1From James Madison to William Pinkney, 17 March 1809 (Madison Papers)
You will learn by the communications from the Dept. of State, that the discussions of Congs. on our foreign relations had an issue less operative than was at one time looked for. The aversion to war, the inconveniences produced by or charged on the embargo, the hope of favorable changes in Europe, the dread of civil convulsions in the East, and the policy of permitting the discontented to be...