"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights": The Rhetoric of the War of 1812 | Zendy

Paul A. Gilje | Zendy

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"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights": The Rhetoric of the War of 1812

Author(s) -

Paul A. Gilje

Publication year - 2010

Publication title -

journal of the early republic

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186

H-Index - 17

eISSN - 1553-0620

pISSN - 0275-1275

DOI - 10.1353/jer.0.0130

Subject(s) - slogan , phrase , rhetoric , banner , law , assertion , meaning (existential) , political science , history , sociology , philosophy , linguistics , politics , epistemology , computer science , programming language

At the beginning of the War of 1812 Captain David Porter flew from his mast a banner with the phrase "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights." This slogan reflected ideas that derived from the Age of Revolution combining patrician interest in free trade with more plebeian concerns about rights and the protection of seamen from impressment. As such it aptly summarized the key diplomatic reasons why the United States entered the war. Throughout the conflict Americans used the phrase to explain their support for the war. After 1815 the phrase continued to be used in a wide variety of relevant and irrelevant contexts. By the 1840s for some Americans the phrase had become disembodied from its original meaning; for others, it retained much of its original poignancy as a statement of principle and an assertion of basic rights.

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