A widely accepted explanation for the War of 1812 is presented by
Julius W. Pratt:

The belief that the United States would one day annex Canada had a continuous
existence from the early days of the War of Independence to the War of 1812. . . .
The rise of Tecumseh, backed, as was universally believed, by the British, produced an
urgent demand in the Northwest that the British be expelled from Canada. This demand
was a factor of primary importance in bringing on the war.

But A. L. Burt questions this interpretation and reverts to an older and
more conventional view:

In the President's historic message of June 1, 1812, recommending a declaration of
war, Britain is charged most positively with "a series of acts, hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation," and after the enumeration of these acts, which
are a catalogue of the maritime grievances, a short paragraph insinuating that there was
some connection between the hostility of the savages and their intercourse with the British
is inserted as a sort of afterthought. This is the only reference to the Indian troubles, and
it makes no definite charge. Apparently the administration did not consider the native
hostilities to be a cause of war any more than did the majority in Congress.

Emphasis on economic motives has as its most recent sponsor Margaret
Kinard Latimer:

[The Westerners] began to become painfully aware of foreign restrictions on Ameri-
can commerce, and to these they directed more and more blame for their economic ills.
. . . In 1812, "The right of exporting the productions of our own soil and industry to
foreign markets" seemed as real to the hemp and tobacco growers of Kentucky as to the
large-scale cotton producers of South Carolina. . . . The new generation of the Republican
party, with an aim to protect and promote the direct commerce of the country that seemed
more Federalist than Jeffersonian, was strongly spearheaded by men from the South and
Southwest who worked together successfully in a Congressional drive for war.

Norman K. Risjord objects, stressing psychological considerations:

The modern tendency to seek materialistic motives and economic factors in all human
relations has greatly obscured one of the basic causes of the War of 1812. . . . A casual
search through the letters and speeches of contemporaries reveals that those who fought
the war were primarily concerned with the honor and integrity of the nation.

And Henry Adams has his own unique point of view:

The experiment of thrusting the country into war to inflame it, as crude ore might be
thrown into a furnace, was avowed by the party leaders, from President Madison down-
ward, and was in truth the only excuse for a course otherwise resembling an attempt at
suicide. Many nations have gone to war in pure gayety of heart; but perhaps the United
States were first to force themselves into a war they dreaded, in the hope that the war
itself might create the spirit they lacked.

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