Annotated Bibliography 

Primary Resources:
http://library.mtsu.edu/tps/sets/Primary_Source_Set--War_of_1812.pdf
The War of 1812 often gets overshadowed by the Revolutionary War and is generally less understood
among the American public. This war was really an offshoot of a larger global conflict between the British
empire and the French empire of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The New England Magazine, Volume 6, March 1834, p 181ff; Harper's New Monthly Magazine,
Volume 25 Number 146, July 1862, p 217ff; The Avalon Project; various web sources for data
on the War of 1812.
https://www.usconstitution.net/hartford.html
As Britain and France battled each other in the early 1800's, enterprising Americans wanted to take
advantage of the war by transporting goods for both sides, across each nation's blockade lines. The
violation of the lines angered both governments, but Britain most of all. In a move widely hated in
America, Britain started to seize U.S. ships and "impress" the sailors on the ships, claiming that they were
actually British citizens and subject to British law.

The proceedings of a convention of delegates, from the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut,

and Rhode-Island December 15, 1814
https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofconv00hart
This book is talking about the states in the U.S that were involved in the controversy. It is also saying,
“The Convention is deeply impressed with the sense of the arduous nature of the commission which they
were appointed to execute, of dividing that means of defense against dangers, and of relief from
oppressions proceeding from the act of their own Government, without violation constitutional principles,
or disappointing the hopes of a suffering and injured people.

http://historycentral.com/documents/NEWNATION/HartfordConv.htm
After severe general criticism of the Administration, and of the policy by which "this remote country, once
so happy and so envied," is now "involved in a ruinous war, and excluded from intercourse with the rest of
the world," the report continues

https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sets/the-war-of-1812/
Ending effectively in a draw with relatively few casualties, the war is sometimes barely mentioned in US
history courses and sometimes omitted from British history courses. However, in many ways, this conflict
formally established independence from Great Britain for the United States. It is celebrated as the origin
of Canada’s nationhood.
“The Avalon Project: Amendments to the Constitution Proposed by the Hartford
Convention: 1814.” Yale Law School, 2016. Link.

https://connecticuthistory.org/the-hartford-convention-today-in-history/
The Federalists wanted to address the policies of two successive US presidents from the opposing party:
Republicans James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who the term prior had implemented the Embargo
Act of 1807. Jefferson had tried to use the embargo as an economic force to address the conflict with
Britain but the Federalist’s viewed the embargo as a policy that devastated New England’s economy.

Donald R. Hickey,. “New England’s Defense Problem and the Genesis of the Hartford
Convention,” New England Quarterly 50, No. 4 (1977); Samuel E. Morison, Harrison
Gary Otis 1765-1848: The Urbane Federalist (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969)
Such views and the seemingly “radical” resolutions and constitutional amendments advocated by the
delegates have forever tainted the Hartford Convention as a self-serving, traitorous affair. With the actual
secession of southern states during the American Civil War still years away, the actions of Federalist New
England, it’s commonly held, marked the first time disunion had threatened the nation. The reality is
somewhat different, and we cannot begin to understand New England’s rationale for holding the
Convention or its ultimate outcome without first considering the remarkable political tensions that arose at
the time of the nation’s founding and extended well through the War of 1812.

http://thecommonroomblog.com/2007/09/secession-and-the-war-of-1812.html
They had economic issues, they objected to the way the South monopolized the Federal
Government, but, as I said, they mostly objected to the War of 1812. A few of them advocated
secession, though this was far from unanimous. They were considered extremist hotheads, and
moderates prevailed. Their final resolutions hinted at secession, but stopped far short of it. Even
though they stopped short of demanding secession, the fact that they’d even considered it or hinted
at it created an uproar, and their resolutions were so poorly received by the *entire* nation, that they
were labeled as traitors intent on destroying the Union.

Secondary Resources:
Books:
History of the Hartford Convention: with a review of the policy of the United States
Government which led to the War of 1812 1833
https://archive.org/details/historyofhartfor00dwig
This book also talks about the political changes that the “Hartford Convenction” has caused. It says, “ No
political subject that has ever occupied the attention, or excited the feelings of the great body of the
people of these United States, has ever been the theme of more gross misrepresentation, or more
constant reproach, than the assembly of delegates from several of the New England states, which met at
Hartford in the state of Connecticut, in December 1814.

Dwight, Theodore. History of the Hartford Convention: With a Review of the Policy of the
United States Government Which Led to the War of 1812. New York; Boston: N. & J.
White; Russell, Odiorne, & Company, 1833. Link.

Sites:
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/warof1812/section8.rhtml
In New England, stronghold of the Federalist Party, people were very discontented throughout the war,
even after the victory in Baltimore had electrified the rest of the nation. Some New England Federalists
went so far as to argue for Secession from the Union, in which New England would separately establish
peace with Britain, whether the rest of the country wanted to or not. Rumors abounded across the nation
that some upset Federalists were even tipping off British cruisers about US ships that were trying to run
the British naval blockade.

Articles:
WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
See Article History
https://www.britannica.com/event/Hartford-Convention
Even as the convention finished its business, however, a British sloop of war was beating its way across
the Atlantic with dispatches containing the peace terms that had been agreed to in the Treaty of Ghent,
ending the war. Moreover, as the convention’s emissaries approached Washington D.C., they were met
by the news of Gen. Andrew Jackson’s unexpected victory in the Battle of New Orleans. By the time the
emissaries arrived, it was no longer possible to serve the kind of ultimatum contained in the convention’s
report.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-history/period-4/apush-politics-society-
early-19th-c/a/the-war-of-1812
Popular anti-war sentiment increased, and the military conflict effectively stalemated by 1815. The
Madison administration then entered into peace negotiations with the British. The Treaty of Ghent, which
formally ended the war, involved no significant change in pre-war borders or boundaries. With the end of
the Napoleonic Wars, the British had already abandoned their policy of impressing American sailors, and
had informally lifted restrictions on neutral trade.

http://www.warof1812.net/p/hartford-convention-and-treaty-of-ghent.html
The treaty restored the it restored the borders of the US and Great Britain to the lines the were
established before the commencement of the war. It took four weeks for news of the treaty to reach the
United States, just after the American victory in the Battle of New Orleans and the British victory in the
Battle of Fort Bowyer, but before the British assault on Mobile, Alabama. The U.S. Senate unanimously
approved the treaty on February 16, 1815, and President James Madison exchanged ratification papers
with a British diplomat in Washington on February 17th. The treaty was proclaimed on February 18, 1815
by President James Madison who ordered a printing of his message and the Treaty.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-hartford-convention-of-1814-definition-summary-r
esolutions.html
The Federalists were the remnants of the original supporters of the Constitution back during the
ratification period of 1787, who had now gathered under the 'anti-Jefferson' banner. There had been a
great deal of anger in New England over the Three-Fifths Compromise, a deal struck at the Constitutional
Convention that allowed three of every five slaves to be counted towards a state's population, and thus
towards representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. The deal itself wasn't the problem, so much
as the fear that, with the addition of new territories in the West, slave owning states would be
strengthened.

http://www.historyiscentral.org/HSI/case5D/index.html
The War of 1812 openly divided the North and the South long before the Civil War. Northern states,
particularly those in New England, were staunchly against the war since it ruined their economies by
severely limiting northern states from trade. Southern states, which built their economies on agriculture,
supported the war as necessary to end the British practice of impressment (kidnapping American sailors
off military or merchant ships and “pressing” them into service in the British navy), to force the British to
vacate western forts that threatened American expansion, and to reaffirm the young nation’s right to exist.
https://millercenter.org/president/madison/foreign-affairs
For Madison and the War Hawks, the declaration amounted to a second war of independence for the new
Republic. It also provided the opportunity to seize Canada, drive the Spanish from west Florida, put down
the Indian uprising in the Northwest, and secure maritime independence. In the preparations for battle, it
became clear that most of the War Hawks wanted a land invasion of Canada above all else.

https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/early-america-review/volume-4/federalist-op
position-to-the-war-of-1812
In December 1806, with tensions increasing between Great Britain and the United States, President
Thomas Jefferson sought grounds for amicable settlement of grievances through a new treaty, negotiated
by James Monroe and William Pinkney. Its principal aims were to obtain the end of impressment of U.S.
seamen; the restoration of the West Indian trade, which Great Britain had forbidden; and to obtain
payments of indemnities for ship seizures made after 1805. When the two diplomats faced British
intransigence, however, they yielded on some points and failed to follow their instructions on the issue of
impressment. When they returned with the treaty in early 1807, Jefferson refused to submit it to the
Senate for ratification.

https://study.com/academy/answer/what-was-the-purpose-of-the-hartford-convention.ht
ml
Federalists in New England had been refusing to send state militia to help in the war effort, for fear of
British assault while they were away. In response, Madison and the Republicans in Congress refused to
reimburse those states for their war expenses. This prompted calls for the Hartford Convention, in
December 1814.