I grew up in British Columbia, a few miles north of the U.S. border. One sunny Saturday, my brother John and I adventured on our bicycles farther than our usual route. We found ourselves — “quite by accident” our official story would have included, if asked — on a road that paralleled the border.
Our parched mouths salivated and empty stomachs grumbled as we beheld an expansive blueberry farm across a water-filled ditch to our south. We reclined our bikes on the northern edge of the ditch, invaded the United States and ate enough blueberries to cause an international incident.
One hundred and forty years earlier, another group of Canadians crossed international waters and nearly caused a resurgence of the War of 1812. That incident, known as the Caroline affair, became the basis for the U.S. pre-emptive strike doctrine used as part of the legal framework for invading Iraq.
In 1837, a group of Canadian rebels, led by Member of Parliament William Lyon Mackenzie, proposed to capture Toronto as a first step in creating a more democratic Canada. British forces proved tougher than anticipated. Mackenzie fled to the United States after his troops failed in the Battle of Montgomery’s Tavern, where their only success as a militia had been the capture of a mail coach.
On December 12, Mackenzie addressed a public meeting in Buffalo. He described Upper Canada’s desire for liberty and its oppression at the hands of the British. He then asked for help. The meeting ended with wild cheers and Mackenzie’s recruiting campaign was off to a solid start.
The next day, he declared himself the head of a provisional government he called the “Republic of Canada.” He convinced Rensselaer Van Rensselaer (nephew of Stephen Van Rensselaer III, an American colonel during the War of 1812) to join in a scheme whereby volunteers would invade Upper Canada from Navy Island in the Niagara River. Several hundred volunteers traveled to Navy Island in the next several weeks, along with shipments of food, arms and cannon shot.
Reinforcing the nation’s official position of neutrality, President Martin Van Buren instructed the volunteers that they would be prosecuted as criminals if they participated in any invasions. Still, Mackenzie’s forces grew to more than 1,000 men. From Navy Island, named for the naval yard built on the island by the British in 1763, the rebels conducted raids against British assets in Canada. American sympathizers supplied them with money, provisions and arms via the steamboat S.S. Caroline, based in Buffalo.
On December 29, Canadian loyalist Sir Allan MacNab and Royal Navy Captain Andrew Drew organized a militia, crossed the international boundary and seized the Caroline. They towed her into the river, set her afire and cast her adrift over Niagara Falls. One American was killed on the dock in the process.
While this was going on, Mackenzie had traveled to Buffalo, seeking medical attention for his sick wife. He was arrested for violating American neutrality laws, released on bail and returned to Navy Island in January. Van Rensselaer grew disillusioned. On January 14, 1838, the rebel forces fled under bombardment from British troops.
Then Secretary of State John Forsyth addressed a note to Mr. Fox, the British minister at Washington, charging that the destruction of property and assassination of citizens of the United States on the soil of New York had produced “the most painful emotions of surprise and regret.” Mr. Fox replied that the “piratical character of the Caroline seemed to be fully established; that the ordinary laws of the United States were not at the time enforced along the frontier, but were openly overborne; and that the destruction of the Caroline was an act of necessary self-defense.”
American resentment over the British act of terrorism escalated. President Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott with letters to the governors of New York and Vermont requesting them to call out the militia. On May 29, 1838, U.S. militia retaliated by burning a British steamer, the S.S. Sir Robert Peel, while she was in U.S. waters.
In a letter dated April 24, 1841, newly appointed Secretary of State Daniel Webster asked Mr. Fox to show under what laws the British actions could be considered self-defense.
It will be for that Government to show a necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation. It will be for it to show, also, that the local authorities … did nothing unreasonable or excessive; since the act justified by the necessity of self-defense, must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it. … A necessity for all this the Government of the United States cannot believe to have existed.
The U.S. and Great Britain finally agreed to settle the issue with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.
Facing my second deployment in support of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” I wonder what Daniel Webster would say about this parallel between OIF and the Caroline affair. In 1837, Canadian rebels and American supporters attacked British property in Canada. In 2001, Al-Qa’ida terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. British forces traced the rebels to an island near American territory supplied by an American steamer. We traced Al-Qa’ida to a headquarters in Afghanistan with suppliers in neighboring countries including possibly Iraq. British forces crossed an international boundary to take out a source of logistics support. We invaded one supporting country out of several to choose from and took out the entire government. Would Webster issue to us the same legal necessity doctrine he wrote to the British minister?
I do not mean to trivialize the differences. The Canadian rebels were not terrorists in the sense of attacking civilians. We lost thousands of innocents, billions of dollars. On the other hand, the British had clear and convincing evidence of the Caroline’s involvement. They invaded our sovereign territory to eliminate that specific threat and killed one U.S. citizen. Webster ranted that they could have at least waited until daylight to tell the difference between the rebels and innocent civilians. We do not even know how many innocents we killed.
Prior to invading Iraq, we did not show a necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation. We did not limit our actions to the necessity of the moment or act upon our own principles. Instead, our nation acted more like teenagers eating blueberries without regard to laws, boundaries and property rights.
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