5002. MANUFACTURES, The Embargo and.—[further continued] .
The interruption of our
commerce with England, produced by our
Embargo and Non-Intercourse law, and the
general indignation excited by her bare-faced
attempts to make us accessories and tributaries
to her usurpation on the high seas, have
generated in this country an universal spirit
for manufacturing for ourselves, and of reducing
to a minimum the number of articles
for which we are dependent on her. The advantages,
too, of lessening the occasions of
risking our peace on the ocean, and of planting
the consumer in our own soil by the side
of the grower of produce, are so palpable,
that no temporary suspension of injuries on
her part, or agreements founded on that, will
now prevent our continuing in what we have
begun. The spirit of manufacturing has taken
deep root among us, and its foundations are
laid in too great expense to be abandoned.—
To Dupont de Nemours. Washington ed. v, 456.
(M.
June. 1809)