Treaty of Ghent
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The Treaty of Ghent, signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, (Belgium), was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The war had become a stalemate and the treaty returned to the status quo before the war.
Negotiators for Britain included minor diplomatsWilliam Adams. James Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn. They took orders from London and often meetings were paused for a week or so for messages to go back and forth. The American delegates included senior political leaders who had full authority to negotiate: John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Sr., Henry Clay, and Albert Gallatin, and junior member Jonathan Russell.
The war had become a stalemate. Neither side had been successful in invasions designed to gain bargaining chips. (The U.S. never wanted to annex Canada, only to seize lands for bargaining over other issues.) The prewar issues of trade restraints and impressment were so closely tied to the war against Napoleon (now in exile) that they no longer mattered and were not mentioned. The Indian menace had been destroyed, ending a major cause of the war. Public opinion strongly desired peace and there was no reason to continue the war. The treaty restored prewar boundaries and released all prisoners. The treaty made no major changes, but did make a few promises. Britain promised to return captured slaves, but instead a few years later paid the U.S. £250,000 for them. British proposals to create an Indian buffer zone (in Ohio and Michigan) collapsed after the Indian coalition fell apart. Weak guarantees regarding American treatment of the Indians in article IX were ignored.
Fighting immediately stopped when news of the treaty reached the battlefronts, but this happened after the Americans won a decisive victory at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815. The U.S. Senate unanimously approved on February 16, 1815 and President James Madison exchanged ratification papers with a British diplomat in Washington on February 17; the treaty was proclaimed on February 18. Eleven days later (March 1) Napoleon escaped from Elba starting the European wars up again, and forcing the British to concentrate on the threat he posed.
[edit] References
- Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy (1950)
- A. L. Burt. The United States, Great Britain and British North America from the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace after the War of 1812. (1940) online edition
- Engelman, Fred L. The Peace of Christmas Eve (1962), popular account; online excerpt from American Heritage Magazine (Dec 1960) v 12#1
- Donald R. Hickey. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (1990) pp 281-98.
- Perkins, Bradford. Castelereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812-1823. (1964), the standard scholarly history
- Robert Vincent Remini. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991) pp 94-122
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