Sentence Examples:
To raise their expectations yet higher, their trade was suspended by an embargo, long continued, and in the strictest manner enforced, and the impresses were let loose upon the sailors; they saw nothing omitted, however grievous to the nation, that could contribute to make it formidable, and bore part of the miseries of war without impatience, in hopes of being rewarded by military glory, and repaid by the plunder of Spain.
A printed paper was also delivered to the members, entitled, 'considerations on the embargo,' which enumerated many dangerous consequences likely to be produced by an embargo on provisions, and suggested that it was no better than a wicked scheme for private profit, with other reflections, for which the paper was deemed a libel, and the author committed to prison.
It is highly probable, sir, that the contractors for supplying the navy with provisions, considering, with that acuteness which a quick sense of loss and gain always produces, how much the price of victuals would be raised by exportation, and, by consequence, how much of the advantage of their contracts would be diminished, suggested to the ministry the necessity of an embargo, and laid before them those arguments which their own observation and wisdom would never have discovered.
An embargo imposed only by the prerogative may be relaxed or enforced as occasion may require, or regulated according to the necessity arising from particular circumstances; circumstances in themselves variable, and subject to the influence of a thousand accidents, and which, therefore, cannot be always foreseen, or provided against by a law positive and fixed.
The question arising from the embargo on the exportation of corn, in consequence of apprehended famine, he proved triumphantly that, although the measure was expedient and proper, it was a violation of law, and required to be sanctioned by an act of indemnity.
We shall reach a population of two hundred millions in the very near future, as time is counted in the lives of nations, and there is nothing more certain than that this country of ours will some day support double or triple or five times that number of prosperous people if only we can bring ourselves so to handle our natural resources in the present as not to lay an embargo on the prosperous growth of the future.
Jefferson sought to keep the United States from being drawn into the roaring vortex of the great wars in Europe, he opposed, and favored the policy of preparing the country for defense, not by gunboats and embargoes, but by a powerful navy of frigates and ships of the line.
Having our names crossed in the buttery, therefore, is a punishment which suspends our collegiate existence while the cross remains, besides putting an embargo on our pudding, beer, bread and cheese, milk, and butter; for these articles come out of the buttery.
Where the first seizure is equivocal, if the matter in dispute terminates in reconciliation, the seizure is converted into a mere civil embargo.
The United States, on the other hand, will doubtless readily recognize that, if international wrongs are to be redressed upon that continent, aggrieved European Powers may occasionally be obliged to resort to stronger measures than a mere embargo on shipping, or the blockade (whether "pacific" or "belligerent") of a line of coast.
The commercial and industrial crisis brought on by the embargo, and which beggared, on the authority of Webster, "thousands of families and hundreds of thousands of individuals" fanned this Eastern dissatisfaction into almost open disaffection towards a government dominated by Southern influence, and directed by Southern statesmanship.
Catherine's, they were fully persuaded that we were either shipwrecked, or had perished at sea, or at least had been obliged to put back again; for it was conceived impossible for any ships to continue at sea during so long an interval, and, therefore, on the application of the merchants and the firm persuasion of our having miscarried, the embargo had been lately taken off.
I recollect an instance the first winter of the war, when, from sloth of proceedings, an embargo was permitted to run through the winter, while the enemy could not cruise, nor consequently restrain the exportation of our whole produce, and was taken off in the spring, as soon as they could resume their stations.
I had not yet seen it; and upon this notice of an intended invasion, I avoided appearing on that side of the coast, for fear of being discovered by some of the enemy's ships, who had received no intelligence of me, all intercourse between the two empires having been strictly forbidden during the war, upon the pain of death, and an embargo laid by our emperor upon all vessels whatsoever.
The one can prescribe no rules concerning the commerce or currency of the nation; the other is in several respects the arbiter of commerce, and in this capacity can establish markets and fairs, can regulate weights and measures, can lay embargoes for a limited time, can coin money, can authorize or prohibit the circulation of foreign coin.
Deprived by the embargo, the non-intercourse act, and the ensuing hostilities, of all foreign importation of goods, the American people were compelled to supply themselves by their own industry and ingenuity, with those articles for which they had always before been dependent on their transatlantic neighbors.
Sedgewick's motion authorizing the President to lay an embargo was negatived by a majority of two voices; but in a few days, the consideration of that subject was resumed, and a resolution passed, prohibiting all trade from the United States to any foreign port or place for the space of thirty days, and empowering the President to carry the resolution into effect.
It was thought right to pass a bill of indemnity in favor of those who had acted in obedience to the council with respect to the embargo, and when this bill was brought in by a member of the cabinet, a remark was made, that although it provided for the security of the inferior officers, who had acted under the proclamation, it passed over those who advised the measure.
He vindicated the issuing of the embargo by legal authority during the recess of parliament as an act of power justifiable on the ground of necessity, and he read a paragraph from Locke on Government, to show that his views were borne out by that great friend of liberty, that constitutional philosopher, and that liberal statesman.
Rage, depression, shame, knew no bounds; and the army was unable to vent anger in heroic attack, for England had repealed her embargo laws, and when Brock came back from Detroit he found that an armistice had been arranged, and both sides had been ordered to suspend hostilities till instructions came from the governments.
It meant the embargo raised from all his possessions, the awakening from a nightmare that had lasted two months, the puff of cool wind sweeping away all his anxieties, all his inquietudes, even to the affront of Saint-Romans, very heavy though that was in his memory.
The Orders in Council of November 11, 1807, avowedly adopted to compel all nations to give up their maritime trade or accept it through Great Britain, reached Washington on December 18, 1807, and were immediately replied to by the United States by an embargo act on December 22.
Canning, for the Portland Ministry, sarcastically declined to be moved, observing that the embargo, whatever its motives, was practically the same as Napoleon's system, and England could not submit to being driven to surrender to France even to regain the American market or relieve the Americans from their self-inflicted sufferings.
No embargo was placed upon their way of marching, and they tramped eagerly on, till the occupants of the Castle were startled by their sudden arrival, to share in the surprise of their fellows when orders were given for rations to be supplied to each man, after a good meal had been eaten.
It meant the raising of the embargo from all his property, the awakening from a nightmare of two months' duration, the blast of the mistral sweeping away all vexations, all anxieties, even to the insult at Saint-Romans, heavily as it weighed on his memory.
Rather than submit to the burdensome embargo and the more burdensome second war with England, most New England men of property seem to have preferred the dissolution of a union which was formed for commercial purposes; and we have seen how Webster urged resistance to the national tariff in 1820 even to the point of advising secession.
Their opponents at home ceaselessly charged Jefferson, Madison, and all the Republicans with partiality to France, so that Canning and Castlereagh were misled; and they were confirmed in their suspicion by Napoleon's crafty assumption that our embargo or non-intercourse policy was meant to act, as it confessedly did, favorably to France.
Some even of the wealthiest of their number were among those who applauded the embargo, of which conduct this not very charitable explanation was given: that it would enable those who were able to wait for the revival of trade to buy up at a great discount the ships and produce of their poorer neighbors
Here, a department, acting for itself and without referring elsewhere, puts an embargo on vessels, while another orders the expulsion of a military detachment essential for the security of places devastated by ruffians; and the minister, who responds to the demands of those interested, replies: 'Such are the orders of the department.'
New sources have been resorted to with success to supply deficiencies produced by so sudden an interruption of commerce, and the vast increase of export and import of this province proves that the embargo is a measure well adapted to promote the true interests of his Majesty's American colonies
Collectors were empowered to take into custody specie and goods, whether on vessels or land vehicles, when there was reason to believe them intended for exportation; and authority was given to employ the army and navy, and the militia, for carrying out this and the other embargo legislation.
This narrowing of the constructive blockade system, combined with the relaxations effected by the Non-Intercourse Act, and with the food requirements of the Spanish peninsula, did much to revive American commerce; which, however, did not again before the war regain the fair proportions of the years preceding the embargo.
Learning that the President intended to recommend the embargo, these gentlemen, as stated by Quincy on the floor of the House, despatched at once to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, expresses which left Washington March 31, the day before Madison's letter was dated.
It must be remembered that such losses, however grievous in themselves, and productive of individual suffering, have by no means the decisive effect produced by the stoppage of commerce, even though such cessation involves no more than the retention in harbor of the belligerent's ships, as the Americans were after 1812, or as had been the case during Jefferson's embargo of 1808.
The embargoes and restrictions, which were once thought necessary to enable us to obtain a scanty supply for our army, have been unknown among us for three years past; and yet a most ample provision has been made both for our troops and those of our allies.
Congress, both in its spring and winter sessions, could talk of little else but the disastrous embargo; proposing, on the one hand, to make it the more stringent by an enforcement act, and, on the other, to substitute for it non-intercourse with England and France, restoring trade with the rest of the world, and leaving the question of decrees and orders in council open for future consideration.
Yet he clung with more and more tenacity to the faith that his theory of peaceable coercion was sound; and when within a few months of his death he alluded for the last time to the embargo, he spoke of it as "a measure which, persevered in a little longer, we had subsequent and satisfactory assurance would have effected its object completely."
This had, of course, earned him the undying hatred of the outwitted agents of our enemies, and he had also, in company with his sister and brother-in-law (both of whom were later convicted of complicity in his designs), got himself disliked for the prominent part he played in the agitation for an embargo on the export of arms and munitions of war.
Sympathy for us from the very first day of the war there was none; but had the general feeling been as strongly for us as it actually was against us, no doubt the Government would have kicked against the English illegalities, and enforced an embargo against her.
Any vessel which had suffered the visitation of English cruisers or had put in at any English port was declared thereby to have become English and consequently subject to confiscation; an embargo was also placed on all neutral ships at that time in French harbors.
Were he a distinguished and illustrious talker like Johnson and Coleridge, he might be excused, though in their case they laid too much embargo upon the interchange of thought; but when the mind is an ordinary one, the offense is insufferable, if not unpardonable.
Here was one description of rural produce on which there was the least embargo, and on which some reliance could be placed that it would in all circumstances bring a fair value; while corn, the prime rural produce, was subject as a commodity of merchandise to every difficulty, internally and externally, which meddling legislation and popular prejudice could impose.
As long as mud placed an embargo upon city traffic, the farmer could bear his mud-made isolation with less complaint, but with the improvement of city streets and with the establishment of parks and boulevards, the farmer's just demands for better roads find increasing expression.
At any rate, laying an embargo, which he probably thought would last but a few months, was a small thing compared with the refusal to restrict slavery, willingness to enact laws to the disadvantage of mankind, and the voluntary support of Mason's iniquitous bill.
A father cannot without leave of his adopted son alienate any of the family heirlooms; the adopted son now, by the father's own free act acquires, not indeed dominion over the riches of the home, but, at any rate, an embargo on the father's free exercise of those riches.
They instantly made Victoriano prisoner; and, after seizing the books and laying an embargo on the pony, proceeded, amidst much abuse, to drag the captive to what they denominated their prison, a low damp apartment with a little grated window, where they locked him up and left him.
They left apparently satisfied, but nevertheless the cars were moved; no one seemed to know how, but it became apparent to the strikers that a traitor was in their ranks, and took immediate steps to ferret him out, and have the embargo once more placed on business at this point.
For the beauteous Edith had succumbed to the prismatic attractions of a ritualistic parson of fine presence and ample means, and this cleric had, under pain of cancelling his own engagement, laid a stern embargo on his future bride making an exhibition of herself in a public court.
He was responsible, Franklin thought, for the loss of Fort George, and for the foundering of a large part of the Carolina fleet, which, for lack of notice from him, remained anchored in the worm-infested waters of Charleston harbor for three months, after he had raised his embargo on the exportation of provisions.
True enough, in several states the electors had been selected before the full pressure of the embargo was felt, but with such a substantial majority it is difficult to accept unreservedly Henry Adams' view that "no one could fail to see that if nine months of embargo had so shattered Jefferson's power, another such year would shake the Union itself."
The excise law in Pennsylvania, the embargo and non-intercourse law in the eastern States, the carriage tax in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitutional, and were more equal in their operation than any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately none of those States discovered that they had the right now claimed by South Carolina.
He violently opposed the various embargo acts, and all the other governmental measures of the decade before the war; and worked himself up to such a pitch, when hostilities began, that, though one of the founders of the Constitution, though formerly one of the chief exponents of the national idea, and though once a main upholder of the Union, he abandoned every patriotic principle and became an ardent advocate of Northern secession.
He thought the principal object, at this time, was to defend our commerce, and thereby secure the revenue arising from it, either by an effectual naval armament, or by an embargo; and he thought he was correct in saying, in reference to this defense, that the gentleman opposed every thing, and proposed nothing.
As regards enemy merchantmen in the harbors of the belligerents, it became, from the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, a usage, if not a custom, that no embargo could be laid on them for the purpose of confiscating them, and that a reasonable time must be granted them to depart unmolested; but no rule was in existence until the Second Peace Conference of 1907 which prescribed immunity from confiscation for such enemy merchantmen at sea as did not know of the outbreak of war.
That is why Germany was so bitter against England when England entered the war; that is why she was so insistent that we should put an embargo on munitions, for if England had not come in and kept the seas open, if we had consented to forbid the shipment of munitions, France must have swiftly fallen through the sheer starvation of her guns, for a nation with seven million tons of iron a year cannot contend with one possessing forty-nine million tons.
He agreed, however, to do what he could to expedite matters from that time on in the case of the embargoed ships, but protested that, as the ships condemned in the Prize Courts had, according to German law, ceased to be Allied vessels, he had no authority to deliver them.
The embargo had now continued upwards of three months, and the salutary check which Congress imagined it would have upon the conduct of the belligerent powers was extremely doubtful, while the ruination of the commerce of the United States appeared certain if such destructive measures were persisted in.
It has existed so long as one of the national customs, varying in its observance in different parts of the country, and having passed through many periods of change, that a few years ago he would have been accounted a rash and uninspired prophet who would have foretold that the Republican Government might have the temerity to lay its embargo on this sacred institution.
Here our cargo had to be examined by a stern, surly officer, who, it was feared, would lay an embargo on our goods upon the slightest appearance of irregularity in our papers; but notwithstanding our gloomy forebodings, we passed the ordeal without any difficulty.
The punishments inflicted were not usually severe, but the trial itself was a sufficient penalty, for the accused was thrown into the secret prison during the dilatory progress of his case, his property was embargoed and his career was ruined, while in most cases he was subsequently kept under strict surveillance, for which the inquisitorial organization furnished special facilities.
He should also be told to restore to them the mare and colt which he had unlawfully embargoed, to send at his own cost proper persons to conduct the prisoners comfortably home, and moreover that he and his vicars must see to the proper instruction of his flock.
In the following year a number of cutters cruised with diligence and daring in West Indian waters, and the record of the Revenue Cutter Service in guarding the seaboard and preventing the departure of unauthorized merchant ships, while the embargo act of 1807 was in force, was also a fine one.
During the last week of such embargo, boats were constantly butting the ice at either end of the lake, trying to get up or down, or were perilously coasting along the shore, where, from the shallowness of the water and the inflow from the banks, the ice had rotted more than in the center of the lake.
I consider myself as warranted in doing this, from the American Government having explicitly taken this ground, and made known that, on the removal of the decrees and orders, it would, on our part, remove the embargo, and restore the accustomed intercourse between the two countries.
Now, sir, it is clear, from the showing even of this honorable gentleman whose calculations are received with so much respect here, that whether there is peace, war, or embargo, our resources are yet abundant to carry us on, at least until the next winter; and as we are to meet again in three months, it follows that the present undigested project must be worse than useless.
Not the Continental Powers who have so little commerce afloat nor any neutrals to convey it to them; for the United States were the only neutral which, of late, traded with France, and now the embargo was laid, she had no chance of getting it, except by the precarious captures made by her privateers.
Cotton was also raised in Africa, as well as elsewhere; and this wary nation, Great Britain, conceiving that the United States might be so impolitic as to keep on the embargo, had carried whole cargoes of the best cotton seed there for the purpose of raising cotton for her use.
These considerations required the arm of Government, and at this inauspicious period, when the clouds which had so long threatened and darkened our political horizon gathered to a thick and horrible tempest, which now seemed about to burst upon our devoted nation, the embargo snatched our property from the storm, and deprived the thunderbolt of its real calamities.
There is no doubt that the conduct of these belligerents gave rise to the embargo; but if this measure has been proved by experience to be inoperative as it regards them, and destructive only as it respects ourselves, then every dictate of magnanimity, of wisdom, and of prudence, should urge the immediate repeal of it.
If events have proved it to be a wise and beneficial measure, I am willing that those to whom it owes its parentage should receive all the honors that are due to them; but if security to our navigation, and protection to our seamen, were the real objects of the embargo, then it has already answered all the effects that can be expected from it.
These are part of the reasons why the embargo, as a measure of coercion, has not proved completely efficacious; and had it not been for this kind of conduct, our enemies would have been brought to a sense of justice, an amicable adjustment of differences would have taken place.
The friends of this measure are not so particularly attached to it, but what they would willingly exchange it for one that was less sorely felt, less oppressive, and one that would preserve national honor, and bring about a redress of grievances; as it was with extreme regret that they had to resort to the measure of the embargo, and which could only be warranted by the necessity of the case.
All the evasions of the embargo have been made with a view to that supply; enforce it, and from whence will they procure the article of lumber?
And if the embargo is continued, the inevitable consequence must be, bankruptcy to many of our merchants, and absolute distress, misery, and want, to a large proportion of our citizens who live in the seaport towns, and great embarrassments to all classes of citizens throughout our country.
The publications throughout the United States, and thence in England, that the embargo could not be maintained, have induced the belligerents to believe that we wanted energy, and that we are too fluctuating in our councils to persevere in a measure which requires privations from the people.
In commenting on this part of the gentleman's observations, it becomes proper to notice, not an insinuation, but a positive declaration that the secret intention of laying the embargo was to destroy commerce; and was in a state of hostility to the avowed intention.
In support of this motion, he alleged the impossibility of carrying the system into effect; for he conceived that the embargo had been ineffectual from the impossibility of carrying it into complete effect, and the proposed system would be as difficult to enforce.
If then the embargo has not produced the effects calculated from it, we have every reason to believe that its failure to produce these effects has been connected with causes wholly adventitious, and which may give way if the nation adheres to the measure.
He observed that a partial repeal of the embargo would destroy all the coercive effects of the measure, inasmuch as produce would be let out, and would find its way to every quarter of the world.
I wish the President of the United States to have the approving sentiment of this House, and to have that approbation as a guide to his future conduct; and I put it to the gentleman from Massachusetts whether it be fair to mingle it with the old, stale, refuse stuff of the embargo?
He would propose an amendment to inquire into the propriety of remunerating those who had suffered by their submission (not by their opposition) to the several acts respecting the embargo, certainly so much more meritorious conduct than that of opposition.
That gentleman's observations consisted almost exclusively of retrospective animadversions upon the original objects and horrible effects of the embargo laws, without seeming to think it was worth his attention to favor us with any reflections upon the prospective course of measures which the people's interests, the public safety, and general welfare, so imperiously demand.
It is admitted by all, that the embargo laws have saved this enormous amount of property, and this number of seamen, which, without them, would have forcibly gone into the hands of our enemies, to pamper their arrogance, stimulate their injustice, and increase their means of annoyance.
To enforce it, the powers of the Government are to be put in array throughout our country, especially in places where discontents are manifested; and an extension is to be given to that system of arbitrary seizures of vessels, goods, merchandise, and domestic products, on suspicion of their being intended for exportation, which came in with the embargo laws, and has attended their execution.
If only the Chinese and Tibetans would remove the embargo at present imposed upon the entry of our trade, there were, by routes under our own control, no serious difficulties or dangers of any kind to overcome, and none of the risks of collision which existed elsewhere.
In the last half of the year now closing the railways, broken in carrying capacity because of motive power and rolling stock out of order, though insistently declaring to the contrary, embargoed his shipments or denied him cars when fortunate markets were calling.
Dismissing my wagoner, I told the officer in charge that the contents of the box were of a perishable character, and that rather than have them wasted, I should be glad to have him accept the whole as a present to his mess; but he declined, on the ground that to accept the present would be a gross irregularity so long as there was an embargo upon the package.
The reason alleged by the priest for receiving the money in this roundabout way was that as the brigadier had died in debt to the state and the government might suspect that property belonging to the deceased had come into his, the priest's charge and be subject to the law of embargo on the brigadier's effects, it was desirable that every precaution should be taken to disarm suspicion and prevent injury.
General Lincoln has hired a swift sailing brigantine, the Adriana, Josiah Hill master, to conduct me to Martinique, and the government has relaxed the embargo on the vessel, and such cargo as she will be laden with, which will be no more than sufficient to ballast her.
We are already overwhelmed with applications, and there is real danger that the great object of the embargo in keeping our ships and seamen out of harm's way, will be defeated; and every vessel and seaman sent out under this pretext, and placed in the prize of the belligerent tyrants.
If the Spanish proprietor had no agency in drawing the vessel away contrary to the embargo laws, his employment of her was innocent, and he ought to be permitted to send his cargo out; because for us to take his property and bring it in by force, and against his will, and then to detain it under pretext of an embargo, would be equivalent to piracy or war.
Keeping therefore the articles of provisions, lumber and naval stores, within their regular limits, I see no objection to a permit in the character of his cargo; and the objection drawn from his dislike and disapprobation of the embargo, has never been considered as an obstacle where the person has not actually been guilty of its infraction.
We know that the fabrication of proofs of leaky ships, stress of weather, cargoes sold under duress, are a regular part of the system of infractions of the embargo, with the manufacture of which every foreign port is provided, and that their oaths and forgeries are a regular merchandise in every port.
My opinion is therefore that no permission ought ever to be granted for any vessel to leave our ports (while the embargo continues) in which any person is concerned either in interest or in navigating her, who has ever been concerned in interest, or in the navigation of a vessel which has at any time before entered a foreign port contrary to the views of the embargo laws, and under any pretended distress or duress whatever.
Although a ship does reach Acapulco in 1637, the citizens of the Philippines are not much benefited thereby, for the goods are all embargoed at Acapulco, contrary to the usual custom, because of certain strict edicts, and all appraised at four times their value, the consequent duties being very heavy.
"In the event of such peace, or suspension of hostilities between the belligerent powers of Europe, or of such change in their measures affecting neutral commerce, as may render that of the United States sufficiently safe, in the judgment of the President," he is authorized to suspend the embargo.
The embargo, giving time to the belligerent powers to revise their unjust proceedings, and to listen to the dictates of justice, of interest and reputation, which equally urge the correction of their wrongs, has availed our country of the only honorable expedient for avoiding war; and should a repeal of these edicts supersede the cause for it, our commercial brethren will become sensible that it has consulted their interests, however against their own will.
Submission and tribute, if that be our choice, will be no baser now than at the date of the embargo.
Should the embargo be continued, or a non-intercourse be substituted, it is pleasing to know that our fellow citizens will afford every aid in their power to render it effectual; and if war must at length be resorted to, I have entire confidence in their declarations, that as citizen soldiers they will be ready at the call of their country to prove to their enemies that they know how to value and defend their rights.
I cannot in a letter repeat my reasons, which I have so often stated in public speeches and interviews, why I am opposed to our government placing an embargo on munitions of war and, consequently, I must refer you to such speeches and interviews for such information.