Thanks for posting. Great article.
Madison was a quite ineffectual president, and by far the worst American war president. With any other American wartime president in control, we would have conquered Canada.
Whether we would have been able to keep it is another question entirely, of course.
The author’s question of whether a more powerful American navy might have prevented the War of 1812 is unreasonable, IMO. The US of the time was totally unable to field a navy capable of challenging the Royal Navy for command of the seas. And an attempt to do so would in all likelihood have irritated the Brits so much the war would have become more inevitable, not less. As the German attempt to challenge the RN at sea was a major cause of WWI.
A navy that is good, but not large enough to actually win is both expensive and pretty much a waste of time.
I would give the 'distinction' of the worst war president to Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Madison appointed some damn poor military commanders to fight against the toughest army in the world and the results were nearly disastrous.
Johnson had excellent military commanders and the most powerful army in the world, but he refused to listen to those commanders or unleash to full potential of the army and the results were disastrous.