October 2, 2019 (Wednesday)
This blog is copied from “America’s Story,” a web site published by the Library of Congress.
Jame Monroe, our 5th president (1817-1825), was born on April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginiam and died on July 4, 1831, in New York, New York
Monroe is perhaps best known for establishing the foreign policy principle that came to bear his name, the Monroe Doctrine. He is also the person for whom Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, was named. Liberia is an African country founded by freed American slaves. Monroe, a slave owner, supported their repatriation (return to their place of origin) to Africa.
Before becoming president, Monroe spent many years in public service, both domestically and overseas, and was the first president to have been a U.S. senator. Although he studied law under Thomas Jefferson, he was not as brilliant as some other leading members of the Revolutionary generation. But his contemporaries liked and admired him for his sensible judgment, his honesty, and his personal kindness. Like his fellow Founding Fathers and fellow Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, he died on July 4, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the nation’s official birthday.
James Monroe easily won his party’s nomination to run for president in 1816, and he just as easily won the election. His Democratic-Republican Party, which later became simply the Democratic Party, was very strong at the time. The economy was good, the rival Federalist Party was weak and unpopular, and Monroe himself was likable and popular. He was the last of the Founding Fathers to serve as president. Monroe’s presidency followed some 25 years of rivalry between Democratic-Republicans and Federalists, but when he was elected with 183 electoral votes to the Federalists’ 34, it signaled the end of the Federalist Party.
To celebrate his election victory, Monroe launched a 15-week tour through the New England states, the first presidential tour since George Washington’s. Later tours to the South and West put him in touch with more Americans than any previous president. The Boston Columbian Centinel newspaper called his reception in Massachusetts the start of an “era of good feelings.” The era lasted about 5 years.
In James Monroe’s first inaugural speech, delivered March 4, 1817, he referred to the “present happy condition of the United States” and “the happy government under which we live.” om other countries.” His 1817 inauguration was the first to be held outdoors.
Despite a serious recession in 1819, Monroe won a second term as president with no serious opposition. By this time, he had become the most popular president since Washington. Many state banks had failed, however, and dragged small businesses down with them. Unemployment soared. However, at the same time, Monroe was successful in foreign policy.
For example, he sent Gen. Andrew Jackson to the Spanish Florida border to ward off Seminole Indians who were hostile to American settlers. This showed how weak Spain was in Florida and allowed Monroe to pressure Spain to give up the territory in 1819.
In 1819, a time of serious economic problems, President Monroe was faced with another crisis. Missouri was the first state to be carved out of land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase, which Monroe had helped negotiate in 1803. It was on the verge of being admitted to the Union at a time when there were 22 states. Eleven states allowed slavery and 11 did not. There was an argument in the U.S. Congress about whether Missouri should or should not allow slavery.
With the admission of Missouri and Maine to the Union, the number of slave states and nonslave states remained equal at 12 each, which prevented the South from having more representation in the Senate, than the North. In addition, slavery would be forbidden north of the latitude line that runs along the southern Missouri border for the remaining Louisiana Territory. Monroe signed Congress’s bill reflecting the Compromise on March 6, 1820.
In October 1823, President Monroe was concerned about Spain reclaiming sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere. He asked former presidents Jefferson and Madison for advice. They told Monroe to join forces with Britain. However, Monroe’s secretary of state, John Quincy Adams (who would later succeed Monroe as president), had another idea. Adams thought the United States should go it alone. Monroe followed Adams’s advice and laid out an independent course for the United States, declaring four major points in his December 2, 1823, address to Congress. He made four basic statements:
1) The United States would not get involved in European affairs. 2) The United States would not interfere with existing European colonies in the Western Hemisphere. 3) No other nation could form a new colony in the Western Hemisphere. 4) If a European nation tried to control or interfere with a nation in the Western Hemisphere, the United States would view it as a hostile act against this nation.”
In his Monroe Doctrine, he said that the peoples of the West “are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”
Monroe’s declaration of policy toward Europe did not become known as the Monroe Doctrine until about 30 years after it was proclaimed. In 1823, the U.S. was not powerful enough to enforce Monroe’s proclamation. Outside the United States, the “doctrine” went mostly unnoticed. In the early 1900s, the U.S. emerged as a world power and the Monroe Doctrine became the foundation of U.S. foreign policy.
James Monroe will be remembered as a popular president.
James Monroe – President 1817-1825