Nonrecognition began as an attempt at quarantine. In March 1804 Jefferson told the British minister Anthony Merry that the powers holding West Indian colonies should jointly deny the new Haitian state any navigation, arms or ammunition, a proposal Britain ignored because it had its own Caribbean agenda. Madison meanwhile instructed the American minister in Paris to trade a ban on contraband for protection of ordinary commerce, reversing a stand both the Adams and Jefferson administrations had defended against French pressure. Left without allies abroad, Jefferson adopted the policy Congress wanted, embargo and silence. He justified it publicly as a matter of merchants forcing trade on foreign ports, which spared Congress another floor fight over slavery. Matthewson traces the long consequence, a southern literature that made Haiti the standing argument against emancipation by blaming its violence on race instead of bondage, and a recognition postponed until secession removed the men who blocked it.