“It was originally offered to the people of this country as a kind of political faith; it was to be believed, not examined; ... it was to be our political salvation, nobody knew exactly how; and any departure from it would lead to political ruin, nobody could tell exactly why.” Its opponents had uniformly contended that it was auxiliary to Napoleon’s Continental system, in co-operation with Napoleon’s government; and its abandonment with the fall of Napoleon showed the truth. While thus exulting in the overthrow of the first “American system,” Webster qualified his triumph by adding that he was, “generally speaking,” not the enemy of manufactures; he disliked only the rearing them in hot-beds:-- “I am not in haste to see Sheffields and Birminghams in America.... I am not anxious to accelerate the approach of the period when the great mass of American labor shall not find its employment in the field; when the young men of the country shall be obliged to shut their eyes upon external Nature,--upon the heavens and the earth,--and immerse themselves in close and unwholesome workshops; when they shall be obliged to shut their ears to the bleatings of their own flocks upon their own hills, and to the voice of the lark that cheers them at the plough, that they may open them in dust and smoke and steam, to the perpetual whirl of spools and spindles and the grating of rasps and saws.” Potter of Rhode Island, where the new manufactures centred, spoke hotly against the change. Much Federalist capital had been drawn into the manufacturing business as well as into speculation in all articles of necessity which the blockade and the embargo made scarce. At heart the Federalists were not unanimous in wishing for a repeal of the restrictive system, and Potter represented a considerable class whose interests were involved in maintaining high prices. He admitted that the average duties would still give American manufactures an advantage of thirty-six per cent, without including freight and marine risks, but he insisted that the bill was intended to encourage importations of British goods “that we do not want and can do very well without, in order to raise a revenue from the people in an indirect way.” Probably Potter’s explanation of the change in system was correct. The necessities of the Treasury were doubtless a decisive cause of Madison’s step; but these necessities were foreseen by the Federalists when Madison recommended the embargo, and the neglect to give them due weight exposed the Administration to grave reproach. “A government which cannot administer the affairs of a nation,” said Webster, “without producing so frequent and such violent alterations in the ordinary occupations and pursuits of private life, has in my opinion little claim to the regard of the community.”