Why, urged the merchant and the mariner, should our property perish and our children go supperless to bed, when we can insure our ships and still make large profits?  Would the planter reconcile himself to a law which forbade him to harness his teams or use the hoe or the plough, and bade him lie down and die of hunger beside fruitful fields?  Does the Constitution of the Union, which empowers Congress to regulate commerce, authorize its destruction?  And if it is the intent of Government merely to protect our ships abroad, why are foreign vessels forbidden to purchase or export our perishing fish and provisions? and why is our property to be confiscated and heavy fines to be imposed, if we send it across the Canada line, where there is no risk of seizure?—­And when, in the progress of events, it became apparent that France approved of our Embargo, and that England, opening new marts for her trade and new sources of supplies in Russia, Spain, India, and Spanish America, was without a rival on the ocean, monopolizing the trade and becoming the carrier of the world, it was impossible to reconcile the Eastern States to this general interdict.

Many a rich man was ruined, many a prosperous town was utterly prostrated by the shock.  Property, real and personal, fell from thirty to sixty per cent., affecting by its fall all classes of society.  A spirit of hostility to the party in power was engendered, which outlasted the war with England, and continued to glow until Monroe had adopted the great Federal measures of a navy, a military academy, and an enlarged system of coast-defence.

Half a century has now elapsed since the signal failure of the Embargo.  The theorists who planned it, the cabinet that adopted it, the politicians who blindly sustained it have passed from the stage.  Angry feelings have subsided.  The measure itself has become a part of the history of the country; but now that our commerce has again expanded, now that our navigation, for at least a quarter of a century, has continued to progress until it has outstripped that of Great Britain in speed, despatch, and capacity to carry, now that it knows no superior either in ancient or modern times, it is a fitting moment to investigate the causes and effects of the measure which once arrested its progress.  Its history is replete with lessons; and if our late President has failed in other particulars, he at least cautioned us, in his inaugural address, “that our commerce and navigation are again exceeding the means provided for their defence,” and recommended “an increase of a navy now inadequate to the protection of our vast tonnage afloat,” greater than that of any other nation, “as well as to the defence of our extended sea-coast.”  To ascertain and appreciate the true causes of the Embargo, we must ascend to the origin of our commerce and trace it downward.