“Taking into view the mutual interests which the United States and the foreign nations in amity with her have in a liberal commercial intercourse, and the extensive changes favorable thereto which have recently taken place; taking into view also the important advantages which may otherwise result from adapting the state of our commercial laws to the circumstances now existing,”—
Taking into view only these influences, Madison seemed to ignore the supposed chief motive of the embargo in stopping supplies for Canada, and to admit that embargo was an adjunct of Napoleon’s Continental system; but in truth Madison’s motives, both political and financial, were deeper and more decisive than any he alleged. His retreat was absolute. He recommended that Congress should throw open the ports, and should abandon all restriction on commerce beyond a guaranty of war duties for two years after peace as a measure of protection to American manufactures. The failure of the restrictive system was not disguised.
The House received the Message with a mixed sense of relief and consternation, and referred it to Calhoun’s committee, which reported April 4 a bill for repealing the Embargo and Non-importation Acts, together with the reasons which led the committee to unite with the Executive in abandoning the restrictive system.
Calhoun had always opposed the commercial policy of Jefferson and Madison. For him the sudden Executive change was a conspicuous triumph; but he showed remarkable caution in dealing with the House. Instead of attempting to coerce the majority, according to his habit, by the force of abstract principles, he adopted Madison’s reasoning and softened his own tone, seeming disposed to coax his Southern and Western friends from making a display of useless ill-temper. “Men cannot go straight forward,” he said, “but must regard the obstacles which impede their course. Inconsistency consists in a change of conduct when there is no change of circumstances which justify it.” The changes in the world’s circumstances required a return to free trade; but the manufactures would not be left unprotected,—on the contrary, “he hoped at all times and under every policy they would be protected with due care.”[469]
As an example of political inconsistency, as Calhoun defined it, his pledge to protect American manufactures deserved to be remembered; but hardly had Calhoun’s words died on the echoes of the House when another distinguished statesman offered a prospective example even more striking of what Calhoun excused. Daniel Webster rose, and in the measured and sonorous tones which impressed above all the idea of steadfastness in character, he pronounced a funeral oration over the restrictive system:—
“It was originally offered to the people of this country as a kind of political faith; it was to be believed, not examined; ... it was to be our political salvation, nobody knew exactly how; and any departure from it would lead to political ruin, nobody could tell exactly why.”
Its opponents had uniformly contended that it was auxiliary to Napoleon’s Continental system, in co-operation with Napoleon’s government; and its abandonment with the fall of Napoleon showed the truth. While thus exulting in the overthrow of the first “American system,” Webster qualified his triumph by adding that he was, “generally speaking,” not the enemy of manufactures; he disliked only the rearing them in hot-beds:—
“I am not in haste to see Sheffields and Birminghams in America.... I am not anxious to accelerate the approach of the period when the great mass of American labor shall not find its employment in the field; when the young men of the country shall be obliged to shut their eyes upon external Nature,—upon the heavens and the earth,—and immerse themselves in close and unwholesome workshops; when they shall be obliged to shut their ears to the bleatings of their own flocks upon their own hills, and to the voice of the lark that cheers them at the plough, that they may open them in dust and smoke and steam, to the perpetual whirl of spools and spindles and the grating of rasps and saws.”
Potter of Rhode Island, where the new manufactures centred, spoke hotly against the change. Much Federalist capital had been drawn into the manufacturing business as well as into speculation in all articles of necessity which the blockade and the embargo made scarce. At heart the Federalists were not unanimous in wishing for a repeal of the restrictive system, and Potter represented a considerable class whose interests were involved in maintaining high prices. He admitted that the average duties would still give American manufactures an advantage of thirty-six per cent, without including freight and marine risks, but he insisted that the bill was intended to encourage importations of British goods “that we do not want and can do very well without, in order to raise a revenue from the people in an indirect way.”
Probably Potter’s explanation of the change in system was correct. The necessities of the Treasury were doubtless a decisive cause of Madison’s step; but these necessities were foreseen by the Federalists when Madison recommended the embargo, and the neglect to give them due weight exposed the Administration to grave reproach. “A government which cannot administer the affairs of a nation,” said Webster, “without producing so frequent and such violent alterations in the ordinary occupations and pursuits of private life, has in my opinion little claim to the regard of the community.”