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Tallying the winners and losers of the War of 1812
National Post ^ | December 12, 2012 | James Careless

Posted on 12/12/2012 4:08:05 PM PST by Squawk 8888

click here to read article


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1 posted on 12/12/2012 4:08:13 PM PST by Squawk 8888
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To: Squawk 8888

They returned to status quo ante, i.e. no winners and losers. Have they read the treaty??


2 posted on 12/12/2012 4:12:36 PM PST by cotton1706
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To: Clive; exg; Alberta's Child; albertabound; AntiKev; backhoe; Byron_the_Aussie; Cannoneer No. 4; ...
To all- please ping me to Canadian topics.

Canada Ping!


3 posted on 12/12/2012 4:14:02 PM PST by Squawk 8888 (True North- Strong Leader, Strong Dollar, Strong and Free!)
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To: cotton1706

No real winners, but American Indians lost big time when the British withdrew their support.


4 posted on 12/12/2012 4:16:35 PM PST by Squawk 8888 (True North- Strong Leader, Strong Dollar, Strong and Free!)
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To: cotton1706

Well, after reading the article as presented I’d say the author missed the big point - the “First Peoples” picked the wrong side.


5 posted on 12/12/2012 4:17:13 PM PST by PeteB570 ( Islam is the sea in which the Terrorist Shark swims. The deeper the sea the larger the shark.)
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To: Squawk 8888

The article doesn’t mention the biggest losers of the war, the Shawnees and their allies who were decisively beaten at Horseshoe Bend. That victory opened up all of what was then the Southwest (Alabama, Mississippi and beyond) to settlement. Also, the plan of the British to forge an anti-American alliance between the Indians in the old Northwest and old Southwest was foiled.


6 posted on 12/12/2012 4:20:09 PM PST by Parmenio
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To: PeteB570
The War of 1812 was pretty much the beginning of the end of the U.S. as a confederation of self-governing states. One of the problems the U.S. faced in that war was that the Federal government simply didn't have the ability to enforce any authority over the states and compel them to send their militias to help with the war effort.

200 years later we think of the "War of 1812" as a military conflict between the U.S. and Great Britain, but at the time there were many U.S. state governments -- especially in the South -- that considered it a local conflict between the State of New York (for example) and the British colony of Upper Canada (now Ontario).

7 posted on 12/12/2012 4:22:58 PM PST by Alberta's Child ("I am the master of my fate ... I am the captain of my soul.")
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To: Squawk 8888

My view is a bit different. The Brits unsuccessfully attacked a sovereign country and were repelled.

A small fleet on Lake Champlain and sunk or captured the invading British naval forces near Plattsburg. The tactics are still studied at the US Naval Academy.


8 posted on 12/12/2012 4:23:13 PM PST by Triple (Socialism denies people the right to the fruits of their labor, and is as abhorrent as slavery)
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To: Squawk 8888

Remember the River Raisin!


9 posted on 12/12/2012 4:23:46 PM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: Squawk 8888

Good post. Thanks


10 posted on 12/12/2012 4:24:35 PM PST by grumpa
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To: PeteB570
the “First Peoples” picked the wrong side.

They didn't have much choice in the matter- the Americans refused to honour the treaties they made with Britain prior to the Revolution, so their only chance to keep their land in Canada was to side with the British. Their support was critical to keeping the Americans out of Upper Canada.

11 posted on 12/12/2012 4:28:53 PM PST by Squawk 8888 (True North- Strong Leader, Strong Dollar, Strong and Free!)
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To: Triple

The US declared war on Britain (which didn’t want to fight the war), tried to seize Canada, failed, and then spent most of the rest of the war mostly on their own territory trying to fend off the vengeful blows from the British before a treaty returning to the status quo ante bellum (which is what the British wanted all along).

How is that an American victory? How is it even a draw?


12 posted on 12/12/2012 4:30:47 PM PST by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: Parmenio

Correction, it was the Creeks who lost at Horseshoe Bend.


13 posted on 12/12/2012 4:37:07 PM PST by Parmenio
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To: Triple

Plattsburgh !!!

Come on Man !


14 posted on 12/12/2012 4:45:23 PM PST by onona (Former Plattsburgh AFB Survivor)
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To: Alberta's Child

Had they been able to, we’d have a few more northern states.

Opportunity lost.


15 posted on 12/12/2012 4:46:39 PM PST by onona (Former Plattsburgh AFB Survivor)
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To: onona

plattsburgh...plattsburg

potato...potatoe

does it really matter?

(Ok - it does ;-)


16 posted on 12/12/2012 4:51:45 PM PST by Triple (Socialism denies people the right to the fruits of their labor, and is as abhorrent as slavery)
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To: Triple

The war of 1812 was about pushing the Brits back across the St.Lawrence River and keeping them north of the river and north of the Great Lakes. It’s much easier to defend a natural barrier like that than the land border we have with Canookistan now.


17 posted on 12/12/2012 4:53:30 PM PST by Ouderkirk (Obama has turned America into an aristocracy of the unaccomplished.)
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan

The Brits did not respect US independence. A war was inevitable. The final decisive US victory at New Orleans earned the US respect and British acceptance of the Louisiana Purchase. If the British had captured New Orleans, the outcome could have been very different.


18 posted on 12/12/2012 4:56:06 PM PST by iowamark
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To: PeteB570
Supposedly, Brant later said if they had to do it again, they would NOT have sided with the British....but I'm not sure that wasn't just a public relations thing. I'd hardly hold it as truth.

One of our mistakes (I believe) was in letting the Brits occupy Forts Niagara and Ontario on Lake Ontario until 1796....well after the 1783 Treaty.

I have a copy of the Treaty of Ghent in my files...someplace.

19 posted on 12/12/2012 5:10:12 PM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: iowamark

How do you reckon that? It is well known that the treaty of Ghent was signed before the Battle of New Orleans, and you are saying they would have said ‘Oh, on second thoughts....’

Doubt it.

In any case, a few days after the Battle of New Orleans the same British force (under more effective new leadership) successfully captured Fort Bowyer and were within an ace of capturing Mobile, Alabama when news of the treaty arrived, whereupon they immediately vacated the field and the fort, the same would have happened had they received the message had they successfully captured New Orleans.

IMHO the spectacularly one-sided nature of the Battle of New Orleans has been seized and contorted by biased historians as being more significant than it actually was, and is used as a distraction from the fact that the US did not achieve it initial aim of conquering Canada and ended up having to spend the rest of the war on the defence trying to stop the British rampaging through the US...


20 posted on 12/12/2012 5:14:42 PM PST by sinsofsolarempirefan
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