James Monroe (28 April 1758 – 4 July 1831) was President of the United States from 4 March 1817 to 4 March 1825, succeeding James Madison and preceding John Quincy Adams. He formerly served as a US Senator from Virginia from 9 November 1790 to 27 May 1794 (succeeding John Walker and preceding Stevens Thomson Mason), Governor of Virginia from 28 December 1799 to 1 December 1802 (succeeding James Wood and preceding John Page) and from 16 January to 2 April 1811 (interrupting George William Smith's two terms), Secretary of State from 6 April 1811 to 4 March 1817 (succeeding Robert Smith and preceding John Quincy Adams), and Secretary of War from 27 September 1814 to 2 March 1815 (succeeding John Armstrong Jr. and preceding Alexander J. Dallas). He was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party.
Biography[]
A statue of Monroe at Highland
James Monroe was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia in 1758, and he was a member of the planter class. He served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and he was wounded at the Battle of Trenton by a musketball to the shoulder. After studying law under Thomas Jefferson from 1780 to 1783, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he opposed the ratification of the US Constitution, claiming that it gave too much power to the central government. However, he took part in the government as a US Senator from 1790 to 1794, and he became a leader of the Democratic-Republican Party. An unabashed Francophile, he was accused of being a "dupe of France" by his Federalist political opponents.
Monroe served as Governor of Virginia from 1799 to 1802 and briefly in 1811, and he helped to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803. During the War of 1812, he served as Secretary of State and Secretary of War, replacing the ineffective John Armstrong Jr. as British forces invaded Maryland and burned Washington DC. He was easily elected President in 1816, facing little opposition from the Federalist Party due to its collapse amid the postwar "Era of Good Feelings". He embarked on a tour of the country that was well-received, and he encouraged the healing of political divisions and consensual American nationalism. In 1818, the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to jointly occupy Oregon, and the USA gained fishing rights in the Pacific. The 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty secured Florida for America after Andrew Jackson nearly sparked a war by invading Spanish Florida to deal with the Seminoles. The swell of harmony subsided during the Panic of 1819, and the Missouri Compromise roiled the country in 1820. However, Monroe won near-unanimous reelection that same year, with only one presidential elector voting for John Quincy Adams, ostensiblby to ensure that George Washington would be the only President to be unanimously elected. During the 1820s, Monroe supported the founding of colonies in Africa by freed slaves, and Monrovia, the capital of the freed slave colony of Liberia, was named in his honor. In 1823, he unveiled his Monroe Doctrine, which announced US opposition to European intervention in the Americas. He retired in 1825, and the First Party System would soon fall apart as the "Old Republican" and nationalist elements of the Democratic-Republican Party splintered into Jackson's Democratic Party and Adams and Henry Clay's National Republican Party. Having sold his Highland plantation in Albemarle County in 1825 after falling into debt, Monroe died in New York City in 1831.
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