resolutions are also given. Rhode Island appears to have been the last State to take action condemning the embargo. In New Hampshire resolutions against the embargo were rejected by the House, December 23, 1808, by a vote of 25 to 101. (National Intelligencer, Jan. 6, 1809.) Many of the other States passed resolutions approving the policy of the administration, those of North Carolina, of December 5, 1808 (Amer. State Papers, Misc., I, 944, 945), and of Virginia, of February 7, 1809 (Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1808–09, 99–104), may be taken as typical. The report accompanying the resolutions of Virginia is of considerable interest, as containing a reason for the failure of the embargo. It says: "If it has failed, in any degree, as a measure of constraint, your committee believe that it is not because our enemies have not felt its force, but because they believe we have felt it too sensibly; because the unfortunate opposition which the measure has met in some parts of the union, has inspired them with a fallacious hope, that we, ourselves, either could not or would not bear its privations."
The text of the resolutions of Rhode Island is from Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island General Assembly held at E. Greenwich on the fourth Monday of February, 1809, 32, 33.[1]
The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
The Committee to whom were referred the memorials, petitions and resolutions of the towns [here follow the names of twelve towns], beg leave to report * * * that it would be a paradox in the history of the human mind, if a people, who from the foundation of their government have ever manifested the most warm and zealous attachment to civil liberty, should regard with indifference its extinguishment. It would betray an ignorance of their true interests, if they did not esteem it the "more perfect union of these States," as it is declared and provided for in the federal constitution as the parent and perpetuator of their political prosperity.
That it would be a reflection on their discernment and sagacity, if they did not foresee that the dissolution of the Union may be more surely, and as speedily effected by the systematick oppression of the government, as by the inconsiderate disobedience of the people. That the people of this State, as one of the parties to the Federal compact, have a right to express their sense of any violation of its provisions and that it is the duty of this General Assembly as the organ of their sentiments and the depository of
- ↑ I am indebted to Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, Librarian of the Rhode Island Historical Society, for verifying the text of these resolutions.
