2 déc. 1807 - Embargo Act of 1807

Description:

A general embargo on all foreign nations enacted by the United States Congress with the intent of harming the United Kingdom and France during the Napoleonic Wars. Basically the US cut off trade to all other nations, which greatly dissadvantaged American merchants.

The embargo was imposed in response to violations of United States neutrality, in which American merchantmen and their cargo were seized as contraband of war by the European navies. The British Royal Navy, in particular, resorted to impressment, forcing thousands of British-American seamen into service on their warships (under British law of the time, having been born British they were still subjects of the Crown). Britain and France, engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, rationalized the plunder of U.S. shipping as incidental to war and necessary for their survival.