Description:
This is a rare broadside printing of the Treaty of Ghent, published by the office of the Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Ma. The Gazette first appears in September 1786 during the darkest days of Shays Rebellion, and it remains in publication today. Broadside published on February 23, 1815, as a supplement to the Hampshire Gazette (printed in Northampton) announcing details of the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812 on Dec. 24, 1815. The treaty was signed by President James Madison on Feb. 18, 1815. One week later, William Butler, publisher of the Gazette had the details of the treaty typeset and printed as an "Extra" to the Feb. 25 issue. Condition: old folds, with minor separations and tiny losses at intersections affecting a few letters. The United States entered the War of 1812 deeply divided and almost comically underprepared. In the words of 19th-Century historian Henry Adams, "Many nations have gone to war in pure gayety of heart, but perhaps the United States was the first to force themselves into a war they dreaded, in the hope that the war itself might create the spirit they lacked." The result was a fiasco. The conflict began as an offensive war against British Canada, although cloaked in the self-righteous gard of "Free Trade and Sailor's Rights." After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, however, the United States found itself fighting a defensive war on multiple fronts against thousands of veterns of Wellington's legions. Only the valiant stand of Baltimore militia, Macdonough's brilliant tactivs at Plattsburg, and Jackson's astute defense at New Orleans saved the nation from disaster, and the war ended in a draw. The Treaty of Peace was concluded at Ghent on December 24, 1814, and signed by President Madison on February 18 the following year. The Treaty of Ghent returned boundaries to their pre-war status, though it did make provision for a Joint Commission finally to clarify the boundaries articulated by the 1783 Treaty of Paris. No mention was made of the British disruption of American commerce or impressment of American sailors, which had provided American casus belli.
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