4 -

1814

Summary

I

As Jackson's campaign against the Creeks stalled, Madison met the second session of the Thirteenth Congress in Washington. In his annual message, delivered on 7 December 1813, the president played up the recent victories in the Northwest while glossing over the disappointments and failures of the year. Wilkinson's lack of success on the St. Lawrence he attributed to “adverse weather of unusual violence” and to delays “attending the final movements of the army that the prospect, at one time so favorable, was not realized.” Even less could be said about the Creek War, beyond Madison's observing that the Indians, “infuriated by a bloody fanaticism,” had become “the unfortunate victims of seduction,” but he predicted that the various campaigns in the southwest would eventually succeed in proportion to the “martial zeal” with which they had been commenced. Otherwise, most of the message was devoted to criticizing the British, both for their refusal to end the war by accepting the mediation of Russia and for their threat to expatriate British-born American prisoners of war to try (and execute) them for treason. Should that policy be implemented, Madison promised to retaliate on British prisoners in like fashion, but he offered little more with respect to the future. Indeed, the only policy measure in the message was the suggestion that Congress revise the militia laws to permit the administration to mobilize that force more efficiently.