Details
MONROE, James. Autograph manuscript fragment, unsigned, n.d. (ca. 1807-08). 1 page, oblong (5¾ x 7¾ in.), detached from a larger leaf.
"WAR IS THE NEXT STEP"
A spirited discussion of America's predicament during the Jeffersonian embargo against Britain and France: "It would be dishonourable, and might be ruinous if without a redress of our wrongs war did not promptly follow the expiration of the embargo. No other alternative is left to our choice. Every other expedient has been tried & failed...We cannot retrace our steps and abandon, perhaps forever, our most important rights. Nor can we rest longer at the point at which we now pause. We must without a redress of wrongs advance, & war is the next step. It would be folly in the extreme to attempt to disguise from ourselves the true character of the present embargo. It is not an engine to be wielded in negotiation. From the privations to which it may expose the belligerents nothing ought to be expected. If relied on in that sense only, it is known that it would fail. It is a measure of precaution, intended principally as a warning to our own people of the nature of the crisis which has arrived, & if the consequences into which it may lead. If it produces any salutary effect with the belligerents, or with either, it must be by announcing to them that the U. States, disdaining longer to--." Here the manuscript breaks off.
Monroe served as U. S. minister to Britain between 1803 and 1807, where he tried without success to end British depredations on American shipping. Monroe concluded a commercial treaty with London, only to have his own chief, President Jefferson, reject it on the grounds that it failed to address the crucial problem: impressments of American citizens on the high seas. But neither did Jefferson's embargo, as Monroe points out. It damaged America's seaport economies but did nothing to restrain the belligerent powers. Madison tried reducing the embargo to British and French trade only, but that still did nothing. War, indeed, was the next step, and the U. S. finally took it in 1812.
"WAR IS THE NEXT STEP"
A spirited discussion of America's predicament during the Jeffersonian embargo against Britain and France: "It would be dishonourable, and might be ruinous if without a redress of our wrongs war did not promptly follow the expiration of the embargo. No other alternative is left to our choice. Every other expedient has been tried & failed...We cannot retrace our steps and abandon, perhaps forever, our most important rights. Nor can we rest longer at the point at which we now pause. We must without a redress of wrongs advance, & war is the next step. It would be folly in the extreme to attempt to disguise from ourselves the true character of the present embargo. It is not an engine to be wielded in negotiation. From the privations to which it may expose the belligerents nothing ought to be expected. If relied on in that sense only, it is known that it would fail. It is a measure of precaution, intended principally as a warning to our own people of the nature of the crisis which has arrived, & if the consequences into which it may lead. If it produces any salutary effect with the belligerents, or with either, it must be by announcing to them that the U. States, disdaining longer to--." Here the manuscript breaks off.
Monroe served as U. S. minister to Britain between 1803 and 1807, where he tried without success to end British depredations on American shipping. Monroe concluded a commercial treaty with London, only to have his own chief, President Jefferson, reject it on the grounds that it failed to address the crucial problem: impressments of American citizens on the high seas. But neither did Jefferson's embargo, as Monroe points out. It damaged America's seaport economies but did nothing to restrain the belligerent powers. Madison tried reducing the embargo to British and French trade only, but that still did nothing. War, indeed, was the next step, and the U. S. finally took it in 1812.