Thomas Jefferson at the beginning of his second term
had announced that he would not serve in a third term,
and by 1807 he was looking forward to retiring.
Politicians began working with those who were rising
and not the one who was declining.
On January 13 Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Dickinson,
It is but too true that great discontents exist
in the territory of Orleans.
Those of the French inhabitants have for their sources,
1, the prohibition of importing slaves.
This may be partly removed by Congress permitting
them to receive slaves from the other States, which,
by dividing that evil, would lessen its danger;
2, the administration of justice in our forms, principles,
& language, with all of which they are unacquainted,
& are the more abhorrent, because of the enormous
expense, greatly exaggerated by the corruption
of bankrupt & greedy lawyers, who have gone there
from the United States & engrossed the practice;
3, the call on them by the land commissioners
to produce the titles of their lands.
The object of this is really to record & secure their rights.
But as many of them hold on rights so ancient that
the title papers are lost, they expect the land is to be
taken from them wherever they cannot produce
a regular deduction of title in writing.
In this they will be undeceived by the final result,
which will evince to them a liberal disposition
of the government towards them.
Among the American inhabitants it is
the old division of federalists & republicans.
The former are as hostile there as they are everywhere,
& are the most numerous & wealthy.
They have been long endeavoring to batter down
the Governor, who has always been a firm republican.
There were characters superior to him whom
I wished to appoint, but they refused the office:
I know no better man who would accept of it,
and it would not be right to turn him out for one not better.
But it is the 2nd cause, above mentioned,
which is deep-seated & permanent.
The French members of the Legislature, being the
majority in both Houses, lately passed an act
declaring that the civil or French laws should be
the laws of their land, and enumerated about 50 folio
volumes in Latin as the depositories of these laws.
The Governor negatived the act.
One of the houses thereupon passed a vote for
self-dissolution of the Legislature as a useless body,
which failed in the other House by a single vote only.
They separated, however, & have disseminated
all the discontent they could.
I propose to the members of Congress in conversation,
the enlisting 30,000 volunteers, Americans by birth, to be
carried at the public expense, & settled immediately on a
bounty of 160 acres of land each on the west side of the
Mississippi on the condition of giving two years of military
service, if that country should be attacked within 7 years.
The defense of the country would thus be placed on the
spot, and the additional number would entitle the territory
to become a State, would make the majority American,
& make it an American instead of a French State.
This would not sweeten the pill to the French; but in making
that acquisition we had some view to our own good as well
as theirs, and I believe the greatest good of both will be
promoted by whatever will amalgamate us together….
I am tired of an office where I can do no more good
than many others, who would be glad to be employed in it.
To myself, personally, it brings nothing
but unceasing drudgery & daily loss of friends….
My only consolation is in the belief that my fellow citizens
at large give me credit for good intentions.
I will certainly endeavor to merit the continuance
of that good-will which follows well-intended actions,
and their approbation will be the dearest reward
I can carry into retirement.1
Attorney General John Breckinridge died in December 1806,
and on 20 January 1807 Jefferson appointed Caesar A. Rodney to succeed him.
Two days later the President presented to Congress his report on
Burr’s treasonous conspiracy based on Wilkinson’s reports that included
Wilkinson’s version of Burr’s letter written on July 29 from Samuel Swartwout.
Jefferson commended Wilkinson’s actions.
Gov. Wilkinson had the former Kentucky Senator John Adair arrested
on January 14,
and Swartwout and Bollman were taken into military custody on January 23.
On February 28 Jefferson nominated Captain Meriwether Lewis
to replace Wilkinson as the governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory.
On 7 January 1807 British Foreign Secretary Earl Grey had ordered
the end of American coasting privileges that had allowed them to sail
from one European port to another to find the best prices.
This would double the cost of neutral ships and the risk of neutral commerce.
Jefferson recommended abolishing the slave trade, and on February 26
the Congress cooperated to ban it starting on 1 January 1808.
The fine for knowingly buying an illegally imported black was $800,
and equipping a slaver could result in a fine of $20,000.
In the previous thirty years only South Carolina had
allowed the importation of slaves and only for six years,
and during the last four years (1804-07) they imported 39,310 slaves.
As the number of available slaves decreased,
they became more valuable, increasing the incentive for smuggling slaves.
The new laws were rarely enforced, but the slave trade was driven underground.
In the next half century about 250,000 slaves
would be illegally imported into the United States.
On 25 March 1807 the British Parliament abolished their slave trade.
President Jefferson asked for a constitutional amendment so that
they could fund public education and internal transportation.
The House was supporting state rights and rejected Jefferson’s
requests for fortifying seaports, the army, and the militias.
The Republicans eliminated the salt tax, the last of the domestic taxes.
The southern and northern states agreed to appropriate $50,000 for a coast survey.
In late February the Senate confirmed Meriwether Lewis
as Governor of the Louisiana Territory.
On March 13 Jefferson wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Gallatin:
The Federalists have so decidedly made common cause
with Burr, that to send a Federalist or a Burrite to the
Orleans territory I consider as the same thing.
Sound republicans alone can be trusted there.
The building a hospital at New Orleans is approved.
I know no place better entitled to it.2
President Jefferson learned of the treaty signed in England on March 3,
the last day of the congressional session, and
the formal document did not arrive until March 15.
He did not like the treaty and refused to call a special session of the Senate.
Its Article V would have pledged the United States to refrain
from discriminating against British commerce for ten years,
and British impressments of American sailors had been left
to an informal agreement and probably would have continued.
Jefferson would not accept a British treaty until their impressments stopped,
though he called for a continuation of friendly relations with the British.
On March 21 he wrote to Monroe in England, urging him to find
informal agreement with the British until they become more yielding.
Monroe was a likely presidential candidate, and
he declined to be the governor of the New Orleans Territory.
On March 26 King George III dismissed Prime Minister Grenville
and Foreign Secretary Grey from their offices.
On June 15 a grand jury voted 9-7 not to indict General Wilkinson for treason.
George Hay was the United States District Attorney for Virginia,
and in the month of June in 1807 President Jefferson
wrote eleven letters to him including this one:
Dear Sir, Washington June 20. 07
Mr. Latrobe now comes on as a witness against Burr.
His presence here is with great inconvenience dispensed
with, as the 150 workmen require his constant directions
on various public works of pressing importance.
I hope you will permit him
to come away as soon as possible.
How far his testimony will be important as to the prisoner
I know not, but I am desirous that those meetings
of Yrujo with Burr & his principal accomplices should
come fully out & judicially, as they will establish
the just complaints we have against his nation.
I did not see till last night the opinion of the judge
on the subpoena duces tecum against the President.
Considering the question there as coram non judice,
I did not read his argument with much attention.
Yet I saw readily enough that, as is usual where an opinion
is to be supported, right or wrong, he dwells much on
smaller objections & passes over those which are solid.
Laying down the position generally that all persons
owe obedience to a subpoena, he admits no exception
unless it can be produced in his lawbooks.
But if the Constitution enjoins on a particular officer to be
always engaged in a particular set of duties imposed on him,
does not this supersede the general law subjecting him
to minor duties inconsistent with these?
The Constitution enjoins his constant agency
in the concerns of 6 millions of people.
Is the law paramount to this which
calls on him on behalf of a single one?
Let us apply the judges own doctrine
to the case of himself & his brethren.
The sheriff of Henrico summons him from the bench
to quell a riot somewhere in his county.
The federal judge is, by the general law,
a parte of the posse of the state sheriff.
Would the judge abandon major duties
to perform lesser ones? again.
The court of Orleans or Maine commands by subpoenas
the attendance of all the judges of the supreme court.
Would they abandon their posts as judges &
the interests of millions committed to them,
to save the purposes of a single individual?
The leading principle of our Constitution is the independence
of the Legislative, Executive & Judiciary of each other,
& none are more jealous of this than the Judiciary.
But would the Executive be independent of the Judiciary
if he were subject to the commands of the latter
& to imprisonment for disobedience; if the several courts
could bandy him from pillar to post, keep him constantly
trudging from North to South & East to West, and
withdraw him entirely from his constitutional duties?
The intention of the Constitution that each branch should
be independent of the others is further manifested
by the means it has furnished to each to protect itself
from enterprises of force attempted on them by the others,
and to none has it given more effectual or diversified
means than to the Executive.
Again, because ministers can go into a court in London
as witnesses without interruption to their executive duties,
it is inferred that they would go to a court 1000 or 1500
miles off, and that ours are to be dragged from Maine
to Orleans by every criminal who will swear that
their testimony “may be of use to him.”
The judge says “it is apparent that the President’s duties
as chief magistrate do not demand his whole time,
& are not unremitting.”
If he alludes to our annual retirement from the seat
of government during the sickly season, he should
be told that such arrangements are made for carrying
on the public business at & between the several
stations we take, that it goes on as unremittingly
there as if we were at the seat of government.
I pass more hours in public business at Monticello
than I do here every day, and it is much more
laborious because all must be done in writing.
Our stations being known, all communications
come to them regularly as to fixed points.
It would be very different were we always
on the road or placed in the noisy &
crowded taverns where courts are held.
Mr. Rodney is expected here every hour,
having been kept away by a sick child.
I salute you with friendship & respect
Th: Jefferson
P.S. I have this moment had a conversation
with an Edward and who was at New Madrid
when Burr was there.
He sets out for Richmond with Mr. Latrobe
& will be worth subpoenaing.
He is known to General Wilkerson.3
On June 22 the British ship Leopard hailed the American frigate Chesapeake
near Norfolk, Virginia and demanded that they surrender the British deserters.
Commodore James Barron refused to let the British crew on board,
and the Leopard fired broadsides, killing three men
and wounding Barron and fifteen others.
Barron capitulated, and the British removed four crewman from the Chesapeake.
Three were Americans who had deserted from the Melampus,
and the other was a British deserter from the Halifax.
Americans reacted quickly to this outrage, and on June 24
citizens in Norfolk and Portsmouth adopted several unanimous resolutions.
President Jefferson learned of the incident on June 25 and declined to retaliate.
On July 2 his proclamation ordered all British warships to leave American waters.
If they did not, he prohibited trade with them or provisioning.
He also recalled American ships from the Mediterranean and sent instructions
to Monroe in London to demand that the British government renounce the actions
of the Leopard and to require the British to disavow searching a public armed vessel.
On July 3 a British squadron blockaded Norfolk.
Jefferson called the Congress to meet in an early session on October 26.
On July 5 the cabinet agreed to call on state governors
to prepare their quotas of 100,000 militia.
The next day Jefferson wrote to Vice President George Clinton
that only the Congress had the power to declare war and that
he did not want to do anything that would commit them
to doing that rather than adopting non-intercourse.
The four crewmen were taken to Halifax for a court martial.
The three Americans were found guilty of desertion,
and the British deserter was hanged.
Jefferson often said that peace was his passion,
and he wanted to apply peaceful pressure.
News arrived that the British government was restricting neutral trade with Europe,
and the Royal Navy had invaded neutral Denmark, seizing its navy.
David Humphreys had been the American minister in Spain,
and he returned from London and reported to the President that
the English people were eager for another war against the Americans.
Jefferson agreed with Madison that a radical response was required.
Gallatin advised moderation, though he considered war inevitable.
In August the President announced that all British ships would be treated as enemies,
and on August 16 he wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Madison,
I received yesterday your two letters without date
on the subjects now to be answered.
I do not see any objection to the appointment
of Mr. Cocke as Agent at Martinique.
That of the Consul at Mogadore is on more difficult ground.
A Consul in Barbary is a diplomatic character,
although the title does not imply that.
He receives a salary fixed by the legislature;
being independent of Simpson we should have
two ministers to the same sovereign.
I should therefore think it better to leave
the port of Mogadore to an Agent of
Simpson’s appointment & under his control.
If anything Thrasonic & foolish from Spain could add
to my contempt of that government it would be
the demand of satisfaction now made by Foronda.
However, respect to ourselves requires that the answer
should be decent; and I think it fortunate that this
opportunity is given to make a strong declaration of facts,
to wit, how far our knowledge of Miranda’s objects went,
what measures we took to prevent anything further,
the negligence of the Spanish agents to give us earlier
notice, & the measures we took for punishing those guilty,
& our quiet abandonment of those taken by the Spaniards.
But I would not say a word in recrimination as to the
Western intrigues of Spain: I think that is the snare
intended by this Protest to make it a set-off for the other.
As soon as we have all the proofs of the Western intrigues
let us make a remonstrance & demand of satisfaction,
&, if Congress approves, we may in the same instant
make reprisals on the Floridas, until satisfaction for that
& for spoliations & until a settlement of boundary.
I had rather have war against Spain than not,
if we go to war against England.
Our Southern defensive force can take the Floridas,
volunteers for a Mexican army will flock to our standard,
& rich pabulum will be offered to our privateers
in the plunder of their commerce & coasts.
Probably Cuba would add itself to our confederation.
The paper in answer to Foronda should I think be drawn
with a view to its being laid before Congress,
& published to the world as our justification against
the imputation of participation in Miranda’s projects.4
On 4 September 1807 Robert Fulton demonstrated his
North River Steamboat (later called the Clermont)
by taking passengers from New York City to Albany.
A crowd of skeptical people gathered at the start
to mock “Fulton’s Folly” by shouting, “She’ll never run!”
After the boat started the journey, they shouted, “She’ll never stop!”
Fulton delivered the passengers to Albany before noon the next day.
He also proposed using torpedoes to defend harbors,
and President Jefferson gave this serious consideration.
On 27 October 1807 Jefferson sent his Seventh Annual Message to Congress.
This is the entire text:
To the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States:
Circumstances, fellow-citizens, which seriously
threatened the peace of our country have made it
a duty to convene you at an earlier period than usual.
The love of peace so much cherished in the bosoms
of our citizens, which has so long guided the
proceedings of their public councils and induced
forbearance under so many wrongs, may not insure
our continuance in the quiet pursuits of industry.
The many injuries and depredations committed on our
commerce and navigation upon the high seas for years past,
the successive innovations on those principles of
public law which have been established by the
reason and usage of nations and peace, and
all the circumstances which induced the extraordinary
mission to London are already known to you.
The instructions given to our ministers were framed
in the sincerest spirit of amity and moderation.
They accordingly proceeded, in conformity therewith,
to propose arrangements which might embrace and
settle all the points in difference between us to a mutual
understanding on our neutral and national rights provide for
a commercial intercourse on conditions of some equality.
After long and fruitless endeavors to effect the purposes of
their mission and to obtain arrangements within the limits of
their instructions, they concluded to sign such as could be
obtained and to send them for consideration, candidly
declaring to the other negotiations at the same time that
they were acting against their instructions, and that their
Government, therefore, could not be pledged for ratification.
Some of the articles proposed might have been
admitted on a principle of compromise, but others
were too highly disadvantageous, and no sufficient
provision was made against the principle source
of the irritations and collisions which were constantly
endangering the peace of the two nations.
The question, therefore, whether a treaty should
be accepted in that form could have admitted
but of one decision, even had no declarations
of the other party impaired our confidence in it.
Still anxious not to close the door against friendly adjustment,
new modifications were framed and further
concessions authorized than could before have been
supposed necessary; and our ministers were instructed
to resume their negotiations on these grounds.
On this new reference to amicable discussion we
were reposing in confidence, when on the 22d day
of June last by a formal order from British admiral the
frigate Chesapeake, leaving her port for a distant service,
was attacked by one of those vessels which had
been lying in our harbors under the indulgences
of hospitality, was disabled from proceeding,
had several of her crew killed and four taken away.
On this outrage no commentaries are necessary.
Its character has been pronounced by the
indignant voice of our citizens with an
emphasis and unanimity never exceeded.
I immediately by proclamation interdicted our harbors and
waters to all British armed vessels, forbade intercourse
with them, and uncertain how far hostilities were intended,
and the town of Norfolk, indeed being threatened with
immediate attack, a sufficient force was ordered for the
protection of that place, and such other preparations
commenced and pursued as the prospect rendered proper.
An armed vessel of the United States was
dispatched with instructions to our ministers
at London to call on that Government for the
satisfaction and security required by the outrage.
A very short interval ought now to bring the answer,
which shall be communicated to you as soon as received;
then also, or as soon after as the public interests
shall be found to admit; the unratified treaty and
proceedings relative to it shall be made known to you.
The aggression thus begun has been continued on the
part of the British commanders by remaining within our
waters in defiance of the authority of the country,
by habitual violations of its jurisdiction, and at length
by putting to death one of the persons whom they
had forcibly taken from on board the Chesapeake.
These aggravations necessarily lead to the policy either
of never admitting an armed vessel into our harbors or
of maintaining in every harbor such an armed force
as may constrain obedience to the laws and protect
the lives and property of our citizens against their
armed guests; but the expense of such a standing force
and its inconsistence with our principles dispense with
those courtesies which would necessarily call for it, and
leave us equally free to exclude the navy, as we are
the army, of a foreign power, from entering our limits.
To former violations of maritime rights
another is now added of very extensive effect.
The Government of that nation has issued an order
interdicting all trade by neutrals between ports not
in amity with them; and being now at war with
nearly every nation on the Atlantic and Mediterranean
seas, our vessels are required to sacrifice their
cargos at the first port they touch or to return home
without the benefit of going to any other market.
Under this new law of the ocean our trade
on the Mediterranean has been swept away
by seizures and condemnations, and that in
other seas is threatened with the same fate.
Our differences with Spain remain still unsettled,
no measure having been taken on her part since my last
communications to Congress to bring them to a close.
But under a state of things which may favor
reconsideration they have been recently pressed,
and an expectation is entertained that they may
now soon be brought to an issue of some sort.
With their subjects on our borders no new collisions have
taken place nor seem immediately to be apprehended.
To our former grounds of complaint has been
added a very serious one, as you will see by
the decree a copy of which is now communicated.
Whether this decree, which professed to be conformable
to that of the French Government of November 21, 1806,
heretofore communicated to Congress, will also be
conformed to that in its construction and application
in relation to the United States had not been
ascertained at the date of our last communications.
These, however, gave reason to expect such a conformity.
With the other nations of Europe our harmony
has been uninterrupted, and commerce and friendly
intercourse have been maintained on their usual footing.
Our peace with the several states on the coast
of Barbary appears as firm as at any former period
and as likely to continue as that of any other nation.
Among our Indian neighbors in the northwestern quarter
some fermentation was observed soon after the late
occurrences, threatening the continuance of our peace.
Messages were said to be interchanged and tokens
to be passing, which usually denote a state of
restlessness among them, and the character
of the agitators pointed to the sources of excitement.
Measures were immediately taken for providing against
that danger; instructions were given to require explanations,
and, with assurances of our continued friendship,
to admonish the tribes to remain quiet at home,
taking no part in quarrels not belonging to them.
As far as we are yet informed, the tribes in our vicinity,
who are most advanced in the pursuits of industry,
are sincerely disposed to adhere to their friendship with us
and to their peace with all others, while those more remote
do not present appearances sufficiently quiet to justify
the intermission of military precaution on our part.
The great tribes on our southwestern quarter,
much advanced beyond the others in agriculture and
household arts, appear tranquil and identifying their
views with ours in proportion to their advancement.
With the whole of these people in every quarter
I shall continue to inculcate peace and friendship with all
their neighbors and perseverance in those occupations
and pursuits which will best promote their own well-being.
The appropriations of the last session for the defense
of our seaport towns and harbors were made under
expectation that a continuance of peace would permit us
to proceed in that work according to our convenience.
It has been thought better to apply the sums then
given toward the defense of New York, Charleston,
and New Orleans chiefly as most open and most likely first
to need protection, and to leave places less immediately
in danger to the provisions of the present session.
The gunboats, too already provided have
on a like principle been chiefly assigned to
New York, New Orleans, and the Chesapeake.
Whether our movable force on the water,
so material in aid of the defensive works on the land,
should be augmented in this or any other form
is left to the wisdom of the Legislature.
For the purpose of manning these vessels in sudden
attacks on our harbors it is a matter for consideration
whether the seamen of the United States may not
justly be formed into a special militia, to be called on
for tours of duty in defense of the harbors where
they shall happen to be, the ordinary militia of the place
furnishing that portion which may consist of landsmen.
The moment our peace was threatened
I deemed it indispensable to secure a greater
provision of those articles of military stores with
which our magazines were not sufficiently furnished.
To have awaited a previous and special sanction by law
would have lost occasions which might not be retrieved.
I did not hesitate, therefore to authorize engagements
for such supplements to our existing stock would render it
adequate to the emergencies threatening us, and
I trust that the legislature, feeling the same anxiety for
the safety of our country, so materially advanced by this
precaution, will approve, when done, what they would
have seen so important to be done if then assembled.
Expenses, also unprovided for, arose out of the necessity of
calling all our gunboats into actual service for the defense of
our harbors; of all which accounts will be laid before you.
Whether a regular army is to be raised and to what
extent must depend on the information so shortly expected.
In the meantime I have called on the States for quotas
of militia to be in readiness for present defense, and have
moreover encouraged the acceptance of volunteers;
and I am happy to inform you that these have offered
themselves with great alacrity in every part of the Union.
They are ordered to be organized and ready at a moment’s
warning to proceed on any service to which they may be
called, and every preparation within the Executive powers
has been made to insure us the benefit of early exertions.
I informed Congress at their last session of
the enterprises against the public peace which
were believed to be in preparation by Aaron Burr
and his associates, of the measures taken to
defeat them and to bring the offenders to justice.
Their enterprises were happily defeated by the
patriotic exertions of the militias whenever called into action,
by the fidelity of the Army, and energy of the commander
in chief in promptly arranging the difficulties presenting
themselves on the Sabine, repairing to meet those
arising on the Mississippi, and dissipating before
their explosion plots engendering there.
I shall think it my duty to lay before you the proceedings
and the evidence publicly exhibited on the arraignment of
the principle offenders before the circuit court of Virginia.
You will be enabled to judge whether the defect was
in the testimony, in the law, or in the administration
of the law; and whenever it shall be found, the
Legislation alone can apply or originate the remedy.
The framers of our Constitution certainly supposed they had
guarded as well their Government against destruction by
treason as their citizens against oppression under pretense
of it, and if these ends are not attained, it is of importance to
inquire by what means more effectual they may be secured.
The accounts of the receipts of revenue during
the year ending on the 30th day of September last
being not yet made up, a correct statement will
be hereafter transmitted from the Treasury.
In the meantime, it is ascertained that the receipts have
amounted to near $16,000,000 which with the five millions
and a half in the Treasury at the beginning of the year,
have enabled us, after meeting the current demands
and interest incurred, to pay more than four millions
of the principle of our funded debt.
These payments with those of the preceding five and
a half years, have extinguished of the funded debt
$25,500,000, being the whole which could be paid or
purchased within the limits of the law and of our contracts,
and have left us in the Treasury $8,500,000.
A portion of this sum may be considered as a
commencement of accumulation of the surpluses
of revenue which after paying the installments
of debt as they shall become payable,
will remain without any specific object.
It may partly, indeed, be applied toward completing
the defense of the exposed points of our country,
on such a scale as shall be adapted to our
principles and circumstances.
This object is doubtless among the first entitled to attention
in such a state of our finances, and it is one which, whether
we have peace or war, will provide security where it is due.
Whether what shall remain of this, with the future surpluses,
may be usefully applied to purposes already authorized
or more usefully to others requiring new authorities,
or how otherwise they shall be disposed of, are
questions calling for the notice of Congress, unless,
indeed, they shall be superseded by a change in our
public relations now awaiting the determination of others.
Whatever be that determination, it is a great consolation
that it will become known at a moment when the supreme
council of the nation is assembled at its post, and ready to
give the aids of its wisdom and authority to whatever
course the good of our country shall then call us to pursue.
Matters of minor importance will be the subjects of future
communications, and nothing shall be wanting on my part
which may give information or dispatch to the proceedings
of the Legislature in the exercise of their high duties,
and at a moment so interesting to the public welfare.5
Emperor Napoleon announced that American ships would no longer
be exempt from his ultimatum that they must be for or against France,
and he sent an army to invade neutral Portugal.
The British demanded that the Americans reject Napoleon’s decree
if they wanted to trade with England and its colonies.
Feeling undercut because the US Congress sent over
the lawyer William Pinkney, Monroe left England on October 29.
The British Foreign Secretary George Canning finally sent a message
regarding the Chesapeake that arrived in late November, admitting that
the United States was entitled to reparations; but he argued that
Americans had also committed hostile acts by enlisting deserters.
Because he would not discuss impressments,
the American instructions were not to talk to him.
On December 8 Jefferson sent Canning’s message and related papers
to the Congress without making recommendations.
On November 11 Britain’s Order in Council announced that
any ship trading with France would be subject to confiscation
unless they went to a British port and got a license.
This gave Jefferson justification for an embargo.
On December 11 the US Congress passed a bill to build more gunboats,
and they appropriated $1 million for fortifications.
On October 17 King George had proclaimed that all naval officers
were to impress sailors from neutral merchant ships, and
on December 17 the proclamation was published in the National Intelligencer.
On the same day Napoleon issued his Milan Decree that subjected any neutral ship
that had visited a British port or had anything to do with the British
to be treated as a British ship which could be captured by French warships.
The long-suspended Non-Importation Act of 1806
was scheduled to go back into operation on December 14.
Jefferson wanted neither war nor submission, and he hoped that
an embargo would cause the least pain while protecting the nation.
On the 16th the Jefferson administration decided not to trade abroad at all,
and Gallatin warned against using coercion to enforce the embargo.
Two days later Jefferson gave Congress documents showing that
American ships,
sailors, and merchandise were threatened by both England and France,
and the Senate passed the Embargo Bill, followed by the House on December 21.
The next day President Jefferson signed the Embargo Act.
American ships were not allowed to go to foreign ports
without the President’s permission, and foreign ships
were still permitted to bring goods into American ports.
Coasting vessels could still trade in the United States,
but they had to post a bond that was double the value of the ship and its cargo.
By keeping American ships at home Jefferson hoped that
he would prevent their capture becoming a cause of war.
Gallatin opposed this because he believed that enforcing it would cause problems.
He warned that governmental prohibitions could do more mischief than expected.
Madison liked the policy and wrote anonymous editorials in the
National Intelligencer arguing that it would make war impossible
and impose
only minor hardships on Americans while disrupting European trade.
Tens of thousands of slaves in the West Indies suffered from lack of food,
and the Europeans were not that much affected.
On 3 January 1808 Jefferson wrote in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush,
The embargo is salutary.
It postpones war, gives time, and the benefit
of events which that may produce: particularly
that of peace in Europe, which will postpone
the causes of difference to the next war.6
On January 8 Congress passed a second embargo act that made
punishments for disobeying more serious; merchants and captains
could be driven out of business for one violation.
The next day Jefferson signed this Enforcement Act.
George Rose arrived as a special envoy for Britain in mid-January.
Jefferson on 20 January 1808 sent this Special Message:
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
Some days previous to your resolutions of the 13th
instant a court of inquiry had been instituted at the
request of General Wilkinson, charged to make the
inquiry into his conduct which the first resolution desires,
and had commenced their proceedings.
To the judge-advocate of that court the papers and
information on that subject transmitted to me by the
House of Representatives have been delivered,
to be used according to the rules and powers of that court.
The request of a communication of any information
which may have been received at any time since the
establishment of the present Government touching
combinations with foreign agents for dismembering
the Union or the corrupt receipt of money by any
officer of the United States from the agents of foreign
governments can be complied with but in a partial degree.
It is well understood that in the first or second year of the
Presidency of General Washington information was given to
him relating to certain combinations with the agents of a
foreign government for the dismemberment of the Union,
which combinations had taken place before the
establishment of the present Federal Government.
This information, however, is believed never to have been
deposited in any public office, or left in that of the
President’s secretary, these having been duly examined,
but to have been considered as personally confidential,
and therefore retained among his private papers.
A communication from the governor of Virginia to
President Washington is found in the office of the
President’s secretary, which, although not strictly within
the terms of the request of the House of Representatives,
is communicated, inasmuch as it may throw some light on
the subjects of the correspondence of that time between
certain foreign agents and citizens of the United States.
In the first or second year of the Administration
of President Adams, Andrew Ellicott, then employed in
designating, in conjunction with the Spanish authorities,
the boundaries between the territories of the United States
and Spain, under the treaty with that nation, communicated
to the Executive of the United States papers and
information respecting the subjects of the present inquiry,
which were deposited in the Office of State.
Copies of these are now transmitted to the House of
Representatives, except of a single letter and a reference
from the said Andrew Ellicott, which, being expressly
desired to be kept secret, is therefore not communicated,
but its contents can be obtained from himself in a more
legal form, and directions have been given to summon
him to appear as a witness before the court of inquiry.
A paper on “The Commerce of Louisiana,” bearing date
the 18th of April, 1798, is found in the Office of State,
supposed to have been communicated by
Mr. Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, then a subject of Spain,
and now of the House of Representatives of the
United States, stating certain commercial transactions
of General Wilkinson in New Orleans.
An extract from this is now communicated,
because it contains facts which may have
some bearing on the questions relating to him.
The destruction of the War Office by fire in the close
of 1800 involved all information it contained at that date.
The papers already described therefore constitute
the whole of the information on the subjects deposited
in the public offices during the preceding Administrations,
as far as has yet been found; but it cannot be affirmed
that there may be no other, because, the papers
of the office being filed for the most part alphabetically,
unless aided by the suggestion of any particular name
which may have given such information, nothing short
of a careful examination of the papers in the offices
generally could authorize such an affirmation.
About a twelvemonth after I came to the administration of
the Government Mr. Clark gave some verbal information to
myself, as well as to the Secretary of State, relating to the
same combinations for the dismemberment of the Union.
He was listened to freely, and he then delivered
the letter of Governor Gayoso, addressed to himself,
of which a copy is now communicated.
After his return to New Orleans he forwarded to the
Secretary of State other papers, with a request that
after perusal they should be burnt.
This, however, was not done, and he was so informed
by the Secretary of State, and that
they would be held subject to his orders.
These papers have not yet been found in the office.
A letter, therefore, has been addressed to the former chief
clerk, who may perhaps give information respecting them.
As far as our memories enable us to say, they related
only to the combinations before spoken of and not at all
to the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the
United States; consequently they respected what was
considered as a dead matter, known to the preceding
Administrations, and offering nothing new to call for
investigations, which those nearest the dates of the
transactions had not thought proper to institute.
In the course of the communications made to me
on the subject of the conspiracy of Aaron Burr
I sometimes received letters, some of them anonymous,
some under names true or false, expressing suspicions
and insinuations against General Wilkinson; but one only
of them, and that anonymous, specified any particular fact,
and that fact was one of those which had been already
communicated to a former Administration.
No other information within the purview of the request
of the House is known to have been received by any
department of the Government from the establishment
of the present Federal Government.
That which has been recently communicated to the
House of Representatives, and by them to me, is the first
direct testimony ever made known to me charging
General Wilkinson with the corrupt receipt of money,
and the House of Representatives may be assured
that the duties which this information devolves on me
shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality.
Should any want of power in the court to compel the
rendering of testimony obstruct that full and
impartial inquiry which alone can establish
guilt or innocence and satisfy justice, the legislative
authority only will be competent to the remedy.7
On January 21 Virginia legislators had met and voted 140 for Madison
and only 50 for Monroe for the presidency
because Monroe was associated with John Randolph.
The British would make reparations if Jefferson would stop
prohibiting Royal Navy ships in American waters.
Madison negotiated, but on February 7 the British Minister Rose insisted that
the United States disavow harboring and retaining British deserters.
On February 18 Jefferson wrote to James Monroe about his successor,
I see with infinite grief a contest arising between
yourself and another who have been very dear
to each other, and equally so to me.
I sincerely pray that these dispositions may not be affected
between you: with me I confidently trust they will not.
For independently of the dictates of public duty
which prescribe neutrality to me, my sincere friendship
for you both will ensure its sacred observance.
I suffer no one to converse with me on the subject.
I already perceive my old friend Clinton
estranging himself from me.
No doubt lies are carried to him, as they will be
to the other two candidates, under forms which,
however false, he can scarcely question.
Yet I have been equally careful as to him also
never to say a word on this subject.
The object of the contest is a fair & honorable one,
equally open to you all; and I have no doubt the
personal conduct of each will be so chaste as
to offer no ground of dissatisfaction with each other.
But your friends will not be as delicate.
I know too well from experience the progress
of political controversy, and the exacerbation
of spirit into which it degenerates, not to fear
for the continuance of your mutual esteem.
One piquing thing said, draws on another, that a third,
and always with increasing acrimony, until all restraint
is thrown off, and it becomes difficult for yourselves
to keep clear of the toils in which your friends will
endeavor to interlace you, and to avoid the participation
in their passions which they will endeavor to produce.
A candid recollection of what you know
of each other will be the true corrective.
With respect to myself I hope they will spare me.
My longings for retirement are so strong that I
with difficulty encounter the daily drudgeries of my duty.
But my wish for retirement itself is not stronger than
that of carrying into it the affections of all my friends.
I have ever viewed Mr. Madison and yourself
as two principal pillars of my happiness.
Were either to be withdrawn, I should consider it
as among the greatest calamities which could
assail my future peace of mind.
I have great confidence that the candor & high
understanding of both will guard me against this misfortune,
the bare possibility of which has so far weighed on my mind
that I could not be easy without unburdening it.8
On February 25 Jefferson requested an increase in the standing army
from about 2,500 men to 6,000 to be supplemented by 24,000 volunteers.
He underestimated the extent to which merchants and
their ships would go to engage in war-time profiteering.
Jefferson’s embargo did not weaken England and France significantly
while American trade fell by 80%, causing a depression.
Yet on March 3 he ordered the land embargo banning overland
and waterborne trade across borders of the United States.
Vermont had become Republican, but now this loss of trade
with the British in Canada severely affected them.
Gallatin warned of an insurrection, and on March 8 Jefferson issued a proclamation.
Madison asked the English to relinquish the pressing
of American citizens from public and private ships.
Rose continued to insist that the US repeal the proclamation of July 2
before he would discuss reparations, and negotiation collapsed on March 18.
Congress passed the third Embargo Act on March 12, prohibiting the export
of any goods by land or sea with a fine of $10,000 and forfeiture of the goods,
and penalties for the first two acts were increased.
This blocked trade with Canada and Spanish territory.
Protesting spread, and many merchants ignored the law
by smuggling goods without papers.
Upper New England and New York continued to trade actively with Canada.
The old Federalist Timothy Pickering met with Rose,
tried to form a pro-British party, and urged Foreign Secretary
George Canning to be tough on the United States.
Pickering criticized the US policy and urged legislatures
in the commercial states to nullify the embargo.
In the March elections the Federalists in Massachusetts
regained control of both houses of the legislature
and nearly defeated the Republican Governor James Sullivan.
Jefferson reacted on March 22 by giving Congress massive diplomatic documents.
On 23 March 1808 Jefferson wrote to Attorney General Caesar A. Rodney,
The Embargo appears to be approved, even
by the Federalists of every quarter except yours.
The alternative was between that and war, and in fact
it is the last card we have to play, short of war.
But if peace does not take place in Europe,
and if France and England will not consent to
withdraw the operations of their decrees and
orders from us, when Congress shall meet in December,
they will have to consider at what point of time the
Embargo continued becomes a greater evil than war.
I am inclined to believe we shall have this summer and
autumn to prepare for the defense of our sea-port towns,
and hope that in that time the works of defense
will be completed, which have been provided
for by the legislature.9
One week later Jefferson wrote to Charles Pinckney
who would be the Federalist candidate for President in 1808.
I proceed to state to you my views of the present state
and prospect of foreign affairs under the confidence that
you will use them for your own government and opinions
only, and by no means let them get out as from me.
With France we are in no immediate danger of war.
Her future views it is impossible to estimate.
The immediate danger we were in of a rupture
with England is postponed for this year.
This is effected by the embargo,
as the question was simply between that & war.
That may go on a certain time, perhaps through the year
without the loss of their property to our citizens,
but only its remaining unemployed on their hands.
A time would come however when war would be
preferable to a continuance of the embargo.
Of this Congress may have to decide at their next meeting.
In the mean time we have good information that
a negotiation for peace between France & England
is commencing through the medium of Austria.
The way for it has been smoothed by a determination
expressed by France (through the Moniteur which is
their government paper) that herself & her allies will
demand from Great Britain no renunciation of her
maritime principles, nor will they renounce theirs.
Nothing shall be said about them in the treaty, and both
sides will be left in the next war to act on their own.
No doubt the meaning of this is that all the continental
powers of Europe will form themselves into an armed
neutrality to enforce their own principles.
Should peace be made, we shall have safely
rode out the storm in peace & prosperity.
If we have anything to fear, it will be after that, nothing
should be spared from this moment in putting our militia
into the best condition possible and procuring arms.
I hope that this summer we shall get our whole seaports
put into that state of defense which Congress has thought
proportioned to our circumstances & situation,
that is to say, put hors d’insulte from a maritime
attack by a moderate squadron.
If armies are combined with their fleets; then no
resource can be provided but to meet them in the field.
We propose to raise seven regiments only for the
present year, depending always on our militia
for the operations of the first year of war.
On any other plan we should be obliged
always to keep a large standing army.10
Jefferson opposed a standing army often.
Here he hoped to find alternatives to that and war.
After consulting with Gallatin on March 30 Jefferson recommended
that Congress empower collectors to seize cargoes without a warrant
or a trial in violation of the 4th and 5th amendments of the Constitution.
On April 4 Gallatin made a detailed report on roads and canals that
the President sent to the Senate two days later.
Jefferson also asked Congress to authorize him to use the Army and Navy
to enforce the embargo law, and on April 12 Congress established
a regular army of eight divisions “for a limited time.”
On these they spent $2 million plus $1 million on land fortifications,
$850,000 for gunboats, and $250,000 to arm the militia.
On the 18th Jefferson proclaimed the region of Lake Champlain in a state
of
insurrection, and he ordered all state and local officials to suppress the rebellion.
The governors of Vermont and New York reluctantly
called out their militias to stop the smuggling.
Local residents protested.
On April 25 the President signed the Enforcement Act that was aimed at
coastal trading and increased the required bond to
three times the value of the ship and its cargo.
Penalties were stiff, and armed forces could be used.
On the 30th he sent instructions to Pinkney in London that he could offer
to withdraw the embargo if England withdrew its Orders in Council.
On May 6 Jefferson prohibited the moving of flour unless
a governor of the importing state had issued a certificate of need.
On May 15 the President wrote to Treasury Secretary Gallatin,
“I place immense value in the experiment being fully made, how far an embargo
may be an effectual weapon in future as well as on this occasion.”11
These severe laws were challenged in courts, and on May 28
the Republican Supreme Court Justice William Johnson in the Circuit Court
ruled that the President had exceeded his authority.
Jefferson stopped trusting the courts and imposed martial law.
The issuing of certificates corrupted some governors such as Sullivan
in Massachusetts who issued certificates of need for 49,800 barrels of flour,
99,400 bushels of corn, 560 tierces of rice, and 2,000 bushels of rye
just for Alexandria and Georgetown in Virginia.
After five men recaptured a confiscated raft of lumber on Lake Champlain,
they were charged with treason; but in October the Republican Justice
Brockholst Livingston acquitted them and denounced the indictment.
Jefferson used even more armed force in July, and Gallatin complained
that his orders were devastating economic enterprise.
On July 29 Gallatin said that Congress must either give the President
arbitrary power to enforce the embargo, or they must give it up.
In August the President called out the Army
and the Navy to the northern frontier.
Battles broke out, and some people were killed.
Jefferson accused entire towns of treason in November.
Madison suffered a breakdown with epileptic seizures.
Fishermen in Nova Scotia were also suffering.
Republicans in Congress met in a formal caucus.
An attempt by Monroe and Vice President Clinton to make common cause
against Madison failed as Madison won 83 to 6.
They decided to renominate George Clinton for Vice President
in order to retain New York Republicans behind Madison.
Federalists held the first national nominating convention in New York secretly,
and they kept the same ticket as in 1804 with
C. C. Pinckney and Rufus King as their candidates.
In the presidential election Madison got 122 electoral votes to 47 for Pinckney,
and Vice President Clinton was re-elected.
Federalists continued to control the legislatures of Connecticut and Delaware, and
they regained New York, most of New England, and the lower house in Maryland.
Federalists won 70% of the Congressional seats in the states north and east
of Pennsylvania, but none in the southern states and Pennsylvania.
James Nelson Barker wrote the sentimental
comedy Tears and Smiles that was produced in 1807.
The next year his play The Embargo; or, What News?
was performed in Philadelphia, but its text has been lost.
Merchants who believed it was biased toward
the Jefferson administration instigated a riot.
On 11 August 1808 Jefferson wrote to Treasury Secretary Gallatin,
This embargo law is certainly the most embarrassing
one we have ever had to execute.
I did not expect a crop of so sudden & rank growth of
fraud & open opposition by force could have grown up in the U. S.
I am satisfied with you that if orders & decrees
are not repealed, & a continuance of the embargo
is preferred to war (which sentiment is universal here),
Congress must legalize all means which
may be necessary to obtain it’s end.
Mr. Smith in enclosing to me General Dearborn’s
and Lincoln’s letters informs me that immediately
on receiving them he gave the necessary orders
to the Chesapeake, the Wasp & Argus.
Still I shall pass this letter and those it encloses
through his hands for information.
I am clearly of opinion this law ought to be enforced
at any expense which may not exceed our appropriation.
I approve of the instructions to General Lincoln for
selling the revenue cutter there & buying another,
and also of what you propose at New London
& Portsmouth, and generally I wish you to do
as to the revenue cutters what you shall think best,
without delaying it to hear from me.
You possess the details so much better than I do
and are so much nearer the principal scenes,
that my approbation can be but matter of form.
As to ordering out militia, you know the difficulty
without another proclamation.
I advise Mr. Madison to inform General Turreau that
the vessels we allow to the foreign ministers are only
in the character of transports, & that they cannot be
allowed but where the number of persons bears the
proportion to the vessel which is usual with transports.
You will see by my last that on learning the situation of
affairs in Spain, it had occurred to me that it might produce
a favorable occasion of doing ourselves justice in the South.
We must certainly so dispose of our Southern recruits
and armed vessels as to be ready for the occasion.12
Jefferson on August 21 wrote to Meriwether Lewis,
Governor of the Louisiana Territory,
I regret that it has been found necessary to come to open
rupture with the Osages, but, being so, I approve of the
course you have pursued, that of drawing off the friendly
part of the nation, withdrawing from the rest the protection
of the United States and permitting the other nations to take
their own satisfaction for the wrongs they complain of.
I have stated to General Dearborn that I think we may
go further, & as the principal obstacle to the Indians
acting in large bodies is the want of provisions, we might
supply that want, & ammunition also if they need it.
With the Sacs & the Foxes I hope you will be able to
settle amicably, as nothing ought more to be avoided
than the embarking ourselves in a system of military
coercion on the Indians.
If we do this, we shall have general & perpetual war.
When a murder has been committed on one of
our stragglers, the murderer should be demanded.
If not delivered, give time & still press the demand.
We find it difficult with our regular government
to take & punish a murderer of an Indian.
Indeed I believe we have never
been able to do it in a single instance.
They have their difficulties also, & require time.
In fact it is a case where indulgence on both sides is
just & necessary to prevent the two nations from
being perpetually committed in war by the acts of the
most vagabond & ungovernable of their members.
When the refusal to deliver the murderer is permanent
& proceeds from the want of will & not of ability,
we should then interdict all trade and intercourse
with them till they give us complete satisfaction.
Commerce is the great engine
by which we are to coerce them, and not war.
I know this will be less effectual on this side the Mississippi
where they can have recourse to the British,
but this will not be a long lived evil.
By this forbearing conduct towards the Missisippian
Indians for seven years past, they are become satisfied
of our justice & moderation towards them, that we
have no desire of injuring them but on the contrary
of doing them all the good offices we can, and they
are become sincerely attached to us; and this disposition,
beginning with the nearest, has spread & is spreading
itself to the more remote, as fast as they have
opportunities of understanding our conduct.
The Sacs & Foxes, being distant, have not yet come
heartily over to us, but they are on the balance.
Those on this side the Mississippi will soon be
entirely with us if we pursue our course steadily.
The Osages, Kansas, the Republican, Great & Wolf Panis,
Mahas, Poncaras etc. who are inclined to the Spaniards,
have not yet had time to know our dispositions.
But if we use forbearance & open commerce with them
they will come too, and give us time to attach them to us.
In the meantime to secure our frontiers, I have expressed
myself to General Dearborn in favor of the three
companies of spies & the military supplies you ask for.
So also in the having established factories, at which all the
traders shall be stationary, allowing none to be itinerant
further than indispensable circumstances shall require.
As soon as our factories on the Missouri & Mississippi
can be in activity they will have more powerful
effects than so many armies.
With respect to the British we shall take effectual steps
to put an immediate stop to their crossing the Mississippi,
by the severest measures.
And I have proposed to General Dearborn to break up
all their factories within our limits on this side the
Mississippi, to let them have them only at fixed points, and
suppress all itinerant traders of theirs as well as our own.
They have by treaty only an equal right of commerce with
ourselves, the regulation of which on our side of the line
belongs to us, as that on their side belongs to them.
All that can be required is that these regulations be equal.13
In the fall of 1808 Blackburn persuaded the Cherokees to reform their laws
by replacing revenge and executions with a system of trials by evidence.
After Blackburn became superintendent of two mission schools,
a deputation of Cherokees asked President Jefferson
to let Cherokees become citizens of the United States.
Jefferson suggested that if the Cherokee minority could not agree
on the Nation’s division, they could move west of the Mississippi.
In 1808 about 1,130 Chickamaugas did move to what is now Arkansas.
In his Eighth and last Annual Message to Congress on November 8
Jefferson discussed the embargo and regretted that it had not yet been suspended.
He noted that in the previous year they had built 103 gunboats.
He recognized the constitutional right of Congress to declare war
and left that choice to them. He wrote,
To the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States:
It would have been a source, fellow citizens,
of much gratification, if our last communications
from Europe had enabled me to inform you that
the belligerent nations, whose disregard of neutral
rights has been so destructive to our commerce,
had become awakened to the duty and true policy
of revoking their unrighteous edicts.
That no means might be omitted to produce
this salutary effect, I lost no time in availing
myself of the act authorizing a suspension,
in whole or in part, of the several embargo laws.
Our ministers at London and Paris were instructed
to explain to the respective governments there,
our disposition to exercise the authority in such
manner as would withdraw the pretext on which
the aggressions were originally founded, and open a way
for a renewal of that commercial intercourse which it
was alleged on all sides had been reluctantly obstructed.
As each of those governments had pledged its readiness
to concur in renouncing a measure which reached
its adversary through the incontestable rights of
neutrals only, and as the measure had been assumed by
each as a retaliation for an asserted acquiescence in the
aggressions of the other, it was reasonably expected that
the occasion would have been seized by both for evincing
the sincerity of their profession, and for restoring to the
commerce of the United States its legitimate freedom.
The instructions to our ministers with respect to the different
belligerents were necessarily modified with reference to
their different circumstances, and to the condition annexed
by law to the executive power of suspension, requiring
a degree of security to our commerce which would
not result from a repeal of the decrees of France.
Instead of a pledge, therefore, of a suspension of the
embargo as to her in case of such a repeal,
it was presumed that a sufficient inducement might be
found in other considerations, and particularly in the
change produced by a compliance with our just demands
by one belligerent, and a refusal by the other, in the
relations between the other and the United States.
To Great Britain, whose power on the ocean is so
ascendant, it was deemed not inconsistent with that
condition to state explicitly, that on her rescinding
her orders in relation to the United States their trade
would be opened with her, and remain shut to her
enemy, in case of his failure to rescind his decrees also.
From France no answer has been received,
nor any indication that the requisite change
in her decrees is contemplated.
The favorable reception of the proposition to Great Britain
was the less to be doubted, as her orders of council
had not only been referred for their vindication to
an acquiescence on the part of the United States
no longer to be pretended, but as the arrangement
proposed, while it resisted the illegal decrees of France,
involved, moreover, substantially, the precise
advantages professedly aimed at by the British orders.
The arrangement has nevertheless been rejected.
This candid and liberal experiment having thus failed,
and no other event having occurred on which a suspension
of the embargo by the executive was authorized,
it necessarily remains in the extent originally given to it.
We have the satisfaction, however, to reflect, that
in return for the privations by the measure, and which
our fellow citizens in general have borne with patriotism,
it has had the important effects of saving our mariners
and our vast mercantile property, as well as of
affording time for prosecuting the defensive
and provisional measures called for by the occasion.
It has demonstrated to foreign nations the moderation and
firmness which govern our councils, and to our citizens the
necessity of uniting in support of the laws and the rights of
their country, and has thus long frustrated those usurpations
and spoliations which, if resisted, involve war; if submitted
to, sacrificed a vital principle of our national independence.
Under a continuance of the belligerent measures which,
in defiance of laws which consecrate the rights of neutrals,
overspread the ocean with danger, it will rest with the
wisdom of Congress to decide on the course best
adapted to such a state of things; and bringing with them,
as they do, from every part of the Union, the sentiments
of our constituents, my confidence is strengthened,
that in forming this decision they will, with an unerring
regard to the essential rights and interests of the nation,
weigh and compare the painful alternatives
out of which a choice is to be made.
Nor should I do justice to the virtues which on other
occasions have marked the character of our fellow citizens,
if I did not cherish an equal confidence that the alternative
chosen, whatever it may be, will be maintained with all the
fortitude and patriotism which the crisis ought to inspire.
The documents containing the correspondences
on the subject of the foreign edicts against our commerce,
with the instructions given to our ministers at
London and Paris, are now laid before you.
The communications made to Congress at their last
session explained the posture in which the close of the
discussion relating to the attack by a British ship of war
on the frigate Chesapeake left a subject on which
the nation had manifested so honorable a sensibility.
Every view of what had passed authorized a belief
that immediate steps would be taken by the British
government for redressing a wrong, which the more
it was investigated, appeared the more clearly to require
what had not been provided for in the special mission.
It is found that no steps have been taken for the purpose.
On the contrary, it will be seen in the documents laid
before you that the inadmissible preliminary which
obstructed the adjustment is still adhered to; and,
moreover, that it is now brought into connection with
the distinct and irrelative case of the orders in council.
The instructions which had been given to our
ministers at London with a view to facilitate,
if necessary, the reparation claimed by the United States,
are included in the documents communicated.
Our relations with the other powers of Europe have
undergone no material changes since your last session.
The important negotiations with Spain, which had been
alternately suspended and resumed, necessarily
experience a pause under the extraordinary and
interesting crisis which distinguished her internal situation.
With the Barbary powers we continue in harmony,
with the exception of an unjustifiable proceeding of
the dey of Algiers toward our consul to that regency.
Its character and circumstances are now laid before you,
and will enable you to decide how far it may,
either now or hereafter, call for any measures
not within the limits of the executive authority.
With our Indian neighbors the public peace
has been steadily maintained.
Some instances of individual wrong have, as at other times,
taken place, but in nowise implicating the will of the nation.
Beyond the Mississippi, the Iowas, the Sacs, and the
Alabamas, have delivered up for trial and punishment
individuals from among themselves accused of
murdering citizens of the United States.
On this side of the Mississippi, the Creeks are exerting
themselves to arrest offenders of the same kind;
and the Choctaws have manifested their readiness and
desire for amicable and just arrangements respecting
depredations committed by disorderly persons of their tribe.
And, generally, from a conviction that we consider them
as part of ourselves, and cherish with sincerity their rights
and interests, the attachment of the Indian tribes is
gaining strength daily—is extending from the nearer
to the more remote, and will amply requite us for
the justice and friendship practiced towards them.
Husbandry and household manufacture are
advancing among them, more rapidly with the
southern than the northern tribes, from circumstances
of soil and climate; and one of the two great
divisions of the Cherokee nation have now under
consideration to solicit the citizenship of the United States,
and to be identified with us in laws and government,
in such progressive manner as we shall think best.
In consequence of the appropriations of the last session
of Congress for the security of our seaport towns and
harbors, such works of defense have been erected
as seemed to be called for by the situation of the
several places, their relative importance, and the scale
of expense indicated by the amount of the appropriation.
These works will chiefly be finished in the course of the
present season, except at New York and New Orleans,
where most was to be done; and although a great
proportion of the last appropriation has been
expended on the former place, yet some further
views will be submitted by Congress for rendering
its security entirely adequate against naval enterprise.
A view of what has been done at the several places,
and of what is proposed to be done, shall be
communicated as soon as the several reports are received.
Of the gun-boats authorized by the act of December last,
it has been thought necessary to build
only one hundred and three in the present year.
These with those before possessed are sufficient
for the harbors and waters exposed, and
the residue will require little time for their
construction when it is deemed necessary.
Under the act of the last session for raising an additional
military force, so many officers were immediately appointed
as were necessary for carrying on the business of recruiting,
and in proportion as it advanced, others have been added.
We have reason to believe their success has
been satisfactory, although such returns have
not yet been received as enable me to present
to you a statement of the numbers engaged.
I have not thought it necessary in the course of the last
season to call for any general detachments of militia
or volunteers under the law passed for that purpose.
For the ensuing season, however, they will require
to be in readiness should their services be wanted.
Some small and special detachments have been
necessary to maintain the laws of embargo on that
portion of our northern frontier which offered peculiar
facilities for evasion, but these were replaced
as soon as it could be done by bodies of new recruits.
By the aid of these, and of the armed vessels called
into actual service in other quarters, the spirit of
disobedience and abuse which manifested itself early,
and with sensible effect while we were unprepared
to meet it, has been considerably repressed.
Considering the extraordinary character of
the times in which we live, our attention should
unremittingly be fixed on the safety of our country.
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so,
a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
It is, therefore, incumbent on us, at every meeting,
to revise the condition of the militia, and to ask
ourselves if it is prepared to repel a powerful enemy
at every point of our territories exposed to invasion.
Some of the States have paid a laudable
attention to this object; but every degree
of neglect is to be found among others.
Congress alone have power to produce a uniform
state of preparation in this great organ of defense;
the interests which they so deeply feel in their own
and their country’s security will present this as
among the most important objects of their deliberation.
Under the acts of March 11th and April 23d, respecting
arms, the difficulty of procuring them from abroad, during
the present situation and dispositions of Europe, induced us
to direct our whole efforts to the means of internal supply.
The public factories have, therefore, been enlarged,
additional machineries erected, and in proportion as
artificers can be found or formed, their effect,
already more than doubled, may be increased
so as to keep pace with the yearly increase of the militia.
The annual sums appropriated by the latter act,
have been directed to the encouragement of private
factories of arms, and contracts have been entered
into with individual undertakers to nearly the
amount of the first year’s appropriation.
The suspension of our foreign commerce,
produced by the injustice of the belligerent powers,
and the consequent losses and sacrifices of our citizens,
are subjects of just concern.
The situation into which we have thus been forced,
has impelled us to apply a portion of our industry
and capital to internal manufactures and improvements.
The extent of this conversion is daily increasing,
and little doubt remains that the establishments
formed and forming will—under the auspices
of cheaper materials and subsistence, the
freedom of labor from taxation with us, and of
protecting duties and prohibitions—become permanent.
The commerce with the Indians, too, within
our own boundaries, is likely to receive abundant
aliment from the same internal source, and will
secure to them peace and the progress of civilization,
undisturbed by practices hostile to both.
The accounts of the receipts and expenditures during
the year ending on the 30th day of September last,
being not yet made up, a correct statement will
hereafter be transmitted from the Treasury.
In the meantime, it is ascertained that the receipts
have amounted to near eighteen millions of dollars,
which, with the eight millions and a half in the treasury
at the beginning of the year, have enabled us, after
meeting the current demands and interest incurred,
to pay two millions three hundred thousand dollars of
the principal of our funded debt, and left us in the treasury,
on that day, near fourteen millions of dollars.
Of these, five millions three hundred and fifty thousand
dollars will be necessary to pay what will be due
on the first day of January next, which will complete
the reimbursement of the eight-percent stock.
These payments with those made in the six years and
a half preceding will have extinguished thirty-three
millions five hundred and eighty thousand dollars
of the principal of the funded debt, being the whole
which could be paid or purchased within the limits
of the law and our contracts; and the amount
of principal thus discharged will have liberated the
revenue from about two millions of dollars of interest,
and added that sum annually to the disposable surplus.
The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue
beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public
debt, whenever the freedom and safety of our commerce
shall be restored, merits the consideration of Congress.
Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults?
Shall the revenue be reduced?
Or shall it rather be appropriated to the improvements
of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great
foundations of prosperity and union, under the powers
which Congress may already possess, or such amendment
of the Constitution as may be approved by the States?
While uncertain of the course of things, the time
may be advantageously employed in obtaining
the powers necessary for a system of improvement,
should that be thought best.
Availing myself of this the last occasion which will
occur of addressing the two houses of the legislature
at their meeting, I cannot omit the expression
of my sincere gratitude for the repeated proofs of
confidence manifested to me by themselves and their
predecessors since my call to the administration,
and the many indulgences experienced at their hands.
The same grateful acknowledgments are due to my
fellow citizens generally, whose support has been
my great encouragement under all embarrassments.
In the transaction of their business
I cannot have escaped error.
It is incident to our imperfect nature.
But I may say with truth, my errors have been of
the understanding, not of intention; and that the
advancement of their rights and interests
has been the constant motive for every measure.
On these considerations I solicit their indulgence.
Looking forward with anxiety to their future destinies,
I trust that, in their steady character unshaken by
difficulties, in their love of liberty, obedience to law, and
support of the public authorities, I see a sure guaranty
of the permanence of our republic; and retiring from the
charge of their affairs, I carry with me the consolation of a
firm persuasion that Heaven has in store for our beloved
country long ages to come of prosperity and happiness.14
The crisis was forcing them to develop internal manufacturing and improvements.
He was also gratified to report that by avoiding war
the national debt was being paid off.
He proposed using the increasing revenues to
improve roads, canals, rivers, and education.
Jefferson wanted to be succeeded by James Madison,
and after Madison’s election Jefferson decided to let him originate the policy
for the measures he would have to enforce.
In early December the Congress voted never to submit to edicts of France or Britain,
making France as much an adversary as England,
and they promised military preparations.
In 1808 the legislatures of Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island,
New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina
asked Jefferson to continue as President before he made
his final decision not to serve a third term.
He sent this response to each of them:
That I should lay down my charge at a proper period
is as much a duty as to have borne it faithfully.
If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate
be not fixed by the Constitution or supplied by practice,
his office, nominally for years, will in fact become for life;
and history shows how easily
that degenerates into an inheritance.
Believing that a representative government, responsible
at short periods of election, is that which produces
the greatest sum of happiness to mankind,
I feel it a duty to do no act which shall essentially
impair that principle; and I should unwillingly be
the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set
by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first
example of prolongation beyond the second term of office.
Truth also, requires me to add that I am sensible of that
decline which advancing years bring on; and feeling
their physical, I ought not to doubt their mental effect.
Happy if I am the first to perceive and to obey this
admonition of nature, and to solicit a retreat from
cares too great for the wearied faculties of age.15
In the United States elections of 1808 for President
voting was from November 4 to December 7.
The Republican ticket of James Madison for President and George Clinton,
who was running for re-election as Vice President, won easily by carrying
12 of 17 states with 122 electoral votes to 47 for Charles C. Pinckney and Rufus King
who also lost the popular vote 65% to 32%.
Republicans lost one Senate seat while retaining a 27-7 majority over the Federalists.
Elections for the House of Representatives went on from 26 April 1808 to 5 May 1809.
The Federalists gained 22 seats, though the Republicans still had a 94-48 seat advantage.
American exports, which had reached $108,343,000 in 1807,
fell to only $22,430,000 in 1808 while imports
declined from $138,000,000 to $56,990,000.
Government revenue for 1808 was still more than $17 million,
but in 1809 it would fall to less than $8 million.
Americans in the east were suffering economic difficulty.
The embargo provoked resistance, and some
Federalists threatened to divide the Union.
On December 28 the township of Bath in Maine passed a resolution
calling for committees of correspondence to protect the rights of states
from infringement by any officer of the United States.
This became a model for similar resolutions in January 1809
by Gloucester, Plymouth, Newburyport, Hampshire County, and others.
The Federalist Massachusetts legislature confirmed them.
Governor Sullivan had died in December and was replaced
by Jefferson’s former Attorney General Levi Lincoln.
Moderate Federalists called a convention of commercial states at Hartford
to declare the embargo measures unconstitutional.
Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut also convened the legislature,
and on February 4 he wrote to Secretary of War Dearborn
that he would not enforce the embargo.
On the 23rd the Connecticut legislature interposed
itself against the federal government.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Giles asked
Treasury Secretary Gallatin to suggest ways to improve the effectiveness
of the embargo while diminishing its bad effect on Americans.
The ambivalent Gallatin proposed stricter enforcement
but then tried to dissuade Congress from that legislation.
Gallatin hoped to limit customhouses rather than capture ships.
In the latest embargo act passed on 6 January 1809 coasting vessels
had to secure bonds for six times the value of the ship and cargo,
and legal defenses for violators were dismissed.
On January 9 the Congress passed laws authorizing the use of the Army
and the Navy, and they called for the new Congress to meet in May.
Town meetings were held in New England and New York to complain,
and the legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut adopted resolutions
suggesting that the Union be dismembered.
On January 28 Jefferson wrote in a letter to James Monroe
what he thought might happen:
The course the Legislature means to pursue may
be inferred from the act now passed for a
meeting in May, and a proposition before them
for repealing the embargo in June and then resuming
and maintaining by force our right of navigation.
There will be considerable opposition to this last proposition,
not only from the federalists, old and new, who oppose
everything, but from sound members of the majority:
yet it is believed it will obtain a good majority,
and that it is the only proposition which can be
devised that could obtain a majority of any kind.
Final propositions will therefore be soon dispatched
to both the belligerents through the resident ministers,
so that their answers will be received before the
meeting in May, and will decide what is to be done.
This last trial for peace is not thought desperate.
If, as is expected, Bonaparte should be successful in Spain,
however every virtuous and liberal sentiment revolts at it,
it may induce both powers to be
more accommodating with us.
England will see here the only asylum for her commerce and
manufactures worth more to her than her orders of council.
And Bonaparte having Spain at his feet, will look
immediately to the Spanish colonies and think our neutrality
cheaply purchased by a repeal of the illegal parts of his
decrees, with perhaps the Floridas thrown into the bargain.
Should a change in the aspect of affairs in Europe
produce this disposition in both powers, our peace
and prosperity may be revived and long continue.
Otherwise we must again take the tented field as
we did in 1776 under more inauspicious circumstances.
There never has been a situation of the world before,
in which such endeavors as we have made
would not have secured our peace.
It is probable there never will be such another.
If we go to war now, I fear we may renounce forever
the hope of seeing an end of our national debt.
If we can keep at peace 8 years longer, our income,
liberated from debt, will be adequate to any war,
without new taxes or loans, and our position and increasing
strength will put us hors d’insulte from any nation.16
Ezekiel Bacon of Massachusetts consulted with John Quincy Adams
who had left the Senate and joined the Republicans.
Bacon tried to persuade Republicans in January to repeal the embargo.
On January 24 Wilson Cary Nicholas moved to repeal it by June 1,
but on February 1 the House rejected the June date.
Jefferson on February 19 wrote to John Hollins about the republic of science,
General Washington in his time received from the same
Society the seed of the perennial succory, which
Arthur Young had carried over from France to England,
and I have since received from a member of it the seed of
the famous turnip of Sweden, now so well known here.
I mention these things, to show the nature of the
correspondence which is carried on between societies
instituted for the benevolent purpose of communicating
to all parts of the world whatever useful is discovered
in any one of them.
These societies are always in peace,
however their nations may be at war.
Like the republic of letters, they form a great fraternity
spreading over the whole earth, and their correspondence
is never interrupted by any civilized nation.
Vaccination has been a late and remarkable instance
of the liberal diffusion of a blessing newly discovered.17
Jefferson on February 24 wrote in a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette,
Our embargo, which has been a very trying measure,
has produced one very happy, & permanent effect.
It has set us all on domestic manufacture,
& will I verily believe reduce our future
demands on England fully one half.18
On February 25 Jefferson wrote to Henri Gregoire
about the capabilities of Negroes,
Sir, —I have received the favor of your letter of
August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind
as to send me on the Literature of Negroes.
Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely
than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts
I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade
of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to
find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves.
My doubts were the result of personal observation
on the limited sphere of my own State, where the
opportunities for the development of their genius were
not favorable, and those of exercising it still less so.
I expressed them therefore with great hesitation;
but whatever be their degree of talent
it is no measure of their rights.
Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others
in understanding, he was not therefore lord
of the person or property of others.
On this subject they are gaining daily in the
opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are
making towards their reestablishment on an
equal footing with the other colors of the human family.
I pray you therefore to accept my thanks for the many
instances you have enabled me to observe of respectable
intelligence in that race of men, which cannot fail to have
effect in hastening the day of their relief; and to be assured
of the sentiments of high and just esteem and consideration
which I tender to yourself with all sincerity.19
The Republican leader William Giles proposed a compromise to
repeal the embargo for all countries except England and France,
and all foreign ships could be interdicted in American waters.
Congress passed this on February 28.
The House had voted on February 4 to end the embargo entirely
on March 4, the last day of Jefferson’s presidency.
Both houses did not agree until February 27, and on March 1
Jefferson signed the Non-Intercourse Act that ended all the embargoes
and closed American ports to the British and French after May 20, 1809.
Jefferson wrote to P. S. Dupont de Nemours on March 2,
After using every effort which could prevent or delay
our being entangled in the war of Europe,
that seems now our only resource.
The edicts of the two belligerents, forbidding us
to be seen on the ocean, we met by an embargo.
This gave us time to call home our seamen,
ships and property, to levy men and put our
sea ports into a certain state of defense.
We have now taken off the embargo, except as to France
and England and their territories, because fifty millions of
exports, annually sacrificed, are the treble of what war
would cost us; besides, that by war we should take
something, and lose less than at present.20
The embargo had cost Americans $50,000,000 in exports,
and Jefferson estimated that a war could have been waged for a third of that.
He had sent William Short to Russia six months before to begin diplomatic
relations with Czar Alexander I; and he did not request that he be appointed
minister until the last days of his presidency.
On February 27 the Senators rejected it unanimously.
In eight years under Jefferson the Republicans had reduced
the national debt by about $26 million or 31%.
On March 4 Jefferson attended the inauguration of his successor James Madison.
Notes
1. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1169-1171.
2. From Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 13 March 1807 (Online)
3. From Thomas Jefferson to George Hay, 20 June 1807 (Online)
4. To James Madison from Thomas Jefferson, 16 August 1807 (Online)
5. The Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson ed. Philip S. Foner, p. 383-388.
6. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham, p. 432.
7. The Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson ed. Philip S. Foner, p. 388-390.
8. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume XI ed. Paul Leicester Ford, p. 10-11.
9. Thomas Jefferson: A Biography by Nathan Schachner, p. 250.
10. From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Pinckney, 30 March 1808 (Online)
11. History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson
by Henry Adams, p. 1100-1101.
12. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume XI p. 41-42.
13. From Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, 21 August 1808 (Online)
14. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 543-549.
15. The Life of Thomas Jefferson Volume III by Henry Randall, p. 252.
16. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1199-1200.
17. Ibid., p. 1201.
18. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham, p. 431.
19. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1202.
20. Ibid., p. 1203.
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