-could be altered only by the
legislature.[75]

Of this British commercial policy, following immediately upon the
recognition of independence, Americans had not the slightest reason to
complain. They had insisted upon being independent, and it would be
babyish to fret about the consequences, when unpalatable. It was
unpleasant to find that Great Britain, satisfied that the carrying
trade was the first of her interests, upon which depended her naval
supremacy, rigorously excluded Americans from branches of that trade
before permitted to them; but in so doing she was simply seeking her
own advantage by means of her own laws, as a nation does, for
instance, when it imposes heavy protective duties. It is quite as
legitimate to protect the carrying trade as any other form of
industry; and the Navigation Act was no new device, for the special
annoyance of Americans. It is very possible that the action of Great
Britain at this time was so stupid, that, to use words of Jefferson's,
the only way to prophesy what she would do was to ascertain what she
ought to do, and infer the contrary. The rule, he said, never failed.
This particular stupidity, if such it were,--and there was at least
partial ground for the charge,--was simply another case of a most
common form of human dulness of perception, preoccupation with a fixed
idea. But were the policy wise or foolish, as regards herself, towards
the Americans it was not a wrong, but an injury; and, consequently,
what the newly independent people had to do was not to complain, but
to strike back with retaliatory commercial measures. Jefferson, no
friend generally to coercive action, wrote concerning this particular
situation, "It is not to the moderation or justice of others we are to
trust for fair and equal access to market with our productions, or for
our due share in the transportation of them; but to our own means of
independence, and the firm will to use them."[76]

Equally, when Great Britain, under the emergencies of the French
Revolution, resorted to measures that overpassed her rights, either
municipal or international, and infringed our own, the resort should
have been to the remedy with which nations defend their rights, as
distinct from their interest. The American people, then poor, and
habituated to colonial dependence, failed to create for themselves in
due time the power necessary to self-assertion; nor did they as a
nation realize, what men like John Adams and Gouve