The embargo succeeded in the sense that it postponed war with Britain, though neither it nor any other policy finally prevented what became known as the War of 1812. The diplomat William Pinkney probably had it right when he told Madison in 1809: “Any other measure than the embargo would have been madness or cowardice.47 For no others were in our choice but war with both aggressors, or submission to both; with the certainty, too, that that submission would in its progress either lead to war, or to a state of abject degradation.”
