Why did Congress declare war on Great Britain in 1812?
The Burning of Washington City
This British engraving celebrates the British army’s attack on Washington, D.C., in 1814. Disciplined troops control the street in front of the burning White House; the dome of the blazing Capitol is on the right. Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.
JEFFERSON EASILY RETAINED
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the presidency in the election of 1804, trouncing Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. A more difficult problem was the threat of war with both France and Britain, which led Jefferson to try a novel tactic, an embargo. His successor, James Madison, continued with a modified embargo, but his much narrower margin of victory over Pinckney in the election of 1808 indicated growing dissatisfaction with the Jefferson-Madison handling of foreign policy.Madison broke with Jefferson on one very domestic matter: He allowed his gregarious wife, Dolley Madison, to participate in serious politics. Under James Madison’s leadership, the country declared war in 1812 on Britain and on a confederacy of Indians in the old Northwest. The two-year war cost the young nation its White House and its Capitol, but victory was proclaimed at the end nonetheless.