James Monroe, (born April 28, 1758, Westmoreland county, Virginia [U.S.]—died July
4, 1831, New York, New York, U.S.), fifth president of the United States (1817–25), who
issued an important contribution to U.S. foreign policy in the Monroe Doctrine, a
warning to European nations against intervening in the Western Hemisphere. The period
of his administration has been called the Era of Good Feelings.
Early life and career
Monroe’s father, Spence Monroe, was of Scottish descent, and his mother, Elizabeth
Jones Monroe, of Welsh descent. The family were owners of a modest 600 acres (240
hectares) in Virginia. At age 16 Monroe entered the College of William and Mary but in
1776 left to fight in the American Revolution. As a lieutenant he crossed the Delaware
with General George Washington for what became the Battle of Trenton. Suffering a near
fatal wound in the shoulder, Monroe was carried from the field.
In 1780, having resigned his commission in the army, he began the study of law under
Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, and between the two men there developed
an intimacy and a sympathy that had a powerful influence upon Monroe’s later career.
Jefferson also fostered a friendship between Monroe and James Madison.
Monroe was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1782 and was chosen a
member of the governor’s council. From 1783 to 1786 he served in the Congress under
the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the new nation. During his term he
vigorously insisted on the right of the United States to navigate the Mississippi River,
then controlled by the Spanish, and attempted, in 1785, to secure for the weak Congress
the power to regulate commerce, thereby removing one of the great defects in the existing
central government. In 1786 Monroe, 27 years old, and Elizabeth Kortright of New York,
17 years old, were married. They had two daughters, Eliza Kortright and Maria Hester,
and a son who died in infancy. Eliza often was at her father’s side as official hostess
when he was president, substituting for her ailing mother. Maria’s marriage to a cousin,
Samuel L. Gouverneur, in 1820 was the first wedding performed in the President’s
House, as the White House was then called.
Minister to France
It was the hope of the administration that Monroe’s well-known French sympathies
would secure for him a favourable reception and that his appointment would also
conciliate France’s friends in the United States. His warm welcome in France and his
enthusiasm for the French Revolution, which he regarded as a natural successor to the
American Revolution, displeased the Federalists (the party of Alexander Hamilton, which
encouraged close ties not to France but to England) at home. Monroe did nothing,
moreover, to reconcile the French to the Jay Treaty, which regulated commerce and
navigation between the United States and Great Britain during the French Revolutionary
wars.