Churchill’s Mythmaking Years: An Analysis of the Public Opinion of Winston Churchill from 1940 to 1941

Abstract

The causes of the War of 1812 have been debated by historians. Explanations have ranged from reasons such as the hunger for new land to securing commerce and protection for American sailors on the seas. These previous explanations however have left aspects now seen as very important to the history of the early American republic such as religion and Anglo-American republican ideology out of the picture. In this paper various written materials such as poems, newspaper articles and sermons using the methods of conceptual history are used to show the importance of these aspects to the War of 1812 and how a powerful matrix of discourse between competing Christian denominations contributed to the causes and reactions to the War of 1812 among Americans. These reactions created an atmosphere of extreme partisanship between citizens of the United States at the time and divided them along religious and party lines in regard to the war.