If there is one thing James Monroe, fifth President of the United States, is known for, it’s the Monroe Doctrine. I doubt that many people could articulate exactly what it is (or was), but as schoolchildren, we Americans are taught that James Monroe declared the Monroe doctrine. If we’re lucky, we’ll remember that it was basically Monroe declaring the Americas off-limits to European interference, and it was sort of a Stand Tall Moment in American history.
Also, the Liberian capital of Monroeville is named for him, but we’ll get to that.
What we don’t get, or at least what I don’t remember being taught, is the context. The United States had endured decades of bullying on the high seas by Britain and France, and eventually gone to war with the former, which 1) the U.S. won but also 2) our capital was burned and we fought very, very badly. Monroe had been Secretary of State at the time and had led forces in the field during the battle for Washington, D.C., and only a few years later, he was President.
When the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed, Latin America was in broad revolt against a weakened Spain, and the Great Powers of Europe were considering what to do. In the grand game of Euro-centric global politics, everything came back to how it could help or harm the Great Powers. The United States was under pressure to declare its own support for the revolting nations in the name of revolutionary solidarity, but that would risk another conflict with one or more European nations. American foreign policy in this period was a delicate balance to grow trade yet not become a target of more established and powerful nations.
James Monroe had as good a background as any for the task. The last of the Founding Fathers to serve as President, he was a young man during the Revolutionary War, serving briefly as an aide to Washington. Subsequently, he became friends and a neighbor to Jefferson and Madison, and the junior man in that trio who would create the early Democrat-Republican party, a party that held the Presidency for the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Fluent in French, Monroe served as an ambassador, as well as a special envoy to France at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. He had strong opinions about foreign policy and the courtly knowledge of how to make a case for the United States abroad.
Monroe gets overlooked these days, overshadowed by the Founders who declared independence and wrote the Constitution; aside from being President, he could be dismissed as just another slave-owning plantation owner demanding freedom from an overlord government while denying it to his workforce. Yet, Monroe’s Presidency came about at a turning point in American history; those older men were passing into retirement or would die soon; the United States that had gained independence was no longer new, and it faced challenges that were baked into the foundation. America had been tested in the War of 1812, was sought for revolutionary support by its neighbors to the south, and in one of the first landmark kick-the-can-down-the-road moments, passed the Missouri Compromise, enshrining a tit-for-tat approach to slavery when carving up new territory into states.
For Monroe, I read Harry Ammon’s James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity, from American Political Biography Press. Like several other biographies I’ve read from APBM, this thick book was rich in detail. Briefly, Monroe came from a family of modest means, but after his father died, young James Monroe effectively became the patriarch of his family, relying on a wealthy uncle for advice and, eventually, political patronage. His uncle had been in the colonial House of Burgesses and was later a delegate to the Continental Congress. Monroe attended the College of William and Mary, in the colonial capital of Williamsburg, and thus combined with his background, he was well-positioned to witness firsthand the birth of the Revolution.
Monroe and his closest friend from college eventually enrolled in the Virginia militia. The militia fought in the Battle for New York (or Brooklyn, or Long Island), and Monroe was later badly wounded in a skirmish as Washington broke past the Delaware River in a surprise attack. His military career more of less over, Monroe returned home and did his best to support the war effort by way of raising new units. Monroe got a letter of recommendation from Washington, and later met Thomas Jefferson, then the governor of Virginia, who convinced Monroe to study law.
Monroe entered local politics, in the state house and later as part of the governor’s council. Monroe later served in the US Confederacy Congress. Monroe gained a good reputation, particularly as someone who knew the geography and politics of “the west”.
The issues of the day during Monroe’s presidency were the United States’ place on the world stage, and the expansion west. Broadly, each of these categories had to do with the expansion of the economy. As a former British colony, the United States was already well-positioned to trade with Europe, mostly supplying raw materials in exchange for finished goods. Many of these goods came from the frontier, while the cities were becoming centers for trade and commerce, financing the expansion into a continent populated by Native Americans.
In this period, the United Kingdom (Great Britain) and France were two of the world’s foremost global powers. Alongside a diminished Spain they dominated colonization of the Americans, and in Europe, Austria was a formidable political power. How could a new nation compete against these old monarchies, who were centuries in the making?
First, it helped that at least two of them were longtime rivals and almost perpetually at war. The conflict between Britain and France had resulted in the Seven Years War prior to the American Revolution, and that war played out in North America as the French and Indian War. Spain had declined in status, and by the early 1800s many of its colonies were on the edge of revolution themselves; this weakened Spain became an opportunity for the other Great Powers to find leverage against their rivals.
Lastly, the French Revolution, which began right around the time of the Unites States’s first Constitutional President, gave the world the answer to the question: what happens when one of the foremost global powers undergoes a popular revolt that completely upends its government for two decades, and then goes to war with every other country in Europe?
The United States both benefitted and suffered as these European conflicts unfurled. As they were no longer colonies, the American States could trade with whomever they pleased, on terms they negotiated themselves, keeping more of the profits and no longer required to support another nation’s mercantilist policies. In particular, trade with Caribbean and South American colonies, as well as Canadian colonies to the north, could be direct, rather than going through the United Kingdom.
The suffering came as the Great Powers ramped up their conflict. The short version is that the French Revolution went through several iterations of government, making it difficult to maintain terms, and on top of that, a series of coalitions formed among the European powers to fight the Revolutionary French government. The French became the best warfighters in Europe, and this fighting continued after Napoleon Bonaparte took power and began conquering large swathes of territory for France.
The result for the United States was that mutual economic penalties enacted by the Great Powers against each other meant the United States could not effectively trade with anyone, and many Americans were impressed into service, or their goods were confiscated, or at best, their ships sat useless, unable to trade.
This was the world in which Monroe the legislator cut his teeth.
After the war, Monroe had served in government, first in Virginia and later representing Virginia in Congress. Monroe wanted to represent the state at the Constitutional Convention as well, but he was not picked, and was rather cross about it, blaming Madison and Virginia’s governor to an extent. He wasn’t quite thirty years of age.
While he wasn’t party to the drafting of the Constitution, he was in the Virginia legislature as the state debated whether to ratify it. It’s important to remember that as venerated as the Constitution is today, it was greatly debated before the final draft, and each state further debated it afterwards. Moreover, Virginia was one of the largest, wealthiest, and therefore most influential states, and if they wanted changes, they were not wrong for thinking they could demand them.
Monroe’s fellow Virginian, James Madison, was also in the debate. Unlike Monroe, Madison had attended the Constitutional Conventional, and was one of its central architects. In fact, the so-called Virginia Plan presented by the Virginia delegation, framed the Convention itself, and Madison had a heavy hand in that. Monroe and Madison were friendly with each other, and separately friends with Jefferson, and it is from these early days that these men would build on their ideas for how the country should run.
In Virginia, the debate was largely over the size and strength of the Federal government. Compared to the earlier Confederation of States, the Constitution gave the central government more authority over the states, though not unlimited authority and not without checks. This was not enough for some Virginians, notably Patrick Henry, mister “give me liberty or give me death”, who was decidedly on the side of more liberty for the states. Madison of course was satisfied with the Constitution, and between the two there were various middling positions, all of which gravitated towards requiring amendments to the Constitution before Virginia would ratify it. In the end, eight other states ratified the Constitution, and so followed Virginia, though not without great debate.
Shortly afterwards, Monroe was urged to run for the US Senate after Virginia’s governor appointed a man whom Jefferson did not approve of to fill the job, the previous holder having passed away. Monroe was dubious for several reasons, but he ran and joined the Senate in late 1790. At this time, The Senate presided behind closed doors, compared to the House, which was open to the public. Monroe’s first congressional session was relatively quiet and uneventful.
Around this time, Jefferson and Madison took a tour of the northern United States; this was not long after the compromise between Madison and Treasury Secretary Hamilton, moderated by Jefferson, which allowed the United States to assume the debts of the several states on condition of the capital being on the Potomac. No one was really satisfied with that arrangement, though it stuck.
Monroe the Governor
As Governor of Virginia, Monroe not only gained executive experience, but he worked with Jefferson and others to define and direct the burgeoning Democrat-Republican party, an outgrowth of the anti-Federalists who would come to dominate the first decades of the 19th century in American politics. There was heightened tension on both sides leading into the election of 1800; Federalists controlled the government and anti-Federalists worried that their opponents would use every lever of government to retain power, while Federalists worried that anti-Federalist states would do the same in their states. Both sides worried that the other would leverage military power against the other to secure votes.
In the event, the election went for the Democrat-Republicans, but by a narrow margin. For years afterwards, the challenge in the party was to be broad enough to retain converts from Federalism without alienating the extreme base of the party – a problem not unlike what both modern political parties today face.
As Governor, Monroe also dealt very directly with slavery. In particular, in August 1800 a slaveowner contacted the Governor about a planned revolt he learned of from his own enslaved people. Monroe activated the state militia, patrols were enabled, and defensive works were hastily arranged. After a fierce storm that isolated the rebels, twenty enslaved people were arrested. While the ringleader was executed, after being offered a stay if he confessed and turned on others, Monroe argued with his council to spare the rest; after agreeing to half a dozen, the council would spare no more. In this period of Virginia history, the governor was limited by his council, and so these additional rebels were executed, enslaved people prepared to die for their freedom.
Monroe the Diplomat
In 1803, Monroe was nearing the end of his third term as Governor, and he planned to return to private law practice. Jefferson, in the third year of his first term as President, sent Monroe a note that Jefferson had nominated him to be, “Envoy Extraordinary to France”, to work with the resident Minister, or ambassador, to purchase a bit of land at the mouth of the Mississippi River. This would later become the Louisiana Purchase.
At the time, Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France. He hadn’t quite appointed himself Emperor yet, but he was in charge. He’d tasked his foreign minister, Tallyrand, with building some interest in buying France’s overseas territory, and Tallyrand was playing all kinds of games with the United States. Jefferson hoped Monroe could help break through it all. Politically, Monroe was the direct line to the President, whereas the ambassador, Livingston, was a mere appointee. The French wouldn’t be able to jerk Monroe around so much.
This went over with Livingston about as well as you might imagine, when the home office sends someone with connections to help you out with your job. However, the short version is, of course, the United States purchased Louisiana, and in the same deal settled some claims they had against France. There was some quibbling over the borders, since technically Florida was still part of Spain, but in the end a deal was done.
Afterwards, Monroe was appointed as Minister (ambassador) to Great Britain. Keep in mind that King George III, the king America rebelled against, was still king, and furthermore keep in mind that Monroe and most of his fellow Virginian Republicans were sympathetic to France as a partner on the global stage. The King’s ministers were generally liberal and inclined to pursue positive relations with the United States, but most elected members of parliament were not.
Monroe also conducted negotiations with Spain, at the time subject to Napoleon’s France, and a nation with which the United States had border friction, both in the west and Florida. These negotiations went nowhere, however, owing in part to some miscommunication between Monroe, Jefferson, and Madison, who was now Secretary of State. This led eventually to a rift between Monroe and the other two, but eventually they patched things up.
Monroe as Secretary of State
After Madison was elected President in 1808, Monroe was tapped to be Secretary of State. His first task was sorting through the posturing by both Great Britain and France over measures each country took to stymie the other, generally affecting the United States. The French would block America from trading with Great Britain, and the British would do the same, as well as impress – kidnap into naval service – American mariners. This went on for years.
The Continental powers had concerns about American relations with Spain as well. Spain during this period was complicated (Spain under Joseph Bonaparte – Wikipedia) but effectively was dominated by France, while still being a separate nation. In particular, the United States had authorized the support of insurgents in Florida, which was Spanish territory, and “support” was interpreted as everything from, “the US will help if you ask for it” to “we will overthrow your government, you can thank us later”. However, one of the agents the United States put in charge of these efforts exceeded his authority, and Monroe had to take action to mollify the Spanish government, as well as the other Continental powers.
By 1812, the tension between the United States and Great Britain broke. The United States was fed up with being bullied by the English and French; moreso the English, who dominated the seas. The British refused to change the rules their government had promulgated in response to French action to block the British from trading on the Continent. Essentially the United States demanded that impressment end, the British refused, and thus the nations went to war. It was a little more complicated, but not by much.
The war did not go well for the Americans, at least initially. Battles were lost, and the American Navy was not quite built up after years of neglect by the Jefferson administration. Monroe chafed to lead in the war, but due to political complications, Madison kept him as Secretary of State, until later replacing William Eustis with Monroe as Acting Secretary of War.
There is a lot of detail I will gloss over, from the politics Madison and Monroe faced in appointing generals and making Monroe Acting Secretary of War, to the diplomatic mission sent to negotiate with the British, because ultimately a series of egos and misunderstandings led to the one thing we all remember: the burning of Washington, D.C.
The burning itself was dramatic, but not the result of a carefully planned masterstroke. The Americans were beginning to turn things around in the north. The British could not mount a full land invasion, and instead settled for a naval blockade and occasionally skirmishing on land, while occupying New Orleans and controlling the Mississippi. What happened was, the local militia was poorly trained, even more poorly deployed, and British General Sir Alexander Cochrane saw an opportunity.
Cochrane commanded a flotilla of fifty ships and about five thousand soldiers; this is not a lot of by the standards of invading a country. There was no intelligence regarding their movements, and Monroe himself led a group of men on horseback to try to find the invading force. The Americans were outnumbered, and fell for a British feint, leaving them out of position to stop the advance. When the main attack came, the American militia units folded like wet cardboard, and the government fled.
However, this was a raid, not a beachhead. The British had only recently defeated Napoleon (the first time; he would be back), and the British determined they could not effectively invade the United States. A grudging peace was established, establishing status quo ante bellum. Nothing changed, despite years of dogged warfare.
However, soon the war was looked on by Americans as a victory, a second War of Independence, proof that the United States could stand up for itself. Monroe went on to recommend military improvements, very much contrary to Jefferson’s preference for a small military, as part of an overall small government.
Monroe as President
Monroe was elected President after an uneventful election, following a pattern in the young republic of Secretaries of State winning the Presidency. Monroe’s cabinet notably included John Qunicy Adams as Secretary of State, and a young John C. Calhoun, who would later become an ardent States Rightist in the years leading to the Civil War. While the Democrat-Republican party had gained solid ground against the Federalists, the party itself was fraying under internal divides, and Monroe set out to be a unifier.
This period in American history came to be known as the Era of Good Feelings; a time when the sharp partisanship that preceded it waned, and the nation came together. Of course, there were still disagreements about how the United States should be, notably over the issue of slavery.
The Missouri Compromise was made in 1820, squarely in the middle of Monroe’s two terms in office. Essentially the state of Missouri was to be admitted to the union, but there was great disagreement about whether it should be admitted as a slave state or not. Maine was also set to become a state not long after, and essentially the compromise was to allow Missouri to enter as a slave state while Maine did not.
The opposition to new states allowing slavery was not altogether altruistic. The Constitution allowed three fifths of all enslaved people to be counted for purposes of allocating representation to a state in Congress; slave states held power in Congress disproportionate to their citizenry, in the name of people who did not have any freedom of their own. Adding new states where slavery was allowed was a means for existing slaveowners to expand their business and gain political power. The peculiar institution sought to grow.
The key difference was that because Maine had previously been part of an existing state, Massachusetts, it could be admitted directly, whereas Missouri had to have its application reviewed by Congress, essentially. Monroe worked with Senator James Barbour of Virginia and others to work out a compromise; there was a lot of back-and-forth, but with respect to Monroe, he essentially leaned on Virginia politicians to accept a compromise. Monroe risked repudiation of himself by these politicians and feared they might raise the specter of secession rather than compromise. As flawed as it appears in history, the Missouri Compromise was a hard bargain to make.
Could Monroe be elected today? The question is increasingly difficult as we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century in American politics. Monroe the patriarch of a family that owns a moderately-sized business? Perhaps, perhaps not. Monroe, a leader in a new political faction demanding smaller Federal government, pitting average citizens against big-city elites? More likely.
Key issues during Monroe’s Presidency included both foreign and domestic affairs. Abroad, the Bolivaran revolution across South America posed a difficult foreign policy challenge for the United States, essentially whether to risk damaging relations and possibly war with colonial European powers or to side with fellow New World wars for independence.
Domestically, Monroe supported what we now call infrastructure being developed and supported by the Federal government, which at the time ran very contrary to the small-government States-focused politics of Monroe’s party. It wasn’t even clear Congress had the Constitutional right to build roads and bridges, or to raise the taxes necessary for them.
More than any of the other Founders and their respective Presidencies, James Monroe’s period in office most reflects how fundamental are the political disagreements of today. Do we have a strong central government, or a loose union of sovereign states? What is the best balance of representative democracy vs direct democracy? How shall the United States balance its foreign relations, in trade and in war, against its ideals and realpolitik?
In 1820 the United States was a nascent nation, a prodigal child run off from its European forebears. In 2020 it is one of the richest and most powerful nations on Earth. The decisions taken then and since have made us who we are today; some of those decisions, we seem to have to face again and again.
Monroe died relatively young. Following the death of his wife, his children deemed him too distraught to live on his own, so he lived with the Gouverneurs in New York, until his death. At the time, he was soliciting money from Congress, saying, essentially he’d never been repaid fully for his time in government service, and preparing a defense against allegations arising from an issue he’d had with Andrew Jackson while President.
James Monroe deserves to be remembered for more than Missouri and Monroeville. He outlined the role for the United States to take on the international stage. He tried to steer his fellow Virginians toward a more fair and middling path than many would have liked, on the Constitution and on slavery. He influenced, before and during his Presidency, the presence of the United States among other Great Powers. The last of the Founders to be President, he set the tone for many future firsts.