The Embargo and Non-intercourse Acts.-In 1806,Congress passed and Jefferson approved a non-importation act closing American ports to certain products from British dominions-a measure intended as a club over the Brit-ish government's head.This law,failing in its purpose,Jefferson proposed and Congress adopted in December,1807,the Embargo Act forbidding all vessels to leave American harbors for foreign ports.France and England were to be brought to terms by cutting off their supplies.
The result of the embargo was pathetic.England and France refused to give up search and seizure.American ship owners who,lured by huge profits,had formerly been willing to take the risk were now restrained by law to their home ports.Every section suffered.The South and West found their markets for cotton,rice,tobacco,corn,and bacon curtailed.Thus they learned by bitter experience the national significance of commerce.Ship masters,ship builders,longshoremen,and sailors were thrown out of employment while the prices offoreign goods doubled.Those who obeyed the law were ruined;violators of the law smuggled goods into Canada and Florida for shipment abroad.
Jefferson's friends accepted the medicine with a wry face as the only alternative to supine submission or open war.His opponents,without offering any solution of their own,denounced it as a contemptible plan that brought neither relief nor honor.Beset by the clamor that arose on all sides,Congress,in the closing days of Jefferson's administration,repealed the Embargo law and substituted a Non-intercourse act forbidding trade with England and France while permitting it with other countries-a measure equally futile in staying the depredations on American shipping.
Jefferson Retires in Favor of Madison.-Jefferson,exhausted by endless wrangling and wounded,as Washington had been,by savage criticism,wel-comed March 4,1809.His friends urged him to "stay by the ship"and accept a third term.He declined,saying that election for life might result from repeated re?lection.In following Washington's course and defending it on principle,he set an example to all his successors,making the "third term doctrine"a part of American unwritten law.
His intimate friend,James Madison,to whom he turned over the burdens of his high office was,like himself,a man of peace.Madison had been a leader since the days of the Revolution,but in legislative halls and council chambers,not on the field of battle.Small in stature,sensitive in feelings,studious in habits,he was no man for the rough and tumble of practical politics.He had taken a prominent and distinguished part in the framing and the adoption of the Constitution.He had served in the first Congress as a friend of Hamilton's measures.Later he attached himself to Jefferson's fortunes and served for eight years as his first counselor,the Secretary of State.The principles of the Constitution,which he had helped to make and interpret,he was now as President called upon to apply in one of the most perplexing moments in all American history.In keeping with his own traditions and following in the footsteps of Jefferson,he vainly tried to solve the foreign problem by negotiation.
The Trend of Events.-Whatever difficulties Madison had in making up his mind on war and peace were settled by events beyond his own control.In the spring of 1811,a British frigate held up an American ship near the harbor of New York and impressed a seaman alleged to be an American citizen.Burn-ing with resentment,the captain of the President,an American warship,acting under orders,poured several broadsides into the Little Belt,a British sloop,suspected of being the guilty party.The British also encouraged the Indian chief Tecumseh,who welded together the Indians of the Northwest under Britishprotection and gave signs of restlessness presaging a revolt.This sent a note of alarm along the frontier that was not checked even when,in November,Tecum-seh's men were badly beaten at Tippecanoe by William Henry Harrison.The In-dians stood in the way of the advancing frontier,and it seemed to the pioneers that,without support from the British in Canada,the Red Men would soon be subdued.
Clay and Calhoun.-While events were moving swiftly and rumors were fly-ing thick and fast,the mastery of the government passed from the uncertain hands of Madison to a party of ardent young men in Congress,dubbed "Young Republicans,"under the leadership of two members destined to be mighty figures in American history:Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C.Calhoun of South Carolina.The former contended,in a flair of folly,that "the militia of Kentucky alone are competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet."The latter with a light heart spoke of conquering Canada in a four weeks'campaign."It must not be inferred,"says Channing,"that in advocating con-quest,the Westerners were actuated merely by desire for land;they welcomed war because they thought it would be the easiest way to abate Indian troubles.The savages were supported by the fur-trading interests that centred at Que-bec and London....The Southerners on their part wished for Florida and they thought that the conquest of Canada would obviate some Northern opposition to this acquisition of slave territory."While Clay and Calhoun,spokesmen of the West and South,were not unmindful of what Napoleon had done to American commerce,they knew that their followers still remembered with deep gratitude the aid of the French in the war for independence and that the embers of the old hatred for George III,still on the throne,could be readily blown into flame.