The War of 1812.
The Slaveholders envied the commercial prosperity of the North, and, to crush it, decreed the war of 1812, under the pretence of defending “free trade and sailor’s rights;” and one hundred and thirty-seven millions of dollars were wasted in its prosecution, and $200,000,000 more were lost on sea and land by Northern merchants and farmers, and then, leaving “free trade and sailor’s rights” where they were before, they made peace, and demanded a National Bank and Protective Tariff. And in the prosecution of the war, says Alvan Stewart, Esq, (Address to Abolitionists Aug. 1846)—“The South placed Major General Smyth at Buffalo, a slaveholding lawyer of Virginia; Major General Winder, a slaveholding lawyer of Maryland, at Forty Mile Creek, on the side of Lake Ontario; Major General Wilkinson, a Louisiana slaveholder, at the Cedars and Rapids of the St. Lawrence; and Major General Wade Hampton, the great sugar boiler of Louisiana, and the largest slaveholder in the United States, (having over 5000 crushed human beings bowing to this monster and tyrant), was located at Burlington, Vermont, four slaveholding Generals with their four armies, were stretched out on our northern frontier, not to take Canada, but to prevent its being taken, by the men of New England and New York, in 1812, '13 and '14; lest we should make some six or eight free States from Canada, if conquered. This was treason against Northern interests, blood and honor. This horrid revelation could have been proved by General John Armstrong, then Secretary of War, after he and Mr. Madison quarreled.”