April 12, 1787

The news from the public papers today confirms a folly I have long feared: that a temporary Executive, inflamed by the passions of the moment, would wield the commerce of nations as a cudgel. To declare a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is to light a fuse to the powder keg of global trade, and for what political theatre? The price of oil vaulting above one hundred dollars a barrel is but the first and most predictable consequence - a tax levied not by any representative legislature upon the consent of the governed, but by the rash edict of a single man upon every farmer, every artisan, every household from Boston to the Carolinas.

When a government, instituted to secure the natural right of its people to pursue their livelihoods free from arbitrary interference, becomes the very source of that interference, it has betrayed its founding purpose. The specific grievance is clear: an act undertaken without the deliberation of the Congress, without a declaration of war, and against the manifest interest of the citizenry whose prosperity depends upon the free flow of commerce. It is a species of tyranny, no less so for being economic rather than martial, for it binds a man in chains of scarcity and inflated debt as effectively as a prison cell.

I see the hand of the speculator and the war-monger in this, those who would profit from chaos and who whisper counsel in the ear of power. They build their fortunes on the ruins of the common good. A decent respect for the opinions of mankind must ask: what principle is served by strangling a vital artery of the world’s sustenance? None but the principle of brute force, which is no principle at all. The lamp of reason grows dim indeed when such measures are celebrated as strength. I fear the reverberations of this act will long outlive its author, and the bill, as always, will be paid by those who till the soil and work with their hands.