Embargo Act of 1807
US 1807 trade embargo against France and the UK
The Embargo Act of 1807 was a general trade embargo on all foreign nations that was enacted by the United States Congress. Much broader than the ineffectual 1806 Non-importation Act, it represented an escalation of attempts to coerce Britain and France to cease their interference with American merchant shipping as the Napoleonic Wars continued. In the first decade of the 19th century, American shipping grew. During the Napoleonic Wars, British and French authorities seized American merchantmen trading with the other side. American merchantmen bound for trade with "enemy nations" were seized as contraband of war by both European powers. The Royal Navy, angered by thousands of its sailors deserting and finding work on American merchantmen, began stopping US ships and reclaiming alleged deserters. This inflamed American public opinion, which was exacerbated by incidents such as the Chesapeake–Leopard affair.
Congress imposed the embargo in direct response to these events. President Thomas Jefferson weighed public support for retaliation, but recognized that the United States was militarily far weaker than either Britain or France. He recommended Congress respond instead with commercial warfare.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1686420. The Library of Congress control number is sh85042666. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1807 and 1806.
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This entry incorporates text from “Embargo Act of 1807” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.