The Surprising Strategic Consequences of the 1812 War

About the Event

In the fifth annual Ginsburg-Satell Lecture on American Character and Identity, FPRI's Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Walter McDougall will discuss the 1812 war. The war has long been thought a mistake. Congress declared it after the British Parliament had repealed its infamous restrictions on American shipping (the news had not crossed the ocean). The American military failed to defeat the Redcoats, failed to conquer Canada, and failed to prevent a British invasion during which Washington City itself was torched. The war then ended in a peace treaty that failed to prevent the bloody Battle of New Orleans, which occurred the month after the treaty was signed (again, the news had not crossed the ocean). But persuasive, if circumstantial, evidence now suggests that the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans had momentous consequences for the territorial growth and political maturity of the United States of America.

The Annual Ginsburg-Satell Lecture on American Character and Identity is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stanley and Arlene Ginsburg Family Foundation and the Satell Family Foundation.

Speakers