“In 1806, [Pres.] Jefferson secured the passage of a Non-Importation Act, banning certain British imports and, in 1807, an Embargo Act, banning all American exports. During the ongoing war between Britain and France, the British had been seizing American ships and impressing American seamen. Jefferson believed that banning all trade was the only way to remain neutral. No Americans ships were to sail to foreign ports. He insisted that all the goods Americans needed they could produce in their own homes. ...

”The embargo devastated the American economy. Jeffersonian agrarianism was not only backward-looking but also largely a fantasy.“

— from Jill Lepore's ”These Truths: A History of the United States"