1804-6, by Lewis and Clarke, the first party of
white men to cross the continent north of Mexico. Ohio was admitted to
the Union in 1802. Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont made her maiden trip
from New York to Albany in 1807. The first boatload of anthracite coal
was shipped to Philadelphia, and it was a long time before the people
knew what to do with it.

The Tripolitan Pirates were snuffed out (1801-1805). The blight of the
Embargo Act settled upon our commerce in 1807, in which year the
opening gun of the War of 1812 was fired when the Leopard outraged the
Chesapeake.

The Embargo Act was a grievous mistake of Jefferson, though its purpose
was commendable. Under the plea of securing our ships against capture,
its real object was to deprive England and France of the commodities
which could be secured only in the United States. This measure might
have been endurable for an agricultural people, but it could not be
borne by a commercial and manufacturing one, like New England, whose
goods must find their market abroad. Under the Embargo Act, the New
England ships were rotting and crumbling to pieces at her wharves. It
was not long before she became restless. The measure was first endorsed
by the Massachusetts legislature, but the next session denounced it.

Early in 1809, congress passed an act allowing the use of the army and
navy to enforce the embargo and make seizures.

The Boston papers printed the act in mourning and, meetings were called
to memorialize the legislature. That body took strong ground, justifying
the course of Great Britain, demanding of congress that it should repeal
the embargo and declare war against France. Moreover, the enforcement
act was declared "not legally binding," and resistance to it was urged.

This was as clear a case of nullification as that of South Carolina in
1832.

Connecticut was as hot-headed as Massachusetts.

John Quincy Adams has stated that at that time the "Essex Junto" agreed
upon a New England convention to consider the expediency of secession.
Adams denounced the plotters so violently that the Massachusetts
legislature censured him by vote, upon which he resigned his seat in the
United States senate.

The Embargo Act was passed by congress, December 22, 1807, at the
instance of Jefferson, and repealed February 28, 1809, being succeeded
by the Non-Intercourse Act, which forbade French and British vessels to
enter American ports. It was mainly due to Jefferson's c