Still more important in Madison’s mind, if the United States conquered Canada, Britain’s hope of obtaining food in Canada for its West Indian sugar islands would be shattered. President Madison probably regarded an attack on Canada as a way to force the British to respect neutral rights. So it was primarily because of Canada, nearby and presumably vulnerable, that westerners wanted war. In 1810 Madison had snapped up the extreme western section without eliciting any effective response from Spain. So, apparently, would Florida, for Spain was now Britain’s ally. Florida in itself provided no cause for a war, for it was sure to fall into American hands before long. Canada would surely fall to American arms in the event of war, the frontiersmen believed. ![]() The West contained immense tracts of virgin land, but westerners wanted more. To some extent western expansionism also heightened the war fever. ![]() If only the seas were free, they reasoned, costs would go down, prices would rise, and prosperity would return. But the farmers were no more inclined to accept these explanations than they were to absolve the British from responsibility for the Indian difficulties. American commercial restrictions had more to do with the western depression than the British, and in any case the slow and cumbersome transportation and distribution system that western farmers were saddled with was the major cause of their difficulties. The prices they received for their wheat, tobacco, and other products in the markets of New Orleans were falling, and they attributed the decline to the loss of foreign markets and the depredations of the British. Some westerners pressed for war because they were suffering an agricultural depression.
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