United States, The Jeffersonian Republicans in power

By the start of Jefferson's second term in office, Europe was engulfed in the Napoleonic Wars. The United States remained neutral, but both Britain and France imposed various orders and decrees severely restricting American trade with Europe and confiscated American ships for violating the new rules. Britain also conducted impressment raids in which U.S. citizens were sometimes seized. Unable to agree to treaty terms with Britain, Jefferson tried to coerce both Britain and France into ceasing to violate �neutral rights� with a total embargo on American exports, enacted by Congress in 1807. The results were catastrophic for American commerce and produced bitter alienation in New England, where the embargo (written backward as �O grab me�) was held to be a Southern plot to destroy New England's wealth. In 1809, shortly after Madison was elected president, the embargo act was repealed.