{"id":63961,"date":"2020-12-22T12:23:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T17:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=63961"},"modified":"2024-09-06T14:20:58","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T18:20:58","slug":"did-peace-on-earth-come-to-america-in-time-for-christmas-in-1814","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/did-peace-on-earth-come-to-america-in-time-for-christmas-in-1814.html","title":{"rendered":"Did \u2018Peace on Earth\u2019 Come to America in Time for Christmas in 1814?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Jane Hampton Cook <\/em>describes how negotiators for the U.S. and Great Britain tried to forge a peace treaty by Christmas 1814. Jane is a presidential historian and author of ten books, including her new book “Resilience on Parade: Short Stories of Suffragists & Women\u2019s Battle for the Vote.” She is the author of Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War<\/a>. She was the first female White House webmaster (2001-03). Her works can be found at Janecook.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

From the lyrics of \u201cHark the Herald Angels Sing\u201d and \u201cI Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,\u201d the sentiment \u201cPeace on Earth\u201d has long been a common refrain during the holiday and Christmas seasons. As old newspapers reveal, Americans and Britons took this sentiment literally when they learned of an opportunity to end the war between them. Peace between the two nations became a Christmas wish in 1814.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration:<\/a>
Illustration: John Quincy Adams, by Gilbert Stuart, 1818. Adams led the American delegation that negotiated peace with Great Britain in 1814. Credit: the White House; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

America and England had gone to war in 1812. By the summer of 1814, both governments had sent peace commissioners to Ghent in the United Netherlands (present-day Belgium) to negotiate a treaty. Some hoped to have peace by Christmas while others doubted there was enough time for negotiators, such as John Quincy Adams, to arrive and finish a peace treaty by then.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe negotiation is yet to begin,\u201d a respected London gentleman wrote a correspondent in Boston. \u201cPerhaps you expect that peace is made or making when the respective commissioners are not even arrived at their destination. If you celebrate peace on Christmas day, you may reckon yourselves very well off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Petersburg Intelligencer<\/em> of Virginia published this Christmas \u201cwish\u201d on 12 August 1814, months before the holidays.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Petersburg Intelligencer (Petersburg, Virginia), 12 August 1814, page 11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Others were more hopeful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report of Thursday, said to have been brought by the cartel from Halifax, that the negotiation at Ghent had been broken off, was an impudent fabrication,\u201d West Virginia\u2019s Farmer\u2019s Repository<\/em> reported on 18 August 1814, of news from Britain that had arrived in Canada. \u201cOn the contrary, though the people in Halifax generally were growing rich by the war, it was the opinion of the Governor, and the most intelligent people, that Peace would grow out of the negotiation at Ghent, and be concluded before Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Farmer\u2019s Repository (Charles Town, West Virginia), 18 August 1814, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On 19 December 1814, as the holiday neared, the editor of the Aurora<\/em> summed up the many hopes and doubts for peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hear daily \u2013 and three or four times a day, that peace will flow out of the negotiations at Ghent \u2013 some say, that it must be settled before this time \u2013 others, a little more liberal, defer it to the good-humored festive time of Christmas \u2013 while others, less sanguine, say we shall not have peace before the festival of American independence \u2013 if then.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"An<\/a>
Aurora (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 19 December 1814, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, did the treaty arrive by Christmas? Yes and no.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas a Treaty of Peace and Amity between the United States of America and his Britannic Majesty was signed at Ghent, on the twenty-fourth day of December 1814, by plenipotentiaries respectively appointed for that purpose,\u201d began President James Madison\u2019s message to the American people on 17 February 1815.<\/p>\n

John Quincy Adams and the other commissioners had secured a treaty by Christmas Day, but Americans did not know about this gift until closer to Valentine\u2019s Day, when the news first arrived in Washington D.C. Newspapers around the nation published Madison\u2019s message and the treaty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere shall be a firm and universal Peace between His Britannic Majesty and the United States, and between their respective countries, territories, cities, towns and people, of every degree, without exception of places or persons.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll hostilities, both by sea and land, shall cease as soon as this treaty shall have been ratified by both parties as hereinafter mentioned.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"An<\/a>
Orange County Patriot (Goshen, New York), 28 February 1815, page 5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The peace treaty, known as the Treaty of Ghent, returned all land to pre-war boundaries along with all public records and personal papers.<\/p>\n

As I wrote in my book American Phoenix<\/a> about the War of 1812, peace commissioner John Quincy Adams considered the day of the peace treaty\u2019s signing, 24 December 1814, to be the happiest of his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider the day on which I signed it as the happiest of my life; because it was the day on which I had my share in restoring peace to the world,\u201d Adams gleefully confessed in a letter to his wife Louisa.<\/p>\n

A permanent Peace on Earth came to America and England by Christmas 1814. The two nations have never been to war against each other since.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/em><\/strong> An online collection of newspapers, such as GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>, is not only a great way to learn about the lives of your ancestors \u2013 the old newspaper articles also help you understand American history and the times your ancestors lived in, and the news they talked about and read in their local papers.<\/p>\n

Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Jane Hampton Cook describes how negotiators for the U.S. and Great Britain tried to forge a peace treaty by Christmas 1814.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":63991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12235],"tags":[6713,45,57741,1961],"class_list":["post-63961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-american-history","tag-christmas","tag-treaty-of-ghent","tag-war-of-1812"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/illustration-1222-2020-featured-graphic-ghent-treaty.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63961"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100437,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63961\/revisions\/100437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}