There were several immediate stated causes for the U.S. declaration of war: first, a series of trade restrictions, Orders in Council (1807), introduced by Britain to impede American trade with France, a country with which Britain was at war (the U.S. contested these restrictions as illegal under international law); second, the impressment (forced recruitment) of U.S. citizens into the Royal Navy; third, the British military support for American Indians who were offering armed resistance to the expansion of the American frontier to the Northwest. President James Madison and Congress declared what is sometimes referred to as the 2nd War of Independence, the War of 1812.
You didn't list options, but I'll suggest an item which famously occurred during Warren G. Harding's presidency:
<h2>The Teapot Dome Scandal</h2>
This was a scandal in which one of President Harding's cabinet members illegally leased oil reserves. President Harding was not directly implicated in the scandal, but was affected by it. After President Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall secretly gave Harry Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome reserves in Wyoming. He granted a similar deal to another oil company executive. The secret leases came under Congressional investigation. Congress directed President Harding to cancel the leases, and the Supreme Court ruled that Harding's transfer of authority to Interior Secretary Fall had been illegal. The whole affair took a toll on President Harding's health. He died in office in 1923.
The underground railroad physically resisted the repressive laws that held slaves in bondage, by provoking fear and in anger in the south, and prompting the enactment of harsh legislation that eroded the rights of white Americans, the Underground Railroad was a direct contributing cause of the Civil War.
I believe Kennedy implies this because starting a nuclear war would in the end kill everybody and their would be absolutely no reason to do one.
<em>Hope this helps, Kam</em>
