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instance of Jefferson, and repealed February 28, 1809, being succeeded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 consummate tact
that war with Great Britain was averted after the Leopard and Chesapeake
affair, and he always maintained that had his views been honestly
carried out by the entire nation, we should have obtained all we
afterward fought for, without the firing of a hostile gun.

When on March 4, 1809, Jefferson withdrew forever from public life, he