The Non-importation Act was passed April 18. It prohibited the importation of certain British goods in an attempt to force Great Britain to ease its strict decisions regarding cargos and the impressment of sailors.

In 1806 and 1807 Napoleon issued his Berlin and Milan decrees, which created a “Continental System” and restricted trade with Europe and declared that ships following British restrictions would be treated as pirate vessels subject to seizure.

December 31: A Treaty arrived at by Monroe and Pinckney with Great Britain was rejected by President Jefferson because it did not address the impressment issue.

June 22. The captain of the British warship H.M.S. Leopard hovering off the American coast had information that deserters were serving aboard the American warship, the U.S.S. Chesapeake. The British captain came alongside and without warning fired shots into the Chesapeake, killing American sailors. He sent a boarding party onto the Chesapeake and removed four sailors he claimed were British deserters. When the Chesapeake limped back into port, Americans were outraged, but President Jefferson was not willing to go to war over the matter.

Instead he called for Congress to pass an embargo act which essentially ceased all American overseas trade. It went to effect on December 22. For New Englanders, the Embargo was a cure that was worse than the disease of British interference. For as is typical in wartime, great profits were to be made by selling goods to the warring nations, even if a significant number of ships were lost. New Englanders turned the word embargo around and called it the “O Grab Me” and their ship captains to sea in defiance of the law.

November 11: British Orders in Council placed further restrictions on American trade by redefining acceptable practices regarding neutral ships and neutral ports.

James Madison, Jefferson's Secretary of State, was elected in 1808 and was inaugurated March 4, 1809. Jefferson's embargo was repealed but was replaced by subsequent laws the Non-intercourse Act and Macon’s Bill #2. the design of these two laws was to promise to reward nations who respected American writes and to restrict trade with nations that did not. it was a kind of carrot and stick approach to the depredations of both the British and the French, neither of home or especially interested in making any concessions to the Americans.

In April British Minister Erskine reached an agreement with Great Britain which Madison claimed resolve all issues between United States and Great Britain. Great Britain, however, rejected the Erskine Agreement.

French Foreign Minister Cadore sent a letter to President Madison promising that France would behave herself with regard to American neutral rights; France, however, had no intention of following the agreement.

In the congressional elections of 1810 a new group of nationalist congressmen was elected, including Henry Clay of Kentucky, Felix Grundy of Tennessee, and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. These congressmen and other nationalists became known as the “war hawks,” bound and determined to assert American rights in the face of British depredations. They were more than willing to start a war, but took a few effective measures to prepare for it.

On February 2 America closed trade with Great Britain. When the Twelfth Congress convened in November, another issue had been inserted into the debate, one of questionable legitimacy. Americans, ever a land hungry people, looked on the rich lower region of Canada around the Great Lakes with greedy eyes and began an “on to Canada” movement, feeling that if the United States took up war with Great Britain, Canada would fall into American hands like a plum from a tree.

Further trade restrictions were having applied in 1812 and a British government was thrown into turmoil when the prime minister was assassinated. The United States issued an ultimatum to Great Britain, but before the British government in its turmoil could respond, President Madison delivered his war message to Congress, and the war was on.

June 1: Madison’s War Message

June 18: U.S. Declaration of War caught many by surprise. The United States had been wrestling with the warring European powers since the outbreak of War in 1792, and had followed a policy of cautious neutrality from that time. In addition, the United States was young and unprepared for war. The U.S. army numbered approximately 6,000 troops scattered at various outposts, backed by undisciplined state militia. The U.S. Navy, having be minimized by Jefferson, was pitifully small compared with the mighty Royal Navy. It is no surprise that the war started badly for the Americans. The declaration of war had infuriated the British, who in turn considered Napoleon the greatest threat to the world, and they could not understand how their American cousins could turn on them while they were fighting the French.