James Monroe - Early years, Presidency 1817-1825: The Era of Good Feelings, Post-Presidency, Death

US statesman and fifth president (1817–25), born in Westmoreland Co, Virginia, USA. A combat veteran of the American Revolution, he studied law with Thomas Jefferson, who became a lifelong mentor. After serving in the Virginia legislature, he served a three-year term in the Confederation Congress (1783–6), and chaired the committee (1785) that prepared the way for framing the Constitution, though in the end he did not participate in its making and objected to the power it gave the central government. As a US senator (1790–4), he opposed George Washington and the Federalists, but was still appointed ambassador to France (1794–6) until an angry President Washington recalled him for opposing the Jay Treaty. He returned to Virginia as governor (1799–1802), and as a delegate for President Jefferson (1803) he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. The next four years were spent in less successful diplomacy in Madrid and London. More offices followed: again governor of Virginia (1811), secretary of state under Madison (1811–17), and also secretary of war (1814–15). Monroe ascended to the presidency in 1817 and was almost unanimously voted a second term in 1820. A popular president in a peaceful time, his administration came to be called ‘the era of good feeling’. Among the notable events of his presidency were gaining Florida from Spain (1818), the settlement of fishing-rights disputes in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Monroe Doctrine (1823), which proclaimed American hostility to any further European colonization or interference in the Americas. The activities of his later years included serving as regent of the University of Virginia (1826–30). His years of public service left him so poor that he had to spend the last months of his life with his daughter in New York City, where he died.

James Monroe
5th President of the United States
In office March 4, 1817 – March 4, 1825
Vice President(s)   Tompkins
Preceded by	James Madison
Succeeded by	John Quincy Adams
7th United States Secretary of State
In office April 2, 1811 – September 30, 1814 February 28, 1815 – March 3, 1817
Preceded by	Robert Smith
Succeeded by	John Quincy Adams
Born	April 28, 1758 Westmoreland County, Virginia
Died	July 4, 1831 New York City
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Spouse	Elizabeth Kortright Monroe
Religion	Church of England, Episcopal, Deist
Signature

James Monroe (April 28, 1758-July 4, 1831) was the fifth President of the United States (1817-1825). His administration was marked by the acquisition of Florida (1819), the Missouri Compromise (1820), in which Missouri was declared a slave state, and the profession of the Monroe Doctrine (1823), declaring U.S. opposition to European interference in the Americas.

Early years

The President’s parents, father Spence Monroe (ca.

Monroe was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1782 and served in the Continental Congress 1783–1786. Monroe returned to the Virginia House of Delegates and was elected to another term as governor of Virginia in 1811, but he resigned a few months into the term. Monroe stayed on as Secretary of State until the end of the James Madison Presidency, and the following day Monroe began his term as the new President of the United States.

Presidency 1817-1825: The Era of Good Feelings

Policies

Following the War of 1812, Monroe was elected president in the election of 1816, and re-elected in 1820.

Attentive to detail, well prepared on most issues, non-partisan in spirit, and above all pragmatic, Monroe managed his presidential duties well.

Monroe began to formally recognize the young sister republics (the former Spanish colonies) in 1822.

Monroe is probably best known for the Monroe Doctrine, which he delivered in his message to Congress on December 2, 1823. Ex-Presidents Jefferson and Madison counseled Monroe to accept the offer, but Secretary Adams advised, "It would be more candid ... Some 20 years after Monroe died in 1831 this became known as the Monroe Doctrine.

Administration and Cabinet

OFFICE	NAME	TERM
President	James Monroe	1817–1825
Vice President	Daniel Tompkins	1817–1825
Secretary of State	John Quincy Adams	1817–1825
Secretary of the Treasury	William H. Crawford	1817–1825
Secretary of War	John C. Calhoun	1817–1825
Attorney General	Richard Rush	1817
	William Wirt	1817–1825
Postmaster General	Return Meigs	1817–1823
	John McLean	1823–1825
Secretary of the Navy	Benjamin Crowninshield	1817–1818
	John C. Calhoun	1818–1819
	Smith Thompson	1819–1823
	Samuel L. Southard	1823–1825

Supreme Court appointments

Monroe appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

Smith Thompson – 1822

States admitted to the Union

Mississippi – December 10, 1817 Illinois – December 3, 1818 Alabama – December 14, 1819 Maine – March 15, 1820 Missouri – August 10, 1821

Post-Presidency

Upon leaving the White House after his presidency expired on March 4, 1825, James Monroe moved to live at Monroe Hill on the grounds of the University of Virginia. This university's modern campus was originally Monroe's family farm from 1788 to 1817, but he had sold it in the first year of his Presidency to the new college.

Monroe had racked up debts during his years of public life.

Death

Upon Elizabeth's death, Monroe moved to live with his daughter Maria Hester Monroe Gouverneur in New York City and died there from heart failure and tuberculosis on July 4, 1831, 55 years after the U.S. Declaration of Independence was proclaimed and 5 years after the death of Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Religious beliefs

"When it comes to Monroe's ...thoughts on religion", Bliss Isely comments in his The Presidents: Men of Faith, "less is known than that of any other President."

Monroe was raised in a family that belonged to the Church of England when it was the state church in Virginia, and as an adult frequently attended Episcopalian churches, though there is no record he ever took communion. [Holmes 2003]

Trivia

Apart from George Washington and Washington DC, James Monroe is the only U.S. President to have had a country's capital city named after him—that of Monrovia in Liberia which was founded by the American Colonization Society, in 1822, as a haven for freed slaves. Monroe was (arguably) the last president to have fought in the Revolutionary War, although Andrew Jackson served as a 13-year-old courier in the Continental Army and was taken as a prisoner of war by the British. In the famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware (also depicted on the New Jersey state quarter), Monroe is standing behind George Washington and holds the American flag. James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (1990) (ISBN 0-8139-1266-0), full length biography Samuel Flagg Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of

American Foreign Policy (1949), is a standard study of Monroe's foreign policy.

Noble E. May, The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (1975), argues it was issued to influence the outcome of the presidential election of 1824. Bradford Perkins, Castlereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812-1823 (1964) Dexter Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1823-1826 (1927), the standard monograph about the origins of the doctrine. "James Monroe on the Presidency and 'Foreign Influence;: from the Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788) to Jefferson's Election (1801)." Abstract: Assesses Monroe's views on slavery as governor of Virginia from 1799 to 1802, emphasizing Monroe's moderate view of slaveholding during a slave uprising in Southampton County in October 1799.