Preservation of the rights of an independent nation to engage in free commerce upon the high seas and the protection of its citizens upon the high seas as well as in western territories where (at least so it was thought at the time) the British were instigating Indians to make war on the United States.
President Madison notes in his request to the congress for a Declaration of War that "To the most insulting pretensions they have added the most lawless proceedings in our very harbors, and have wantonly spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction. . . ."
"We behold our seafaring citizens still the daily victims of lawless violence, committed on the great common and highway of nations, even within sight of the country which owes them protection. We behold our vessels, freighted with the products of our soil and industry, or returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested from their lawful destinations, confiscated by prize courts no longer the organs of public law but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their unfortunate crews dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British ports into British fleets, whilst arguments are employed in support of these aggressions which have no foundation but in a principle equally supporting a claim to regulate our external commerce in all cases whatsoever.
We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain a state of war against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace toward Great Britain.
Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force in defense of their national rights..." was a matter for Congress to decide. Their decision was for using force in defense of national rights. (see http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Campus/6925/doc_madison.htm ). At no point does Madison adress the idea of annexing Canada in his request.
Now I am certainly not saying that there were not war hawks who wanted to annex Canada, but the annexation of Canada by itself could never have been a cause for war - the declaration of war was not based on those grounds and it was not a specific war aim in and of itself.
The cause of the war, as outlined by Madison, was agression by the British, an agression which extendend not only to the high seas but within the terrirotial waters of the United States. The British, in Madison's view were already at war with America, and it was in defence of our nation that the congress declared war on England, et al.
If this defence of the nation is to be taken as the war aim of the United States, then the US was successful in that aim. In short, it can claim victory, if only a limited one.
michael
By this I don't really mean militarily, but it did lead to Canadian unity even if the basis was anti-US feelings. I don't think I said that very eloquently. I am fuzzy brained this morning.
