1809.
GENERAL FACTIOUSNESS.
421
as may be." The fourth Monday in May was the date proposed for the extra session, and Congress at last found itself face to face with the naked issue of war.
The effect of the crisis upon Congress was immediate. Doubt, defiance, dismay, and disgust took possession of the Legislature, which swayed backward and forward from day to day, as courage or fear prevailed. The old Republicans, who could not yield their faith in the embargo, begged almost piteously for delay.
- "A large portion of the people, the South almost unanimously," urged David R. Williams of South Carolina, "have expressed a wish that the Government should adhere to the embargo till it produces an effect, or the capacity to produce the effect be disproved. You are like to be driven out of the embargo by war? Why, sir, look at the sensation in New England and New York, and talk about going to war when you cannot maintain an embargo! . . . If you do not adopt war before the fourth Monday in May, will the nation be ruined if you postpone it still further?"[1]
Macon declared that the embargo was still the people's choice:—
- "As to the people being tired of the embargo, whenever they want war in preference to it they will send their petitions here to that effect. . . . Let each man put the question to his neighbor whether he will have war or embargo, and there is no doubt but he will answer in favor of the latter."
- ↑ Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 1100.
