This law,[115] limited to one year, declared that any American vessel “which shall be voluntarily carried, or shall be destined to proceed” to St. Domingo should be wholly forfeited, ship and cargo. Passed in consequence of Napoleon’s positive order, communicated by the President to Congress as though to overawe objection, the Act violated the principles of international law, sacrificed the interests of Northern commerce, strained the powers of the Constitution as formerly construed by the party of States-rights, and, taken in all its relations, might claim distinction among the most disgraceful statutes ever enacted by the United States government. Nevertheless, this measure, which bore on its face the birth-mark of Napoleonic features, did in fact owe its existence chiefly to a different parentage. In truth, the Southern States dreaded the rebel negroes of Hayti more than they feared Napoleon. Fear often made them blind to their own attitudes; in this instance it made them indifferent to the charge of servility to France. The opportunity to declare the negroes of Hayti enemies of the human race was too tempting to be rejected; and not only did the Southern Republicans eagerly seize it, but they persuaded their Northern allies to support them. John Randolph himself, though then wearying the House day after day with cries that Madison had sold the honor of the United States to France, never alluded to this act of subservience, which would have made any other Administration infamous, and quietly absented himself at the vote, that he might seem neither to obey Bonaparte’s mandate nor to oppose the Bill. Of the twenty-six voices against it, nearly all were Federalists; yet in this curious list, side by side with Josiah Quincy, Samuel Dana, and John Cotton Smith, stood the names of Jacob Crowninshield and Matthew Lyon, democrats of the deepest dye and objects of John Randolph’s bitterest sneers. The “Two-million Act” and the Act forbidding commerce with St. Domingo were measures equally necessary for the success of the Florida purchase. Without conciliating Napoleon at St. Domingo, Jefferson could not expect his help at Paris. These measures, together with some appearance of military activity, completed the Executive scheme of foreign policy in regard to France and Spain; the more difficult task remained of dealing with England. When the first news of Sir William Scott’s decision in the case of the “Essex” arrived in America, the merchants were indignant; and their anger steadily rose as the confiscation of American ships became more general, until at length, in December, 1805, Stephen’s pamphlet, “War in Disguise,” arrived, and was reprinted in the newspapers. By the close of the year 1805 no one could longer doubt that Great Britain had, so far as suited her purposes, declared war against the United States.