1758
President Monroe Born
Future U.S. Senator and President James Monroe is born on this
day in 1758.
Monroe, a contemporary of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison, was the last of the original revolutionaries to become
president. He served in the Continental Army and was wounded in the shoulder at
the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey. Prior to becoming president, Monroe served
as Washington’s ambassador to France (1804-1807) and Madison’s secretary of
state (1811-1817). He was also the first U.S. senator to become president and
the first president to ride on the technological wonder of his era, the steamboat.
Monroe’s presidency is best known for his negotiation of the Missouri
Compromise and his philosophy regarding territorial expansion in the Western
Hemisphere, which became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
In 1820, President Monroe signed into law the Missouri
Compromise, also known as the Compromise Bill of 1820. The bill attempted to
solve tensions over slavery by promising to add an equal number of
slave-holding and non-slave-holding states into the Union in the future.
Although Monroe realized that slavery conflicted with the values written into
the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, he favored strong states’
rights over federalism and feared the fissure over slavery would split the
Union he and his contemporaries had fought so hard to establish.
Passage of the Missouri Compromise contributed to the Era of
Good Feelings over which Monroe presided and facilitated his election to a
second term. In his second inaugural address, Monroe optimistically pointed out
that although the nation had struggled in its infancy, no serious conflict has
arisen that was not solved peacefully between the federal and state
governments. By steadily pursuing this course, he predicted, there is every
reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of
perfection of which human institutions are capable. In the end, though, the
Missouri Compromise failed to permanently ease the underlying tensions caused
by the slavery issue. The conflict that flared up during the bill’s drafting
presaged how the nation would eventually divide along territorial, economic and
ideological lines 40 years later during the Civil War.
Monroe’s foreign policy fared better. In 1823, Monroe delivered
a message to Congress outlining U.S. policy toward territorial expansion. He
warned foreign nations with possessions in North America and the Western
Hemisphere against any further expansion, saying that the U.S. would consider
any additional colonial expansion as dangerous to America’s peace and safety.
In return, he promised not to interfere in these nations’ existing colonial
affairs. This policy, originally articulated by former president James Madison
and fleshed out by Monroe’s Secretary of State (and future president) John
Quincy Adams, was thereafter referred to as the Monroe Doctrine.
To those who knew him well, Monroe had a reputation as a
hard-working and good-natured man who was a little old-fashioned when it came
to personal dress. As president, he wore what was by then considered outdated
Revolutionary War-era attire. White House social life under Monroe was
low-key–both he and his wife Elizabeth preferred private, stately affairs
modeled after European society to the larger, more lively parties hosted by
some of Monroe’s predecessors. Private and stately did not come cheap, however,
and Monroe was forced to lobby Congress for money to refurbish the barely
livable White House, which had been badly damaged in the War of 1812.
After leaving office, Monroe tried to get Congress to reimburse
him for additional personal funds he had spent on furniture for the White
House. Partly as a consequence of funding White House furnishings with his own
money, Monroe fell heavily into debt, and was forced to sell his Virginia
estate and move in with his daughter, who lived in New York City. He died in
1831.