Embargo Act

EMBARGO ACT

EMBARGO ACT. From the opening of hostilities between Great Britain and France in 1803, the United States had found it difficult to steer a neutral course. Hoping to gain economic superiority, both nations attempted to restrict neutral countries from trading with the other. The United States claimed that its official policy of neutrality allowed it to engage in unmolested trade and commerce with both countries. However, although the French and British had committed occasional infractions to American shipping, the United States offered no more than casual protest over such occurrences.

That changed in 1806 when Napoleon Bonaparte issued his Berlin Decree. It declared that the French would blockade the British Isles. In reality this meant little, given the poor condition of their navy. However, Napoleon further decreed that neutral ships carrying British-made goods were subject to seizure, thus opening the way for privateers to attack American shipping. The following year, the British government responded with the Orders in Council that established a blockade on all European ports controlled by Napoleon. In addition, these Orders mandated that all neutral vessels stop in Britain and pay a transit duty if they wished to trade with any port blockaded by Britain. Later in the year, Napoleon retaliated with his Milan Decree, which authorized the seizure of any neutral vessels submitting to the British Orders in Council. This economic warfare greatly hindered the ability of the United States to conduct any meaningful trade in Europe.

The USS Chesapeake incident in June 1807 further strained American relations with Britain. The crew of the British ship Leopard fired upon the Chesapeake and boarded the ship in search of British deserters. Despite calls for war by some in Congress, President Thomas Jefferson chose to retaliate with economic sanctions. The Embargo Act, passed by Congress on 22 December 1807, was designed to punish France and Britain as well as protect American shipping from any further acts of aggression by either nation. The act forbade American ships and goods from leaving American ports except for those vessels in the coastal trade. Those who traded along the eastern seaboard had to post bond double the value of their vessel and cargo as a guarantee that the cargo would be delivered to an American port. Loopholes in the initial act allowed merchants to push the limits of legal trading, resulting in additional restrictions passed by Congress over the ensuing months to enforce compliance to the act. The restrictions culminated in the passage of the Enforcement Act of 1809, also referred to as the Giles Enforcement Act, which allowed customs officials to call out the militia to help enforce the embargo.

The embargo successfully curbed American commerce abroad. In 1807, the year the embargo was passed, the total exports for the United States reached $108 million. One year later, that number had declined to just over $22 million. New England was hit hardest by the embargo since it was a region heavily involved in international commerce. Other commercial cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, also suffered from the embargo. Overall, American trade declined by up to 75 percent for exports and 50 percent for imports. The embargo had less of an impact in the middle states and the South, where loyalty was greater to Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. In addition, the southern economy was based more upon agricultural production than the shipping industry.

The Federalist Party, politically in control of most New England states during the years of the embargo, vigorously protested against the act on several grounds. Some accused Jefferson of exercising arbitrary powers that infringed upon the constitutional rights guaranteed to states and citizens. Many protestors harkened back to the spirit of the American Revolution, when resistance to Britain had been based upon commercial restrictions. To many Americans, the Embargo Act resembled the restrictions of trade placed upon the American colonies in the 1760s (Townsend Duties) and 1774 (Coercive Acts) by the British government. Since they and their forebears had protested those acts in the generation prior, they felt free to protest the Embargo Act as another injustice that needed repealing. Some also criticized the act for having no terminus, implying that the embargo could go on for years since the Embargo Act did not specify a termination date. Yet others suggested that only a stronger navy, not an embargo, would prevent future violations by foreign powers. Finally, many Federalists believed that Jefferson's policy had evolved out of his bias toward the French and, conversely, his distaste for the British.

By the end of 1808, resistance to the Embargo Act had grown significantly across the nation because of increasing financial loss. Some New England politicians hinted that if the embargo was not lifted, it would be the duty of states and individuals to nullify such a damaging law. Smuggling dramatically increased, particularly across the Canadian border. From a practical standpoint, the embargo appeared to be a failure because neither France nor Britain backed down from their original decrees curtailing neutral shipping. Although Jefferson continued to insist that the embargo would eventually work, Congress thought otherwise, and on 1 March 1809, the Embargo Act was replaced with the Nonintercourse Act, which reopened American ports to trade with all nations except Britain and France.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: The Forgotten Conflict. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989. Effectively puts the Embargo Act into greater context.

Sears, Louis. Jefferson and the Embargo. 1927. Reprint, New York: Octagon, 1966.

Spivak, Burton. Jefferson's English Crisis: Commerce, Embargo, and the Republican Revolution. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1979.

Keith Pacholl

See also Chesapeake-Leopard Incident ; Federalist Party ; Nonintercourse Act .