Further Orders and Decrees

Volume II · Chapter VI · Part 3 of 6 · circa 1809

Destruction of Commerce · Embargo Act

This act caused widespread distress in commercial communities, and the firmness of the government and the patriotism of the people were severely tried for more than a year, under aggravated insults by the British government which exacted tribute in a form more odious than that of the North African robbers. In the spring of 1808, the British Parliament, with an air of condescension, passed an act permitting Americans to trade with France and her dependencies, on the condition that vessels engaged in such trade should first enter some British port, pay a transit duty, and take out a license. In other words, Great Britain said to the United States, with as much insolence as the Dey of Algiers, "Pay me tribute, and my cruisers (or corsairs) will be instructed not to plunder you."

The embargo was denounced by the opposition with great vehemence as an unwise provocative of war. Josiah Quincy, the leader of the Federalists in Congress, said in debate: "Let us once declare to the world that, before our embargo policy be abandoned, the French decrees and the British orders in council must be revoked, and we league against us whatever spirit of honor and pride exists in both those nations. No nation will be easily brought to acknowledge such a dependence on another as to be made to abandon, by a withholding of intercourse, a settled line of policy." It drew from William Cullen Bryant the poet, then a lad only thirteen years of age, a sharp, satirical poem. It was called a "Terrapin policy."-the policy that would shut up the nation in its own shell-and it was caricatured as such by the pencil of Jarvis and the burin of Dr. Anderson. The wise words of Quincy were justified when he said: "A nation mistakes its relative importance and consequence in thinking that its countenance, or its intercourse, or its existence, is all important to the rest of mankind." The embargo failed to obtain from France or Great Britain the slightest acknowledgement of American rights, and it was repealed on the first day of March, 1809-three days before Mr. Jefferson left the Presidential chair to make room for James Madison, who had been elected to succeed him as chief magistrate of the republic. On the same day Congress passed an act forbidding all commercial intercourse with France and Great Britain until the "orders in council" and the "decrees" should be repealed.
In the debates on the embargo, the most violent attacks upon the administration and its supporters were sometimes indulged in, upon the floor of Congress. In this course, Barent Gardinier, of New York, was most conspicuous, making sweeping charges of corruption. His violence and abuse was such that severe personal allusion to Gardinier was elicited from Campbell of Tennessee. Gardinier challenged him to mortal combat. They met at Bladensburg, when Gardinier was severely wounded in the side, and was borne, fainting, from the field. He soon recovered; and when he reappeared in the House, he was as violent as ever.

It was at this troublous period in our history that Mr. Madison of Virginia began his administration of eight years as President of the republic, with George Clinton of New York as Vice-President. The general aspect of national affairs then was fairly drawn (though somewhat highly-colored) in a report of a committee of the Massachusetts legislature in January, 1809, which said: "Our agriculture is discouraged; the fisheries abandoned; navigation forbidden; our commerce at home restrained, if not annihilated; our commerce abroad cut off; our navy sold, dismantled, or degraded to the service of cutters or gun-boats; the revenue extinguished; the course of justice interrupted; and the nation weakened by internal animosities and divisions, at the moment when it is unnecessarily and improvidently exposed to war with Great Britain, France, and Spain." It was believed that the new President would perpetuate the policy of Jefferson; but when, dressed in a suit of plain black cloth, he modestly pronounced his inaugural address before a multitude of eager spectators, on the 4th of March, 1809, the tone and temper of that speech fell like oil upon troubled waters. His most placable political enemies who heard him, and those who read the address, could not refrain from uttering words of approbation; and the whole nation entertained hopes that his measures might change the gloomy aspect of public affairs. He had able constitutional advisers in Robert Smith as Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury; William Eustis, Secretary of War; Paul Hamilton, Secretary of the Navy, and Caesar Rodney, Attorney-General. There was a powerful party in the nation hostile to his political creed and opposed to war with Great Britain, which then seemed to be an event in the near future.

At the beginning of his administration, Madison was assured by the British minister at Washington (Mr. Erskine) that such portions of the orders in council as affected the United States would be repealed by the 10th of June; and that a special envoy would be sent by his government to adjust all matters in dispute. Regarding these assurances as official, the event seemed like a ray of sunlight among the tempestuous clouds. The President issued a proclamation on the 19th of April (1809) permitting a renewal of commercial intercourse with Great Britain from that day; but the British government disavowed Erskine's act, and in August the President, by proclamation, renewed the restrictions. This event produced intense excitement throughout our country; and had the President then proclaimed war against Great Britain, it would undoubtedly have been a popular measure.

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