The War of 1812

I am glad the Canadians won the fight.

According to History.com “The War of 1812 produced a new generation of great American generals, including Andrew Jackson, Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott, and helped propel no fewer than four men to the presidency: Jackson, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe and William Henry Harrison.” 

This was a war between England and the U.S.   Canada was a colony.  The U.S. did not see itself at war with Canada.  It was a war with the British Empire.  Americans learn in school that the war was about British attempts to restrict U.S. trade and to a lesser extent a continuation of the American Revolution.  For us Americans the fight settled the question of America’s independence from Great Britain.

Canadians in Ontario seem to want to celebrate their victory over American forces.  Johns Hopkins University professor Eliot Cohen supports this view. He writes in his just-published book Conquered Into Liberty that, “ultimately, Canada and Canadians won the War of 1812.”

 Americans don’t want to be bothered celebrating that war.  The only thing Americans gained was the “Star Spangled Banner.”  It is a terrible song that celebrates the flag.  “America the Beautiful” or “God Bless America” are far better songs that celebrate everything that is good about this country.

Interestingly it is Canada that has shown more openness than the United States on the subject of accepting all people equally.  Read the Toronto Star newspaper and you learn more about the world than reading many American newspapers.  Walk down the streets of Toronto and you have the feeling you are in the United Nations.  Or is it my imagination?  No, I don’t think so.  There really is a feeling of acceptance that is difficult to find elsewhere.