Canadians are Trying to Rewrite the History of the 1812 War

It was merely a reflection of how the rest of the world views American arrogance.

Which you have so amply demonstrated.

Using the impressment argument as the most important factor in the War of 1812 is just as myopic as claiming it was an argument over slavery that caused the American Civil War.

Firstly, linking to wikipedia pages with "republic" in its title doesn't prove they were republics, nor do they prove they were democratic. The Dutch republic doesn't exist and wasn't democratic as many of the seats were hereditary.

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San Marino didn't have the first written constitution with a bill of rights. It's "constitution" is a collection of laws and books. Some British call their collection of laws a constitution, but it's not.

Quick Q; if the US army was so skilful then why did it fail to win one war against Britain's reserve forces while Britain fought two wars?

I advise you read Bill Bryson's Made in America. It's an interesting read not only about American language but its history too. I'd pay attention to him too; they didn't make him the chancellor of Durham University for nothing. For the record it doesn't cover the 1812 war.

Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving too. There's a difference between holidays and fabricating history.

But Canada wasn't a gov. entity, it was all part of the British Empire. Some places that now make up the US exist, but we don't celebrate the 7 years war because the government via the military of the United States of America never took part.

America won in the US revolutionary war and then the 1812 war, I wouldn't call two victories in a row luck.

Monarchy is the direct opposite of democracy. Democracy is will of the people via voting. Monarchy is will of one. A constitutional monarchy can never be a true democracy. The Fact that the monarchy can never be removed in the name of "tradition" is a direct contradiction to democracy.

You can't be a true republic unless you're democracy, and you can't be a true democracy unless you're a republic.

I see that you still haven't defined 'democratic republic', I'll give you one more chance, else I have better things to do than sit here going around in circles, and I'm sure the same goes for you too.

I'll accept your problems with the Dutch system, but I'm sorry your refutation of the San Marino system is desperate at best. Its system was a series of laws which defined the powers of the people and the state, and included those laid out in a series of books. As the Oxford English Dictionary defines a constitution as: A body of principles according to which a state or organisation is governed

San Marino therefore had a constitution, a written constitution just as the Corsican Republic did (which I note you haven't even mentioned). Both were wholly elected. Before you suggest that the Corsican Republic wasn't the right time period, it fell just 7 years before the declaration of independence, that's fairly contemporary. I should think that if a regime fell back in 2005, you'd still remember it today.

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What actual democratic difference to the people does it make whether that constitution is in a single document or several books? It sums up to make a single body of legislature. If I wanted to be pedantic, I could point out that due to all its amendments, the US constitution is now multiple documents. Yes, maybe the amendments + the original constitution together make one legal system, but the same is true of San Marino law (incidentally, you don't need a separate bill of rights to be democratic, those rights can be easily held within the regular constitution, it makes no difference). I believe that you've started with the mindset that only the US is allowed to fit your criteria, in which case you're doing nothing but being biased by your assumptions. Instead of proving the bold claim that America was the first modern democratic republic, you're now simply demonstrating that the US was the first country to have a system of government which is exactly the same as the US government. That isn't a claim that I would disagree with, but the US system still wasn't the first government to be both democratic and republic.

I'm sure that you're a lovely person but you're doing nothing to dispel my suspicion that history lessons in US schools are nothing but 60 minutes of flag-waving, chest-beating and chanting 'USA! USA!' whilst playing the theme to Team America.

You still don't get it. They were the same. Fact of the matter is the British were kidnapping US citizens knowingly provoking a war.

The US did teach the British a lesson of don't threaten US sovereignty.

Obviously Britain was the instigator of the war by threatening US sovereignty with impressment. Name one country that would allow something like impressment?

The US never wanted the British territory Canada. The war of 1812 was about protecting US sovereignty which was being threatened by British bullying and impressment. The British provoked the young and weak US to the point where they had no choice but to take action or risk becoming a target for invasion. The US attacked the closest British territory, was victorious in securing its sovereignty, and the rest is history.

If these San Marino books are a constitution, then the British could also claim all thier laws are a single constitution as well. A constitution should be a "framework" of the government. How can a collection of books be a framework? In your broad interpretation, how many books can you have before it's no longer a constitution? I mean think about it. When were will of all these books written? Who reads and verifies that all laws follow these books? It's ridiculous.

The British were fighting for their very survival against one of the greatest armies ever amassed... but they decided to attack the US anyway. That was bold of them, attacking without an army. And of course, statements of prominent polticians like Thomas Jefferson like:



clearly don't tell us all about the american imperial ambitions at the time. America can't actually do anything wrong, obviously. It was all Britain's fault. We bow down to your inherent and unquestionable superiority.

Their Thanksgiving has a different story behind it though doesn't it?

But those colonies still had their own governments. It was just before they were reorganised to have an overarching government in North America. I think the reason Americans don't celebrate the 7 years war is because American pride is largely based on their independence from Britain. Where as in Canada, they take pride in being the continuation of several British colonies.

Well I still think that if America won, so did Britain/Canada. Both sides kept all their territory and didn't concede anything. Anyway, what I meant was it was lucky that impressment stopped, as in the war had little to do with stopping it. I'm not saying it was luck that the war ended. I'll admit that if the US hadn't put up a good fight, the British probably would have pressed on tried to take some of their territory, even if that wasn't one of their aims from the start. I'm sure the same is true the other way round.

But with a constitutional monarchy, the country is run by the will of the people via voting. The monarch doesn't run the country. Representatives voted for by the people do. And who says the monarch can never be removed? Plenty of countries have voted to become republics. There may not be a specific legal route to becoming a republic in the UK, but if the people really wanted to get rid of the monarchy, Parliament would make a law allowing them to do it. Parliament can do that, because they are the ones with the actual power, not the monarch. Jamaica is considering doing that, and Australia has toyed with the idea in the past. Malta and many other former British territories have done that.

What do you think about Norway? It's a pretty successful country with a monarch. In 1905 they became independent from Sweden and they had a vote to decide whether to become a republic or have a monarchy. They voted to have a monarch. How is that not democratic? I believe that if we had a referendum about becoming a republic in the UK right now, the people would vote to keep the monarchy.

After looking it up, I think you're correct about republics having to be democracies to be true republics. In common usage it just means any country that doesn't have a hereditary ruler, but there is a more technical definition that means the country is run "by the people" in some form.

But here's the definition of democracy (from the oxford dictionary):

"a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives"

Constitutional monarchies fit that definition because the government is voted for by the people. The monarch is not the government.

They weren't US citizens, they were British citizens. British law at the time didn't allow British citizens to change nationality.

Britain taught the US a lesson: Don't invade Canada, or our militia and reserves will burn down your Capital.
The blockade and impressment were measures solely implemented to fight Napoleon, so the fact that the UK didn't do these things after the war, by which time Napoleon was defeated, is irrelevant.
How I know you are talking nonsense, is if the United States had truely 'taught' Britain a lesson, the UK wouldn't have blockaded the high seas during the Great War. US merchants wanted to trade with both the Entente and the Central Powers, but the Royal Navy stood their ground and the United States was forced into trading only with the Entente. One could even say that the United States was bullied into only trading with whom Britain dictated that they could trade with.

The US was the only country that was harbouring British fugitives, so the point is mute. The vast majority of historians think that the US started the war, being the ones who fired the first shots and all. But obviously, you know better

The British were fighting for their very survival against one of the greatest armies ever amassed... but they decided to attack the US anyway. That was bold of them, attacking without an army. And of course, statements of prominent polticians like Thomas Jefferson like:



clearly don't tell us all about the american imperial ambitions at the time. America can't actually do anything wrong, obviously. It was all Britain's fault. We bow down to your inherent and unquestionable superiority.

US politicians say a lot of stuff including the founding father, who were politicians.

America's objective was to secure its sovereignty and gain respect, and had to take action and attack or acquire if possible the closest British territory. The young and weak US underestimated the British because they thought they were preoccupied, but still achieved its objective.

The British can claim all their laws are a single constitution. A constitution is merely a set of all powerful laws and principles governing an organisation, in this case a country. The British doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty means that these all powerful laws and principles are any pieces of legislation passed by the House. A constitution doesn't have to codified and written out on a single statute. In the UK's case, it would be pointless since the House can't pass laws that bind it's future self and doesn't need a US style codified constitution to follow. This is yet another example of America thinking that it's way of thinking must be the only way of thinking.

So you admit that the US was trying to take territory, and that they were over-confident? Politicians say stuff, but also do stuff, like launch invasions.

But aside from all this nationalistic BS - to address the original question: you don't have to be represented by a government to be proud of something. Football fans can be proud of their team winning, rebels can be proud of their military victories, tibetans can be proud of tibet, even if it isn't a country. I'd say the 1812 war was perhaps the first time Canada developed a national identity. They had held out against the odds, with most fighters living in the local area, and they can be proud of that (at least until British regulars arrived). That's proud as Canadians, a subset of British at the time (just like Tibet and China, or Yankees fan and american), but still a valid identification.

Some were US citizens, others were immigrant or those seeking refuge. Fact is they were on US territory and property, and their classification is for the US to determine. The British were threatening US sovereignty and provoked the war by not respecting that.

Wrong again. The US taught the British to respect US sovereignty, and from then on they applied the lesson they learned by not longer threatening US sovereignty.

Th bullying via impressment and blockade by the British is what provoked the war, which initiated the US taught lesson for British Empire.

That's some great work of fiction you got there.

Britain has acknowledged that it has no constitution. So you're wasting your time.

After the US wrote its constitution, a constitution craze sprang up around the world. Some in Britain wanted to create a written constitution like the US, but the majority were spiteful and frequently wrote that Britain should avoid constitutions and that Britain was better without a constitution. It's all historical fact.

Here's a keynote that explains it better and explains why the US has the worlds first written constitution with the world's first bill of rights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA29TbsNmkQ

Around 5:35 she highlights 4 innovations which make the US constitution the first written democratic republic constitution in the world.

Around 11:32 she further explains why the written constitution was pioneered by the US.

Around 16:19 she begins to explain why Britain has no constitution.