Monroe, James

(1758–1831)

   The American statesman James Monroe was U.S. secretary of state (1811–1817), secretary of war (1814–1815), and fifth president of the United States (1817–1825). In his early years as a politician, Monroe joined the anti-Federalists in the Virginia Convention. He then moved on to become a United States senator in 1790. From 1794 to 1796, he served as minister to France. As envoy extraordinaire under the direction of President Thomas Jefferson, he helped to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. Monroe was elected president of the United States in 1816 and was reelected in 1820. His presidency is labeled as “The Era of Good Feeling,” mostly because partisan politics were comparatively placid.

   As president, Monroe initiated negotiations with Britain leading to the Rush‑Bagot Treaty of 1817, which demilitarized the Great Lakes and laid the groundwork for peaceful relations between the United States and British North America. In the Anglo-American Treaty of 1818, he then furthered the cause of pacific relations with the British Empire in the West by establishing agreement on joint claims to the Oregon Territory. Lastly Monroe rounded out the project of formal territorial consolidation by settling with Spain the control of East Florida and delineating the border between Mexico and the Louisiana Purchase in a diplomatic situation highly advantageous to the United States, which produced the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. Meanwhile, decree from Tsar Nicholas I in 1821 established territorial claims for Russian North America that overlapped with American and British claims along the Pacific Coast. Monroe successfully contested these claims and secured the Russo-American Convention of 1824 in which the Tsar agreed to pursue no Russian settlement south of 54º40´ north latitude and recognized joint Anglo-American control of Oregon. To these continental territorial settlements Monroe added in the resettlement of freed slaves in West Africa in what became Liberia, governed by the American Colonization Society until 1847.

   During his presidency Monroe therefore earned a reputation as a conservative man and as a president who preferred the path of compromise. But he was also an avid expansionist, and the message he delivered to Congress on December 2, 1823, which became well known as the Monroe Doctrine, was among the most ambitious assertions of territorial interest in modern history. In it Monroe proclaimed that Americans should be free from future European colonization or interference in American affairs; he also stated that the United States would remain neutral in Europe’s wars. Any attempt by a European power to extend its territory into the Western Hemisphere would be seen as a threat to the United States. The doctrine guided policies of the United States for decades, remaining influential to this day. On retirement Monroe returned to his home in Virginia, where he died on July 4, 1831.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Ammon, Harry. James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990;

    Cunninghan, Noble E. The Presidency of James Monroe. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996;

    O’Shei, Tim, and Joe Marren. James Monroe. Berkley Heights: Enslow Publishers, 2002.

   ARTHUR HOLST