Madison s Optimistic First Message to Congress: A Prelude to the War of 1812

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Special Session Message. National Intelligencer, May 23, 1809. Broadside. Washington, D.C.: Samuel Harrison Smith. Handwritten on the verso: "Presidents Message 1809" 1 p., 10 1/4 x 12 1/2 in. "it affords me much satisfaction to be able to communicate the commencement of a favorable change in our foreign relations." In December 1807, Congress passed and President Thomas Jefferson signed the Embargo Act that imposed a complete embargo on trade with Great Britain and France and their colonies during the Napoleonic Wars for violations of American neutrality and sovereignty. The embargo was a failure both diplomatically and economically, as it devastated American commerce.In response, Congress passed the Non-Intercourse Act, and President Jefferson signed it on March 1, 1809, just days before relinquishing office to his successor James Madison. maintained the embargo only against Britain and France, but did not ban trade with other European countries. It also authorized the President, "in case either France or Great Britain shall so revoke or modify her edicts, as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, to declare the same by proclamation; after which the trade of the United States.may be renewed with the nation so doing."In this important address, President Madison informs Congress that King George III had indicated a willingness to withdraw his Orders in Council of 1807 and give satisfaction for the attack on the USS Chesapeake by the HMS Leopard in June 1807. In light of these promises, President Madison submitted a proclamation to Congress that would allow the resumption of trade with Great Britain on June 10, 1809. On April 19, Madison issued the proclamation.Ultimately, the King did not withdraw the Orders in Council, and in early August, Madison renewed the prohibitions existing under the Non-Intercourse Act. Tensions continued to mount between the two nations. In his first State of the Union message in late November, President Madison reported on the ongoing diplomatic impasses with Great Britain and France, and reviewed military preparations for the possibility of war.Three years later, Congress declared war on the United Kingdom on June 18, 1812, two days after the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs announced to Parliament the repeal of the Orders in Council, a repeal which was finalized on June 23. This belated action came too late to avert the War of 1812.Condition: Good overall.Excerpts"On this first occasion of meeting you it affords me much satisfaction to be able to communicate the commencement of a favorable change in our foreign relations, the critical state of which induced a session of Congress at this early period." (c1)"the British Government.had transmitted to their legation here provisional instructions not only to offer satisfaction for the attack on the frigate Chesapeake, and to make known the determination of His Britannic Majesty to send an Envoy Extraordinary with powers to conclude a treaty on all the points between the two countries, but, moreover, to signify his willingness in the meantime to withdraw his orders in council, in the persuasion that the intercourse with Great Britain would be renewed on the part of the United States." (c1)"These steps of the British Government led to the correspondence and the proclamation now laid before you; by virtue of which, the commerce between the two countries will be renewable after the tenth day of June next." (c1)"The discontinuance of the British orders as they respect the United States having been thus arranged, a communication of the event has been forwarded in one of our public vessels to our minister plenipotentiary at Paris, with instructions to avail himself of the important addition thereby made to the considerations which press on the justice of the French Government a revocation of its decrees or such a modification of them as that they shall cease to viol. (See website for full description). N° de ref. del artículo 30051.005

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