of the Monroe doctrine in respect to Venezuela,
by President Cleveland, his attitude was criticised more severely by a
group in New York and Boston than it was by the English themselves.

Jefferson's effort to enforce the embargo and his calm resistance to New
England fury showed extraordinary firmness of will and tenacity of
purpose. In August, 1808, he wrote to General Dearborn, Secretary of War,
who was then in Maine: "The Tories of Boston openly threaten insurrection
if their importation of flour is stopped. The next post will stop it."

Blood was soon shed; but Jefferson did not shrink. The army was stationed
along the Canadian frontier, to prevent smuggling; gunboats and frigates
patrolled the coast. The embargo failed; but Mr. Henry Adams, the ablest
and fairest historian of this period, declares that it "was an experiment
in politics well worth making. In the scheme of President Jefferson,
non-intercourse was the substitute for war.... Failure of the embargo
meant in his mind not only a recurrence to the practice of war, but to
every political and social evil that war had always brought in its train.
In such a case the crimes and corruptions of Europe, which had been the
object of his political fears, must, as he believed, sooner or later, teem
in the fat soil of America. To avert a disaster so vast was a proper
motive for statesmanship, and justified disregard for smaller interests."
Mr. Parton observes, with almost as much truth as humor, that the embargo
was approved by the two highest authorities in Europe, namely, Napoleon
Bonaparte and the "Edinburgh Review."

Perhaps the fundamental error in Jefferson's theory was that nations are
governed mainly by motives of self-interest. He thought that England would
cease to legislate against American commerce, when it was once made plain
that such a course was prejudicial to her own interests. But nations, like
individuals, are influenced in their relations to others far more by pride
and patriotism, and even by prejudice, than by material self-interest. The
only way in which America could win respect and fair treatment from Europe
was by fighting, or at least by showing a perfect readiness to fight. This
she did by the war of 1812.

The embargo was an academic policy,--the policy of a philosopher rather
than that of a practical man of affairs. Turreau, the French ambassador,
wrote to Talleyrand, in May, 1806, that the President "has little energy
and still less