost solidly opposed it.