Michael: The Founding Fathers designed the presidency to be weak, especially in war. They were absolutely terrified of a king. Kevin: Right, they’d just gotten rid of one. They weren't looking to hire another. Michael: Exactly. Yet today, one person can launch nuclear weapons. We're going to explore the very first crack in that design—a story involving a burning capital and a fugitive president. Kevin: A fugitive president? That sounds like a political thriller, not a history lesson. Where does a story like that even come from? Michael: It all comes from Michael Beschloss's incredible book, Presidents of War. It’s a monumental piece of work. Kevin: And this isn't just some quick take. I read that Beschloss spent a full decade writing this, digging through old diaries, once-classified documents, everything. He really wanted to get inside the heads of these leaders during the worst moments of their lives. Michael: He did. And the story really kicks off with a moment of pure crisis at sea, long before any war was officially declared, under President Thomas Jefferson.

Kevin: Okay, so Jefferson. I think of him as the philosopher-president, the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Not exactly a warlord. Michael: That’s the perfect way to put it. And that’s the central tension. In June 1807, an American naval frigate, the USS Chesapeake, is just leaving Norfolk, Virginia. It's not ready for a fight. The decks are cluttered with supplies, even livestock. It's a ship heading out for a long mission, not for battle. Kevin: Sounds like they were caught completely off guard. Michael: Completely. A powerful British warship, the HMS Leopard, sails up and demands to search the Chesapeake for deserters from the Royal Navy. Kevin: Hold on, what exactly is 'impressment'? It sounds like a fancy word for kidnapping. Michael: That's precisely what it was. The British Navy was chronically short on sailors, so they claimed the right to stop ships of other nations—including American ships—and forcibly conscript any sailor they suspected of being a British subject. It was a massive violation of American sovereignty. Kevin: So it’s state-sanctioned kidnapping on the high seas. I can’t imagine the American captain was thrilled about that. Michael: Commodore James Barron, the American commander, refused. He said he would never let his crew be mustered by anyone but its own officers. The British captain didn't argue. He just fired a warning shot, and when Barron still refused, the Leopard unleashed a full, devastating broadside. The Chesapeake was torn to pieces. Three Americans were killed, eighteen wounded. The ship was so unprepared, they could only manage to fire one single shot in return before surrendering. Kevin: Wow. That’s not a battle, that’s an execution. The public must have absolutely lost their minds. Michael: They did. Jefferson himself said, "Never since the battle of Lexington, have I seen this country in such a state of exasperation." He wrote in a letter that the affair "put war into my hand. I had only to open it, and let havoc loose." The country was unified in its rage and ready for a fight. Kevin: So why didn't he go to war? It seems like a political slam dunk. He’d have the whole country behind him. Michael: Because at his core, Jefferson was terrified of what war does to a republic. He believed a large standing army and navy were, in his words, a "ruinous folly" that would lead to debt, tyranny, and endless conflict. He had spent his first term slashing the military budget in half. The last thing he wanted was to build it back up. Kevin: Okay, so he’s ideologically opposed to the very tools he needs to respond. What does he do instead? Michael: He tries what he calls "peaceful coercion." He gets Congress to pass the Embargo Act of 1807, which basically forbids all American ships from trading with any foreign port. The idea was to hurt Britain and France economically until they respected American rights. Kevin: And how did that work out? Michael: It was an absolute catastrophe. It devastated the American economy. Farmers' crops rotted on the docks, fishermen in New England were starving, merchants went bankrupt. Jefferson started getting letters with threats like, "You Infernal Villain…How much longer are you going to keep this damned Embargo on to starve us poor people?" Kevin: So his big plan was to starve his own country into prosperity? That's... a bold strategy. Michael: It gets even stranger. While the embargo was failing, he got fascinated by Robert Fulton—the steamboat guy—who had also invented an underwater explosive. A torpedo. Jefferson became obsessed with the idea that these cheap, invisible weapons could be a secret defense, allowing America to protect its shores without a big, expensive navy. Kevin: Wait, torpedoes in 1807? That sounds like science fiction. So his grand strategy was economic self-destruction combined with a hope that some mad inventor's underwater bomb would save the day? Michael: That’s a pretty good summary. He was trying anything and everything to avoid the path of conventional war, even if the alternatives were disastrous or fantastical. It shows how deeply his principles ran, but also how they blinded him to the reality of the situation.

Kevin: So Jefferson leaves office, and this whole mess lands in the lap of his successor, James Madison. Michael: Exactly. And Madison, who his critics were already calling a "man of straw," inherits this simmering crisis. The embargo is a failure, Britain is still impressing sailors, and now there's a new force in Congress: the "War Hawks." Kevin: The War Hawks. They sound like the 24/7 cable news pundits of their day. Michael: That's not far off. They were a new generation of young, ambitious congressmen, led by guys like Henry Clay of Kentucky. They were tired of what they saw as American humiliation. Clay gave these fiery speeches, saying he preferred the "troubled ocean of war, demanded by the honor and independence of the country," to the "tranquil, putrescent pool of ignominious peace." Kevin: "Putrescent pool of peace." That's some serious rhetoric. So Madison is getting pressured from the outside by Britain and from the inside by the War Hawks. Michael: He's squeezed. And after a series of diplomatic failures and escalating incidents on the frontier, he finally caves. In June 1812, he asks Congress for a declaration of war. The War Hawks get what they want. Kevin: And I'm guessing the "most glorious war," as they called it, didn't start off so gloriously. Michael: It was a disaster from the get-go. The American plan to invade and conquer Canada was a complete failure. General William Hull surrendered Detroit to the British without much of a fight. The country was deeply divided, especially in New England, where governors refused to send their militias to fight in "Mr. Madison's War." Kevin: This is all setting up for a pretty bleak story. What was the absolute low point? Michael: The low point came in August 1814. The British, having defeated Napoleon in Europe, could now focus their full might on America. They landed an army and marched on Washington D.C. The American defenses collapsed. Kevin: And this is where the fugitive president story comes in. Michael: This is it. As the British entered the city, James Madison was forced to flee. He crossed the Potomac River into Virginia and from a hillside, this small, bookish man who was the chief architect of the Constitution, watched as the British systematically burned the nation's capital. They torched the Capitol building, the Treasury, and the Executive Mansion—the White House. Kevin: I just can't get over that image. The President of the United States, a fugitive, watching his own capital burn. It's like a scene from a disaster movie. It’s the ultimate national humiliation. Michael: It is. And for Beschloss, this is the ultimate symbol of that constitutional tension we talked about. The man who designed the system to constrain power is now utterly powerless, a victim of a war he was pushed into. There's a story that the British Admiral, George Cockburn, went into the House of Representatives, sat in the Speaker's chair, and mockingly asked his men, "Shall this harbor of Yankee democracy be burned? All for it will say, 'Aye!'" And they torched it. Kevin: That's just devastating. So how on earth does a war with that as its low point get remembered as a glorious victory? How does 'Madison's War' become the 'Second War of Independence'?

Michael: That’s the great paradox of this war. Militarily, it was a draw at best, and for long stretches, a humiliating failure. The peace treaty that ended it, the Treaty of Ghent, basically just returned everything to the way it was before the war. The issue of impressment wasn't even mentioned. Kevin: So on paper, they achieved nothing. Michael: On paper, almost nothing. But the story of the war became something else entirely. The narrative shifted. People forgot about the early blunders and the burning of Washington and focused on the heroic moments of defiance. Kevin: Like what? What were the bright spots? Michael: The defense of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner." The stunning naval victories of frigates like the USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides." And most famously, Andrew Jackson's incredible, decisive victory at the Battle of New Orleans. Kevin: Ah, Andrew Jackson. So he saves the day. Michael: He does. But here's the ultimate irony: the Battle of New Orleans was fought in January 1815, two weeks after the peace treaty had been signed in Europe. It had no military bearing on the outcome of the war whatsoever. But the news traveled slowly, so to Americans, it looked like they had beaten the British into submission. Kevin: Wow. So the war's most defining victory was technically pointless. Michael: Militarily, yes. But psychologically, it was everything. The war wasn't about what America won; it was about what it didn't lose. It had taken on the greatest superpower on Earth, suffered terribly, but endured. It had survived. And that survival, capped by Jackson's victory, forged a new, powerful sense of national identity and confidence. The American experiment wasn't so fragile after all. Kevin: So the lesson isn't about winning the war, but about surviving it and, more importantly, controlling the narrative afterward. It set a precedent that a president can lead the country through a disastrous conflict, with immense suffering and humiliation, and still emerge a hero. That's a pretty powerful, and maybe even a pretty dangerous, idea. Michael: It is. And it’s the central question Beschloss keeps returning to in Presidents of War. It makes you wonder what other historical 'victories' look a lot different when you examine them up close. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Find us on social media and let us know what you think. Kevin: This is Aibrary, signing off.