Jefferson and the Law of Nations

The embargo upon commerce which Congress at the suggestion of President Jefferson decreed in 1807 was more than an experiment in practical politics. It was the test on a magnificent scale of a theory of international law long maturing in the President's mind, and the fitting contribution of a new nation to a body of doctrine which owed its revival, if not its inception, to the need of curbing the international anarchy which accompanied the rise of modern states. The law of nations was a new development. Less than two centuries had passed since Grotius put forth the pioneer work De jure belli ac pacis (1625). The interval between the publication of Grotius' book and the issuance of the embargo decree was, in fact, the classical period in international law. The labors of Leibnitz, Wolff, Vattel, and Bynkershoek built up a system popular, not only with doctrinaires and philosophers, but even with enlightened despots in their more subjective moments. By the close of the eighteenth century, the law of nations had acquired as much prestige as it could ever hope to secure without the support of its own guns and navies. It was the highest political expression of an age which believed in the perfectability of human relations through sheer intellect. And if its dicta sometimes failed to govern the actions of courts and cabinets, its infringement was not a matter of indifference. Nations broke treaties, to be sure, but they did not call them “scraps of paper.”