The Embargo Act of 1807 and its Unpopularity in New England
The United States of America prospered from trade. And trade went both-ways from buyer to supplier and vice versa. They sought to use nonimportation as a tool during the crisis leading up to the American Revolution and now the United States sought to use it to coerce Great Britain and France to stop raiding their shipments and impressing American sailors. But a country that lives by trade, dies by trade. The Embargo Act of 1807 deeply devastated trade and the economy once it got enacted. It particularly heavily affected New England (where the Federalists still remained as a political party) which was a major trade hub and most of its economy relied on mercantile activities.
"The New England Federalists were furious. With their region bearing the brunt of the enforcement, they urged resistance and civil disobedience... A number of New England towns flooded the president with petitions calling for the suspension of the embargo... The towns complained that their ships were lying idle in the harbors and that thousands of sailors, dock workers, and others employed in mercantile activities were out of work."1
The Federalists were seeing to their interests, but other countrymen saw the Federalists not only as pro-British but as anti-American, "The Republican clergyman William Bentley of Salem, Massachusetts, was astonished to see several Boston papers taking a 'decided part against our own Country in favour of the British'".2
The Embargo Act of 1807 was infamous and this particular cartoon mocks it. While it would be repealed, the War of 1812 would cease trade with Great Britain again and New England would be affected similarly if not worse and the reception at the time can be imagined.
1Proper citation:
Wood, Gordon S. Empire of liberty: A history of the early republic, 1789-1815. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
2Ibid
"The commercial losses were substantial. During the first year of the embargo the Massachusetts fleet, which comprised nearly 40 percent of the nation's total tonnage, lost over $15 million in freight revenues alone, a sum equal to the entire income of the federal government in 1806. During 1808, American exports declined nearly 80% and imports declined nearly 60%."3
3Proper citation
Ibid