heir cargoes in the United
States, and all shipments to frontier posts were prohibited. Under these
acts the shipment of flour coastwise was forbidden, except upon permits
issued at the pleasure of the President, upon the requisition of
Governors of States, most of whom were members of the dominant party.
And last of all came the Enforcing Act, under the provisions of which
the collectors were armed with power to call out the militia at their
discretion and upon suspicion of an intent to violate the law, to
require vessels that had given bonds to discharge their cargoes, and
to detain every suspected vessel engaged in the coasting-trade. These
measures did not pass without opposition. Although the minority was weak
in numbers, it was not deficient in talent.

In the House, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, at that period the great
commercial State, was the Federal leader; and he now, after the lapse
of half a century, still survives in a green old age to see his policy
vindicated by the verdict of history.

Quincy, in various speeches, urged upon Congress,--

"You undertake to protect better the property of the merchant than his
own sense of personal interest would induce him to protect it.

"Suppose the embargo passes; will France forego a policy designed to
crush Great Britain and secure her way to universal empire, or England a
policy essential to her national existence? It is all very well to talk
of the patriotism and quiet submission of the people of the interior;
they cannot help submitting, they will have no opportunity to break the
embargo. But they whose ships lie on the edge of the ocean laden with
produce, with the alternative before them of total ruin or a rich
market, are in a totally different condition."

Again said Quincy,--

"Never before did society witness a total prohibition of all intercourse
like this in a commercial nation. But it has been asked in debate, 'Will
not Massachusetts, the Cradle of Liberty, submit to such privations?' An
Embargo Liberty was never cradled in Massachusetts. Our Liberty was not
so much a mountain-nymph as a sea-nymph. She was free as air. She could
swim, or she could run. The ocean was her cradle. Our fathers met her as
she came, like the Goddess of Beauty, from the waves. They caught her as
she was sporting on the beach. They courted her while she was spreading
her nets upon the rocks. But an Embargo Liberty, a handcuffed Liberty,
Liberty in fetters, a Liberty trav