The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
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PROCLAMATION. |
 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the enemy by a sudden incursion have succeeded
in invading the capital of the nation, defended at the moment
by troops less numerous than their own and almost entirely
of the militia, during their possession of which, though for a
single day only, they wantonly destroyed the public edifices,
having no relation in their structure to operations of war
nor used at the time for military annoyance, some of these
edifices being also costly monuments of taste and of the arts,
and others depositories of the public archives, not only
precious to the nation as the memorials of its origin and its
early transactions, but interesting to all nations as contributions
to the general stock of historical instruction and
political science; and
Whereas advantage has been taken of the loss of a fort
more immediately guarding the neighboring town of Alexandria
to place the town within the range of a naval force
too long and too much in the habit of abusing its superiority
wherever it can be applied to require as the alternative of a
general conflagration an undisturbed plunder of private
property, which has been executed in a manner peculiarly
themselves upon the justice and generosity of the victor; and
Whereas it now appears by a direct communication from
the British commander on the American station to be his
avowed purpose to employ the force under his direction "in
destroying and laying waste such towns and districts upon
the coast as may be found assailable," adding to this declaration
the insulting pretext that it is in retaliation for a wanton
destruction committed by the army of the United States in
Upper Canada, when it is notorious that no destruction has
been committed, which, notwithstanding the multiplied
outrages previously committed by the enemy was not unauthorized,
and promptly shown to be so, and that the United
States have been as constant in their endeavors to reclaim
the enemy from such outrages by the contrast of their own
example as they have been ready to terminate on reasonable
conditions the war itself; and
Whereas these proceedings and declared purposes, which
exhibit a deliberate disregard of the principles of humanity
and the rules of civilized warfare, and which must give to the
existing war a character of extended devastation and barbarism
at the very moment of negotiations for peace, invited
by the enemy himself, leave no prospect of safety to anything
within the reach of his predatory and incendiary operations
but in manful and universal determination to chastise and
expel the invader:
Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United
States, do issue this my proclamation, exhorting all the good
people thereof to unite their hearts and hands in giving effect
to the ample means possessed for that purpose. I enjoin it
on all officers, civil and military, to exert themselves in executing
the duties with which they are respectively charged;
and more especially I require the officers commanding the
respective military districts to be vigilant and alert in providing
for the defense thereof, for the more effectual accomplishment
of which they are authorized to call to the defense
convenient thereto, whether they be or be not parts of the
quotas detached for the service of the United States under
requisitions of the General Government.
On an occasion which appeals so forcibly to the proud
feelings and patriotic devotion of the American people none
will forget what they owe to themselves, what they owe to their
country and the high destinies which await it, what to the
glory acquired by their fathers in establishing the independence
which is now to be maintained by their sons with the
augmented strength and resources with which time and
Heaven had blessed them.
In testimony whereof &c. (September 1, 1814.)
| The writings of James Madison, | |