Embargo Act

Embargo Act, (1807), U.S. Pres. Thomas Jefferson’s nonviolent resistance to British and French molestation of U.S. merchant ships carrying, or suspected of carrying, war materials and other cargoes to European belligerents during the Napoleonic Wars.

By 1807 the struggle between England and France had degenerated into a war of economic retribution, as each side attempted to starve the other into submission. Adm. Horatio Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805 had given Britain mastery of the seas, but Napoleon still controlled much of continental Europe. Lacking a fleet that could directly threaten Britain, Napoleon implemented the Continental System, a pair of decrees (November 21, 1806, and December 17, 1807) that prohibited British trade with the Continent and threatened seizure of any neutral vessels found trading with England. The British responded by issuing orders in council (November 11, 18, and 25 and December 18, 1807) that imposed a blockade on Napoleonic Europe. In the midst of that economic vise was the neutral United States. With no significant navy, Napoleon was forced to confine his efforts to U.S. vessels in French ports. Thus, the attention of the United States was directed primarily at British actions on the high seas that violated international law.

Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison determined to enforce a recognition of American rights by commercial retaliation, a concept rooted in American foreign policy since the Nonimportation Agreements that preceded the American Revolution. A nonimportation act adopted by Congress in 1806 excluded from the U.S. a limited variety of British manufactured goods, but the operation of the act was delayed for a year pending negotiations for a settlement. In June 1807 Anglo-American relations deteriorated further when the British frigate Leopard fired upon the U.S. warship Chesapeake and forced it to submit to a search for British deserters. Impressment, a practice previously confined to American merchant vessels, was thus extended to a public armed vessel of the United States. Amid a general clamour for war, Jefferson opted for an economic response.

At Jefferson’s request the two houses of Congress considered and passed the Embargo Act quickly in December 1807. All U.S. ports were closed to export shipping in either U.S. or foreign vessels, and restrictions were placed on imports from Great Britain. The act was a hardship on U.S. farmers as well as on New England and New York mercantile and maritime interests, especially after being buttressed by harsh enforcement measures adopted in 1808. Its effects in Europe were not what Jefferson had hoped. French and British dealers in U.S. cotton, for example, were able to raise prices at will while the stock already on hand lasted; the embargo would have had to endure until these inventories were exhausted. Napoleon is said to have justified seizure of U.S. merchant ships on the grounds that he was assisting Jefferson in enforcing the act. The Federalist leader Timothy Pickering even alleged that Napoleon himself had inspired the embargo.

Confronted by bitter and articulate opposition, Jefferson on March 1, 1809 (two days before the end of his second term), signed the Non-Intercourse Act, permitting U.S. trade with countries other than France and Great Britain. U.S. trade restrictions were rolled back entirely by Macon’s Bill No. 2 (1810), which authorized the president, upon normalization of commercial relations with either England or France, to reinstate nonintercourse against the other. Seizing the opportunity, Napoleon announced that his decrees were repealed, insofar as they affected the United States. After waiting several months for a similar response from England, Madison—who had succeeded Jefferson as president—prohibited trade with Great Britain in February 1811. That action helped set the stage for the War of 1812.