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James Monroe 1758-1831 |
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Overview
James Monroe, (1758-1831), 5th President of the United States.
Monroe's public career was shaped by three great influences: the American
Revolution; the principles of the Republican party, which he helped found;
and his diplomatic experiences. He worked to achieve the revolutionary ideal
of a representative government based on free institutions, first through the
battle to defeat the Federalists and, secondly, as president, by attempting
to eliminate party divisions, which he regarded as destructive of republican
government.
Monroe's policies, stressing the concept of limited government and
strict construction of the U.S. Constitution, were shaped in accordance with
the principles of the Jeffersonian Republican party. As a result of his
experiences as a diplomat, he acquired a determination to free the United
States from subservience to European powers. Hence he rejected British
proposals in 1823 for joint action to protect the newly won independence of
the Latin American states in favor of a unilateral policy declaration later
known as the Monroe Doctrine.
Unlike his close friends and political collaborators Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison, Monroe was neither an
intellectual nor a political innovator. His talent lay in the practical
implementation of ideals and policies. Without any gifts as an orator or
writer, he owed his influence and prestige both to his generally recognized
integrity and honesty and to his personal charm. The latter was largely the
result of an evident personal warmth, a genuine thoughtfulness, and a
temperament remarkably free from vindictiveness. He was able to work with
little friction with men of the most varied character and ability. A slow
thinker, who carefully canvassed all alternatives before making a decision,
he was praised by his contemporaries for the soundness of his judgment. In
many ways his values were those of the 18th century. Therefore, it was
typical of him that during his presidency this tall, raw-boned,
plain-looking man still wore the knee breeches and buckled shoes of an
earlier age.
Early Career
Monroe was born in Westmoreland county, Va., on April 28, 1758, the son
of a modest planter. He entered William and Mary College in July 1774, but,
caught up by the fervor of the revolutionary spirit, he enlisted in the
Third Virginia Regiment in the spring of 1776. As a lieutenant he saw action
in the battles in New York preceding Washington's retreat into New Jersey,
and he distinguished himself in a vanguard action at Trenton, where he was
seriously wounded. For two years he served as an aide with the rank of
colonel to Gen. William Alexander (Lord Stirling). He was present during the
winter of Valley Forge (1777-1778) and participated in the Battle of
Monmouth.
In 1780, unable to obtain a field command, Monroe returned to
Virginia to study law under Thomas Jefferson, who became a lifelong friend,
patron, and major influence on his intellectual development. Monroe was
elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1782, and his abilities and
total dedication to public service won him election in 1783 to the
Confederation Congress, where he sat until 1786. Here he organized the
opposition to the Jay-Gardoqui proposals, by which the United States would
have yielded to Spain its claim to the free navigation of the Mississippi
River. He also helped lay the groundwork for territorial government embodied
in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. While in Congress, Monroe joined the
advocates of a stronger government, continuing the work of his friend James
Madison. Yet as a member of the Virginia ratifying convention he joined
Patrick Henry and George Mason in opposing the ratification of the U.S.
Constitution. He considered it defective in the excessive power granted the
Senate and in authorizing direct taxes.
In 1789, now a married man, he settled in Albemarle county to be
close to Jefferson. Monroe's wife, the former Elizabeth Kortright of New
York, was regarded as one of the great beauties of the day. Reserved and
rather cold in her manner, she was to bring to the White House a formality
not always relished by Washingtonians. Here in Albemarle their two
daughters, Eliza and Maria Hester, were born. A son died in infancy.
Opponent of the Federalists
Elected to the United States Senate in 1790, Monroe joined
Madison (then in the House) in combating Hamilton's domestic measures, which
emphasized centralization of powers in the federal government. He also
opposed Washington's seemingly pro-British foreign
policy. Monroe worked with Jefferson and Madison in organizing the
Republican Party. His contribution lay in the realm of political strategy
and in establishing liaison with anti-Hamilton forces in other states. He
also ably assisted Madison in defending the Republican position in the
press.
In 1794, when Washington dispatched Federalist John Jay on a mission
to Britain, Monroe was named minister to France in the hope that this would
appease Republican critics of the administration who feared a diplomatic
rupture with France. Because Monroe conceived the purpose of his mission as
the preservation of Franco-American amity in the face of Washington's
pro-British stance, he acted more as a Republican party spokesman than as
the representative of his government. Dissatisfaction with his conduct led
to his recall in 1796, engineered by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering.
Monroe defended himself by publishing a harsh attack on Washington's foreign
policy.
From 1799 to 1802, Monroe served as governor of Virginia,
demonstrating great administrative ability and winning praise for his
decisive action to suppress a slave uprising (Gabriel's Insurrection) in
1800.
Diplomat for Jefferson
President Jefferson sent Monroe to France in 1803 as a special
envoy to assist Minister Robert R. Livingston in purchasing a port of
deposit on the lower Mississippi River, because Spain was closing the river
to American navigation in preparation for the recently negotiated
retrocession of Louisiana to France. On his arrival Napoleon presented
Livingston and Monroe with the choice of buying all of Louisiana or nothing.
Although not authorized by their instructions they promptly accepted, a
decision approved by Jefferson in spite of his doubts about the
constitutionality of such an extensive territorial acquisition. Popular
approval of the Louisiana Purchase established Monroe securely as a national
figure, whose elevation to the presidency was but a matter of time.
From 1803 to 1807, Monroe served as minister to Britain. In 1805 he
went to Madrid in a fruitless attempt to persuade Spain to acknowledge the
American claim that West Florida should be included in the Louisiana
Purchase. In 1806 he and William Pinkney (sent as a special envoy)
negotiated a treaty providing for some relaxation of Britain's commercial
restrictions. Because the treaty lacked provisions for ending the
impressment of American seamen, Jefferson did not submit it to the Senate
for ratification. Monroe, convinced that the treaty contained the best
obtainable terms, was deeply offended.
In 1808, Monroe ran against Madison, whom he blamed for the rejection
of the treaty, for the presidency in Virginia, more as a protest than as a
serious candidate. He received little support, and Madison was elected
president.
Member of the War Cabinet
Monroe served in the Virginia assembly in 1810 and 1811 and as
governor again in 1811. In the latter year President Madison, facing a
Federalist resurgence and divisions in the Republican party, appointed
Monroe secretary of state. The appointment restored Monroe's friendship with
Madison and Jefferson.
Admired as a practical man by younger congressmen, Monroe formed
excellent working relations with Congress and obtained the cooperation of
the so-called War Hawks in advancing administration programs. After the
outbreak of the War of 1812 with Britain, Monroe's desire for a military
command was frustrated by Secretary of War John Armstrong. The latter
believed that Monroe had deprived Robert R. Livingston, Armstrong's
brother-in-law, of his rightful claim to be the negotiator of the Louisiana
Purchase.
In 1814, after the British invasion of Washington, which was widely
laid to Armstrong's failure to mount a proper defense of the city, President
Madison replaced the disgraced secretary of war with Monroe, who thus held
two cabinet posts. A capable and active administrator, Monroe restored the
morale of Washingtonians. The war ended, however, before the full effect of
his reorganization of the War Department could be felt.
Presidency
His service in the cabinet had made Monroe an obvious choice for
president in 1816. The Republican congressional caucus chose him as the
party's candidate over William H. Crawford, who had succeeded Monroe as
secretary of war. The Federalist Party had been badly damaged--fatally, as
it turned out--by its opposition to the War of 1812. Monroe easily defeated
Sen. Rufus King (N.Y.), the Federalist candidate for president, by 183 to 34
in the voting of the Electoral College.
The new president adopted a conciliatory policy toward the Federalist
critics of the war. Immediately after his inauguration, Monroe toured the
New England states, where there had been talk of secession during the war.
The Federalists rushed to welcome him and demonstrate their loyalty. Monroe
did everything he could to promote the "Era of Good Feelings"--a
term first used in a Boston newspaper to refer to the mood created by his
New England trip. Monroe believed that this new "era" would place
free government on a solid footing by eliminating party rivalry. The
experiment, however, did not outlast his second term, because sectional
hostility and individual political rivalries shattered the brief unity.
Once he rejected the two-party system, Monroe could not use party
loyalty as a means of advancing administration measures. Instead he had to
rely on his own considerable personal contacts with congressmen and on the
support of cabinet members with substantial congressional followings. He
drew into his cabinet some of the most influential men of the day. The four
most important were all in their posts by late 1817 and served until 1825.
The secretary of the treasury, William H. Crawford, had been Monroe's rival
in 1816 and was regarded as his most logical successor. The secretary of
state was the experienced diplomat John Quincy Adams.
The secretary of war, John C. Calhoun, had been a notable War Hawk. Attorney
General William Writ was a popular figure, famed as a lawyer and writer.
The Navy Department was headed by men of sectional rather than
national influence: Benjamin Crowninshield of Massachusetts (1817-1818),
Smith Thompson of New York (1818-1823), and Samuel Southard of New Jersey
(1823-1825).
Acquisition of Florida
Monroe's greatest achievements as president lay in foreign
affairs. Ably supported by Adams, he made substantial territorial additions
and gave American policy a distinctly national orientation. Monroe welcomed
an opportunity to press Spain to cede Florida and define the boundaries of
Louisiana. His chance came when Gen. Andrew Jackson invaded Florida in 1818.
In pursuit of hostile Indians, Jackson seized the posts of St. Marks and
Pensacola, acts that many persons regarded as violations of congressional
war powers. In the cabinet, Adams, an expansionist, urged Jackson's complete
vindication, while Crawford and Calhoun demanded that he be reprimanded for
exceeding his instructions.
Monroe chose a middle course--the posts were restored to Spain, but
the administration accepted Jackson's explanation that his action had been
justified by conditions in Florida. The incident led Spain to cede Florida
and define, favorably to American claims, the boundary of the Louisiana
Purchase in the Adams-Onís Treaty negotiated in 1819.
The Monroe Doctrine
The revolutions in Spain's American colonies, which had begun in the
Napoleonic era, had aroused great sympathy in the United States. Monroe,
however, held back recognition, in spite of congressional pressure exerted
by Henry Clay, until 1822, after Spain had ratified the Adams-Onís Treaty.
The South American revolutions raised the possibility of intervention by the
European powers linked in an alliance--commonly, but erroneously, known as
the Holy Alliance--to suppress these revolutions as they had done in Europe.
Britain, prospering from newly opened Latin American trade, opposed this
move. In 1823, Foreign Minister George Canning proposed, through Richard
Rush, the American minister, that the two nations jointly express their
hostility to intervention. Monroe consulted Jefferson and Madison, who
favored acceptance. The cabinet was divided, with only Adams strongly
opposed.
Anxious to assert American independence in foreign policy, Monroe
rejected the British offer, opting for a policy statement in his annual
message of December 1823. In this statement, subsequently known as the
Monroe Doctrine, he declared that the United States would regard any
interference in the internal affairs of American states as an unfriendly
act. At Adams' suggestion, Monroe included a declaration aimed at Russia
that the United States considered the American continents closed to further
colonization. While greeted with enthusiasm by Americans, Monroe's statement
received little notice in Europe or South America, and it had no effect on
European policy. England's declared opposition blocked intervention by other
nations.
Domestic Controversies
In an administration committed to limited government, domestic
policies received less attention. Monroe's most positive program was the
construction of a network of coastal fortifications to guard against future
invasions. Although extensive construction was begun, the program was
drastically reduced after the Panic of 1819, when government revenues fell
sharply. Monroe, interpreting the economic crisis in the narrow monetary
terms then current, limited governmental action to economizing and to
ensuring fiscal stability. Although he agreed to the need for improved
transportation facilities, he refused to approve appropriations for internal
improvements without prior amendment of the Constitution.
The calm of the Era of Good Feelings was permanently shattered by the
Missouri crisis of 1819-1820, which exposed an unsuspected depth of
sectional hostility. Monroe's role in the conflict was peripheral, because
it was contrary to Republican doctrine for the executive to exert direct
pressure on Congress. Once the compromise was worked out, Monroe gave it his
full support. It admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri without
restriction on slavery, barring slavery north of the 36degrees30' line of
latitude within the Louisiana Territory.
Monroe shared the widely held view that the effort to restrict
slavery in Missouri sprang not from a selfless concern for the welfare of
the slaves but from the ambitions of ex-Federalists and discontented
Republicans, notably Gov. DeWitt Clinton of New York, to revive the
two-party system on a sectional basis. The Missouri crisis had no effect on
the presidential election of 1820. The Federalist party had disappeared as a
force in national politics, and Monroe, unopposed, got all of the electoral
votes but one.
Monroe's second term was rendered uncomfortable by the bitterness
created by the Missouri debates and by the rivalry of the aspirants to
succeed him as president. In the absence of party machinery, they sought to
advance their individual candidacies by attacking administration policies.
The activities of Crawford's supporters seeking to damage Secretary of State
Adams caused a major setback in foreign policy in 1824, when the Senate so
amended an Anglo-American agreement to suppress the international slave
trade that the British government refused to ratify. As a result, hopes for
an Anglo-American rapprochement were crushed. Calhoun's rivals also blocked
administration efforts (Indian affairs were then under the War Department)
to begin a more generous policy toward Indians.
Retirement
Upon his retirement, Monroe lived on an estate (Oak Hill) in
Loudoun county, Va. Like Jefferson, he had been left so deeply in debt by
his long years of public service that it seemed he might lose all of his
property. Because he had never settled his accounts (some dating from his
first mission to France) with the government, he now sought reimbursement
with accrued interest. Many congressmen considered these claims not only
embarrassing but excessive, and President Jackson's hostility toward Monroe
blocked an immediate settlement. Not until 1831 did Congress grant him
$30,000 (half his claim). His last public service was as a presiding officer
of the Virginia constitutional convention.
Monroe died on July 4, 1831, at the home of his daughter in New York
City. He was initially interred in New York but was reburied in Richmond in
1858.*
*courtesy of Harry Ammon, Southern Illinois University
Text of First Inaugural Address to Congress
Text of Second Inaugural Address to Congress
Recommended readings: (Click on the link to purchase)
|
Title: James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity || Author: Harry Ammon || ISDN: 0-81391-266-0 || Released: February 1998 |
| Harry Ammon's work on James Monroe is a refreshing look at a forgotten patriot. As a Virginian, I have heard most about Washington, Henry, Jefferson, and Madison. Ammon shows Monroe as more than the little brother of the Revolutionary generation, and more than the kickstand for Madison and Jefferson he is sometimes seen as. Instead, we see a man who's philosophy of nationalism in defense of the country differed from his Virginia mentors. Ammon shows Monroe's unusual modesty for a man of his time. He formed one of the most remarkable and talented cabinet and proved to be a strong transition president from the old generation to the next. Ammon also makes a point to stay even and took points off Monroe for his lack of action on the economic crisis of 1819 and the Missouri Compromise. Great book on a great President. We must be remembered that Monroe was the only man besides George Washington to run for President unopposed. |
 |
Title: Monroe : Character in Time : The US Presidents || Author: Lorraine Ash || ISDN: 1-92940-312-7 || Released: April 1999 |
| America’s fifth President found himself directing "The Era of Good Feelings," but the appellation would have disturbed the subject of this play, for he is involved in a momentous decision threatening to destroy the early American experiment: The Missouri Compromise. Further, he is beset by an economic depression which results (ultimately) in a bank panic and yet he manages to maintain peace in a household seemingly devoted to social events. His wife Elizabeth directs a "social" which surrounds an impassioned Henry Clay, a diplomatic William Crawford, and a President attempting to find middle ground. |
 |
Title: The Presidency of James Monroe || Author: Noble E Cunningham Jr. || ISDN: 0-70060-728-5 || Released: January 1996 |
| Filled with new insights and fresh interpretations, this is the richest study yet published on the presidency of James Monroe, the last Revolutionary War hero to ascend to that august office. Noble Cunningham's history of the fifth presidency (1817-25) shows a young nation beset by growing pains and led by a cautious politician who had neither the learning nor the intellect of Jefferson or Madison, but whose actions strengthened both the United States and the presidency itself. Cunningham makes clear that the mislabeled "era of good feelings" had more than its share of crises, including those resulting from revolutions in Latin America, Spanish possession of Florida, the depression of 1819, and the controversy over slavery in Missouri. |
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