It was war-time in the sense that it occured in direct response to offenses committed against American commerce by the participants in a huge war involving a little guy named Napoleon on the other side of the Atlantic.
Jefferson's action was not well though out which is why it was condemned.
Thank you for agreeing. On that note I will once again point out that being compared unfavorably to the Embargo Act of all things makes your tariffs just about the worst policy attempt in American history.
Lord, lord will there be no end of your grasping at straws to find something to argue about?
The unfavorable comparision was because the tariff was not as drastic and therefore not as protective as the embargo. That would not have changed had the latter been well planned and properly thought out. It is not a rational argument against tariffs because the embargo stimulated domestic production more than a tariff could. Nor were they complaining because the embargo stimulated domestic manufactures of import substitutes. They were complaining because it destroyed our shipping industry and crippled our export industries something the tariffs did NOT do.
The ONLY aspect of the tariffs properly compared to the Embargo involved the degree of protection offered by each. Only a fool would believe the former could be as effective as the latter in that regard.