The intercourse between the Eastern States and the enemy was notorious. The Federalist press of Massachusetts, encouraged by Russian and English success in Europe, discussed the idea of withdrawing the State from all share in the war, and making a separate arrangement with England. The President’s first act, after sending to Congress his Annual Message, was to send a special Message incidentally calling attention to the want of harmony that paralyzed the energy of the government.
The special and secret Message of December 9 asked Congress once more to impose an embargo. Considering the notorious antipathy of the Eastern States to the system of embargo, the new experiment was so hazardous as to require proof of its necessity. That it was directed against the commerce of the New England States was evident, for the blockade answered the purposes of embargo elsewhere. The Message seemed to propose that all commerce should cease because any commerce must favor the enemy; in effect, it urged that New England should be forbidden to sell or buy so long as the rest of the country was prevented from doing so.
“The tendency of our commercial and navigation laws in their present state to favor the enemy,” said Madison,[466] “and thereby prolong the war, is more and more developed by experience. Supplies of the most essential kinds find their way not only to British ports and British armies at a distance, but the armies in our neighborhood with which our own are contending derive from our ports and outlets a subsistence attainable with difficulty if at all from other sources. Even the fleets and troops infesting our coasts and waters are by like supplies accommodated and encouraged in their predatory and incursive warfare. Abuses having a like tendency take place in our import trade. British fabrics and products find their way into our ports under the name and from the ports of other countries, and often in British vessels disguised as neutrals by false colors and papers.... To shorten as much as possible the duration of the war, it is indispensable that the enemy should feel all the pressure that can be given to it.”
Although Madison pointed to the notorious supply of food for the British forces in Canada as one of the motives for imposing an embargo, no one supposed that motive to be decisive. Other laws already forbade and punished such communication with the enemy; and experience proved that a general embargo would be no more effective than any special prohibition. The idea that England could be distressed by an embargo seemed still less likely to influence Government. Congress knew that Russia, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Spain, and South America were already open to English commerce, and that a few days must decide whether Napoleon could much longer prevent Great Britain from trading with France. The possibility of distressing England by closing Boston and Salem, New Bedford and Newport to neutral ships was not to be seriously treated.
Whatever was the true motive of the President’s recommendation, Congress instantly approved it. The next day, December 10, the House went into secret session, and after two days of debate passed an Embargo Act by a vote of eighty-five to fifty-seven, which quickly passed the Senate by a vote of twenty to fourteen, and received the President’s approval December 17, being the first legislation adopted at the second session of the Thirteenth Congress.[467] The Act was at once enforced with so much severity that within a month Congress was obliged to consider and quickly adopted another Act[468] relieving from its operation the people of Nantucket, who were in a state of starvation, all communication with the main land having been forbidden by the law; but nothing proved that the illicit communication with Canada ceased.
This beginning of legislation at a time when the crisis of the war could be plainly seen approaching suggested much besides want of harmony. The embargo strengthened the antipathy of New England to the war,—a result sufficiently unfortunate; but it also led to a number of other consequences that were doubtless foreseen by the Administration, since they were prophesied by the Federalists. The Act was approved December 17. Hardly had it gone into operation when the British schooner “Bramble” arrived at Annapolis, December 30, bringing a letter from Castlereagh to Monroe offering to negotiate directly, though declining mediation. Important as this news was, it did not compare with that in the newspapers brought by the “Bramble.” These contained official reports from Germany of great battles fought at Leipzig October 16, 18, and 19, in which the allies had overwhelmed Napoleon in defeat so disastrous that any hope of his continuing to make head against them in Germany was at an end. Except France, the whole continent of Europe already was open to British commerce, or soon must admit it. From that moment the New England Federalists no longer doubted their own power. Their tone rose; their opposition to the war became more threatening; their schemes ceased to be negative, and began to include plans for positive interference; and the embargo added strength to their hatred of Madison and the Union.
Madison was seldom quick in changing his views, but the battle of Leipzig was an event so portentous that optimism could not face it. Other depressing news poured in. Fort George was evacuated; Fort Niagara was disgracefully lost; Lewiston, Black Rock, and Buffalo were burned, and the region about Niagara was laid waste; blue lights were seen at New London. Every prospect was dark, but the battle of Leipzig was fatal to the last glimmer of hope that England could be brought to reason, or that New England could be kept quiet. A change of policy could not safely be delayed.
Castlereagh’s offer was instantly accepted. January 5 Monroe replied, with some complaint at the refusal of mediation, that the President acceded to the offer of negotiating at Gothenburg. The next day Madison sent the correspondence to Congress, with a warning not to relax “vigorous preparations for carrying on the war.” A week afterward, January 14, he nominated J. Q. Adams, J. A. Bayard, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell as commissioners to negotiate directly with Great Britain, and the Senate confirmed the nominations, January 18, with little opposition except to Jonathan Russell’s further nomination as Minister to Sweden, which was confirmed by the narrow vote of sixteen to fourteen. Three weeks later, February 8, Albert Gallatin was added to the commission, George W. Campbell being nominated to the Treasury.
The prompt acceptance of Castlereagh’s offer, the addition of Henry Clay to the negotiators, and the removal of Gallatin from the Treasury showed that diplomacy had resumed more than its old importance. The hope of peace might serve to quiet New England for a time, but mere hope with so little to nourish it could not long pacify any one, if the embargo was to remain in force. Several signs indicated there also a change of policy. Besides the embargo, and in support of its restrictions, Madison had recommended the passage of bills prohibiting collusive captures, ransoming vessels captured by the enemy, and interference by the courts, as well as the introduction of British woollens, cottons, and spirits. The bill prohibiting woollens and other articles was reported to the Senate December 30, the day when the “Bramble” reached Annapolis. The Senate waited nearly a month, till January 27, and then passed the bill, January 31, by a vote of sixteen to twelve. The House referred it to the Committee on Foreign Relations February 3, where it remained. On the other hand, the bill prohibiting ransoms was introduced in the House December 30, and passed January 26 by a vote of eighty to fifty-seven. The Senate referred it January 28 to the Committee on Foreign Relations, which never reported it. The fate of these measures foreshadowed the destiny of the embargo.
Yet the President clung to his favorite measure with a degree of obstinacy that resembled desperation. Congress showed by its indifference to the two supplementary bills that it had abandoned the President’s system as early as January, but the embargo continued throughout the winter, and the month of March passed without its removal. The news from Europe at the close of that month left no doubt that Napoleon could offer little effectual resistance even in France to the allies, whose armies were known to have crossed the Rhine, while Wellington advanced on Bordeaux. Holland was restored to her ancient independence, and Napoleon was understood to have accepted in principle, for a proposed Congress at Mannheim, the old boundaries of France as a basis of negotiation. In theory, the overthrow of Napoleon should have not essentially affected the embargo or the Non-importation Acts, which were expected to press upon England independently of Napoleon’s Continental system; but in practice the embargo having produced no apparent effect on Europe during the war, could not be expected to produce an effect after England had succeeded in conquering France, and had abandoned her blockades as France had abandoned her decrees. For that reason avowedly Madison at last yielded, and sent a Message to Congress March 31, recommending that the system of commercial restriction should cease:—