James Monroe 5th President of the United States (March 4, 1817 to March 3, 1825) Nicknames: "The Last Cocked Hat"; "Era-of-Good-Feeling President" Born: April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginia Died: July 4, 1831, in New York, New York |
Father: Spence Monroe
Mother: Elizabeth Jones Monroe
Married: Elizabeth "Eliza" Kortright (1768-1830), on February 16, 1786
Children: Eliza Kortright Monroe (1786-1835); James Spence Monroe (1799-1800); Maria Hester Monroe (1803-50)
Religion: EpiscopalianMother: Elizabeth Jones Monroe
Married: Elizabeth "Eliza" Kortright (1768-1830), on February 16, 1786
Children: Eliza Kortright Monroe (1786-1835); James Spence Monroe (1799-1800); Maria Hester Monroe (1803-50)
Education: Graduated from College of William and Mary (1776)
Occupation: Lawyer
Political Party: Democratic-Republican
Life Overview
James Monroe (April 28, 1758 – July 4, 1831) was the fifth President of the United States (1817–1825). Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation.[1] His presidency was marked both by an "Era of Good Feelings" – a period of relatively little partisan strife – and later by the Panic of 1819 and a fierce national debate over the admission of the Missouri Territory. Monroe is most noted for his proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which stated that the United States would not tolerate further European intervention in the Americas.
Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, Monroe fought in the American Revolutionary War. He was injured in the Battle of Trenton with a musket ball to his shoulder. After studying law under Thomas Jefferson from 1780 to 1783, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress. As an anti-federalist delegate to the Virginia convention that considered ratification of the United States Constitution, Monroe opposed ratification, claiming it gave too much power to the central government. Nonetheless, Monroe took an active part in the new government and in 1790 he was elected to the Senate of the first United States Congress, where he joined the Jeffersonians. He gained experience as an executive as the Governor of Virginia and rose to national prominence when as a diplomat in France he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Monroe was of French and Scottish descent.
During the War of 1812, Monroe held the critical roles of Secretary of State and the Secretary of War under President James Madison. [2] Facing little opposition from the fractured Federalist Party, Monroe was easily elected president in 1816, winning over 80 percent of the electoral vote and becoming the last president during the First Party System era of American politics. As president, he sought to ease partisan tensions and embarked on a tour of the country and was well received everywhere.[citation needed] As nationalism surged, partisan fury subsided and the "Era of Good Feelings" ensued until the Panic of 1819 struck and dispute over the admission of Missouri embroiled the country in 1820. Nonetheless, Monroe won near-unanimous reelection. In 1823, he announced the Monroe Doctrine, which became a landmark in American foreign policy. His presidency concluded the first period of American presidential history before the beginning of Jacksonian democracy and the Second Party System era. Following his retirement in 1825, Monroe was plagued by financial difficulties. He died in New York City on July 4, 1831.
Notable Events:
- 1818
- Congress fixed the number of stripes on the U.S. flag at 13 to honor the original colonies, April 4.
Anglo-American Conventionset the 49th parallel as the border with Canada. - 1819
- Florida ceded by Spain to the United States on February 22. In exchange the U.S. cancelled $5 million in Spanish debts.
- 1820
- The Missouri Compromise, forbade slavery above 36 degrees 30 minutes latitude.
Monroe reelected. - 1823
- On December 2, Monroe Doctrine delivered to Congress.
Points of Interest:
- Monroe was the first president to ride on a steamboat.
- At sixteen years old, Monroe attended the college of William and Mary.
- He was the first president to have been a U.S. senator.
- In the election of 1820 Monroe received every electoral vote except one. A New Hampshire delegate wanted
Washington to be the only president elected unanimously. - Monroe's inauguration in 1817 was the first to be held outdoors.
- The bride in the first White House wedding was Monroe's daughter.
- The U.S. Marine Band played at Monroe's 1821 inauguration and at every inauguration since.
"Our great resources therefore remain untouched for any purpose which may affect the vital interest of the nation. For all such purposes they are inexhaustible. They are more especially to be found in the virtue, patriotism and intelligence of our fellow-citizens, and in the devotion with which they would yield up by any just measure of taxation all their property in support of the rights and honor of their country. "
"From a just responsibility I will never shrink, calculating with confidence that in my best efforts to promote the public welfare my motives will always be duly appreciated and my conduct be viewed with that candor and indulgence which I have experienced in other stations."
"In this great nation there is but one order, that of the people, whose power, by a peculiarly happy improvement of the representative principle, is transferred from them, without impairing in the slightest degree their sovereignty, in the full extent necessary for the purposes of free, enlightened, and efficient government. "
"The American continents . . . by the free and independent condition, which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Power."
"A complete remedy to a political disease is seldom found until something like a crisis occurs, and this is promoted by the abuse of those who have rendered the most important services, and whose characters will bear the test of inquiry."
"In contemplating what we still have to perform, [the] heart of every citizen must expand with joy when he reflects how near our Government has approached to perfection."
"Preparation for war is constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will."
"The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals."
"Such, then, being the highly favored condition of our country, it is in the interest of every citizen to maintain it. What are the dangers which menace us? If any exist, they ought to be ascertained and guarded against."
"Had the people of the United States been educated in different principles, had they been less intelligent, less independent, or less virtuous, can it be believed that we should have maintained the same steady and consistent career or been blessed with the same success?"
"Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties."
"We must support our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties. A people who fail to do it can scarcely be said to hold a place among independent nations. National honor is national property of the highest value. The sentiment in the mind of every citizen is national strength. It ought therefore to be cherished."
"The earth was given to mankind to support the greatest number of which it is capable, and no tribe or people have a right to withhold from the wants of others more than is necessary for their own support and comfort."
"A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue."
"Peace and good will have been, and will hereafter be, cultivated with all, and by the most faithful regard to justice. They have been dictated by a love of peace, of economy, and an earnest desire to save the lives of our fellow-citizens from that destruction and our country from that devastation which are inseparable from war when it finds us unprepared for it. "
"I have never dreaded, nor have I ever shunned, in any situation in which I have been placed, making appeals to the virtue and patriotism of my fellow-citizens, well knowing that they could never be made in vain, especially in times of great emergency or for purposes of high national importance."
"The talents and virtues which were displayed in that great struggle were a sure presage of all that has since followed. A people who were able to surmount in their infant state such great perils would be more competent as they rose into manhood to repel any which they might meet in their progress. "
Resources
Retrieved 11/19/2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Monroe
1996-2008 Summers, Robert.( 1996-2008). John Adams. In ipl2: Information You Can Trust: POTUS. Retrieved 11/21/2011, from 2011http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/jmonroe.html Great Presidential Quotes. James Monroe. Retrieved 11/21/2011, from http://www.greatpresidentialquotes.com/index.php?set=details&id=5&page=0
No comments:
Post a Comment