An interesting fact about the War of 1812 is that it was by the end of the war fought with regulars. By 1814, the militia system was so discredited that the military leadership trained and organized our forces on European lines. Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott being the driving forces for this. They proved their mettle along Niagara Front in 1814. They stood toe to toe with Wellington’s veterans at Lundy’s Lane.
I gather from your comment that you did not read this article, and have no familiarity with the Battle of New Orleans. Your comment may apply to the Niagara front, but not to Baltimore or New Orleans.
“militia system was so discredited that the military leadership trained and organized our forces on European lines.”
This was already the case. But the military was tiny and hardly financed. The problem did remain that too many “Jeffersonian” Democratic-Republican attitudes prevailed which remained scared to death of a standing army in addition. Washington had dispensed with that idea long since (it’s a myth that the AmRevWar was really a militia victory; mostly they were failures) and influenced many that the permanent army was necessary, which was largely the Federalist stance - as well as the fact that they preferred the Constitution as a stronger basis for government than the old Articles.