ABSTRACT
By 1815 the United States had survived the first great testing time in its history. The Constitution had worked, and the new federal government had proved itself capable of exerting its authority and transferring power between opposing parties without national disruption. The country had even emerged triumphantly from its foreign crises. Not only had the nation established its boundaries in the Mississippi Valley, it had also doubled its size and acquired full access to the Gulf of Mexico. The nation had come nearest to disaster in the Jeffersonian response to the crisis at sea. The deci sion to retaliate against British interference with American trade by declar ing war could easily have resulted in a humiliating defeat, a loss of territory, and the discrediting of the federal government. The war was preceded by totally inadequate preparations, and a failure to understand the vulnerability of American trade and the American coastlines to British naval power. Even a successful invasion of Canada would not have changed British maritime policies, and a successful British invasion of the United States was only pre vented by Macdonough's naval victory on Lake Champlain. If that battle had been lost, there is every reason to suppose that New York City would have fallen to the British. If that had occurred, the Hartford Convention would have been a much more threatening gathering.
