Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/833

UNITED STATES. carrying 63 guns, was captured on September 10, 1813, by Commodore Perry at the head of an American flotilla of 9 vessels with 54 guns (see ); and this latter success enabled General Harrison to invade Canada, where he defeated General Proctor in the battle of the Thames (October 5th), in which the great Indian warrior-chief Tecumseh was killed. During the same period General Andrew Jackson in Alabama and Georgia defeated the Creek Indians, who had been incited to make war upon the frontier settlements. In the summer of 1814 General Jacob Brown, with Colonel Winfield Scott as his second in command, crossed to the Canadian side, captured (q.v.) on July 2d, and defeated General Riall at Chippewa on July 5th. On July 25th the indecisive battle of Lundy's Lane was fought, the Americans being under the immediate command of Scott; and the American forces then withdrew to Fort Erie, where they were besieged. (See .) General Wilkinson also invaded Canada along the Sorel River, but was easily repulsed. A British invasion, by Lake Champlain, under Prevost, with 14,000 men and a flotilla on the lake, ended disastrously. On September 11th the flotilla was signally defeated in the harbor of Plattsburg by an American squadron under Commodore McDonough, while the army was repulsed on shore, and retreated with heavy loss. In August a British fleet ascended Chesapeake Bay and landed troops which, after dispersing with little difficulty a force of American militia at (q.v.), entered Washington and burned the Government buildings. A subsequent attack on Baltimore was unsuccessful. New York, New London, and Boston were blockaded, and a large expedition was sent against Mobile and New Orleans.

On January 8, 1815. General Pakenham attacked New Orleans, but his army was repulsed with great loss by General Jackson at the head of an inferior militia force. (See .) This action was fought two weeks after peace had been concluded by the commissioners of England and the United States. From the middle of 1813 the fortunes of war alternated on the sea. On June 1, 1813, the American frigate Chesapeake was taken by the Shannon and the American sloop Argus by the Pelican on August 14th; the British brig Boxer was captured by the Enterprise on September 5, 1813; the American frigate Essex, after a memorable career under Porter, surrendered to the Phœbe and Cherub on March 28, 1814; the British brig Epervier was captured by the Peacock on April 29, 1814; the British sloop Avon was sunk by the Wasp on September 8, 1814; on January 15, 1815, after the conclusion of peace, the American frigate President was taken by the British; and on February 20th the American frigate Constitution captured the Cyane and the Levant.

In December, 1814, the Federalists of New England held a convention at Hartford in opposition to the war and the Administration. (See .) The treaty of peace concluded with England at Ghent on December 24, 1814 (see ), was announced in February, 1815. The terms did not include any affirmative withdrawal of England's claim to search American ships, but nevertheless all parties in the country approved it.

In 1815 Commodore Decatur commanded an expedition against the Algerians, whose corsairs had preyed on American commerce in the Mediterranean, and dictated terms to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. See.

With the end of the War of 1812 came the virtual extinction of the Federalist Party, whose unpatriotic course during the struggle had made its name odious to the nation as a whole. It ceased, thereafter, to make itself felt in national affairs (see ). and for a time the country had the singular fortune to find all its citizens of one party, with principles derived from both the old party creeds. Perhaps the most marked influence left by the Federalists upon the political tenets of their opponents, and upon the popular mind, was to be found in the now very general recognition of the broad powers of the Central Government. This national idea had sustained the Republicans in the more liberal view which the war had compelled them to take of the inherent powers of the Federal Government. The noticeable effect of the war period in strengthening the nationalist tendency was immediately illustrated by the granting of the charter of the second United States Bank (see ) in 1816; by the passage of the first really protective tariff, under the guidance of Dallas, in the same year (see ); and by the activity of Congress in attempting to appropriate large amounts of the national funds for public roads and similar improvements of a local character, an important bill for this purpose, passed by Congress in 1816, being, however, vetoed by Madison on the ground of its unconstitutionality. The tendency was also emphasized by judicial decisions (as in Martin vs. Hunter's Lessee, 1816, and Cohens vs. Virginia, 1821), establishing the supremacy of the Federal Judicial power over that of the States, while in McCulloch vs. Maryland, in 1819, Chief Justice Marshall introduced into the law of the land his advanced views as to the relation of the States to the Union and elaborated his theory of the supreme and exclusive authority of the latter. For the moment, the close of Madison's administration found the country, as a whole, scarcely divided by party differences, so that the Presidential election of November, 1816, resulted in the choice of James Monroe, of Virginia, as President, and Daniel D. Tompkins, of New York, as Vice-President, these candidates receiving 183 electoral votes, while the votes of only three States—Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware—were cast for the Federalist candidate, Rufus King, of New York. The Federalists made no formal nomination for the office of Vice-President. In Madison's first administration Louisiana was admitted into the Union (1812), and in the second Indiana (1816). VIII. and IX. (1817-25). Cabinet.—Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, Massachusetts, March 5, 1817. Secretary of the Treasury, William H. Crawford, continued; Secretary of War, George Graham, Virginia, April 7, 1817; John C. Calhoun, South Carolina, October 8, 1817. Secretary of the Navy, B. W. Crowninshield, continued; Smith Thompson, New York, November 9, 1818; John Rogers, Massachusetts, September 1, 1823; Samuel L. Southard, New Jersey, September 16,