James Monroe: America’s Most Underrated President

(Including his unheralded actions against slavery)

Have you seen the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River? The man standing next to Washington is 18-year-old James Monroe. Monroe took a bullet at the ensuing Battle of Trenton while securing a redoubt, and almost died.

James Monroe is everywhere in the early history of the United States.

Besides being President of the United States for eight years, Monroe was also the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, Governor of Virginia (twice), Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ambassador to France, U.S. Senator, Virginia state legislator, and member of Congress under the Articles of Confederation. He was also a member of the prestigious Society of Cincinnati.

As a young man, Monroe studied law under Thomas Jefferson and became best friends with him for all his life. Monroe studied the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus, and it deeply affected him.

As Chairman of the Committee on Western Lands 1786-87, Monroe helped craft and pass the Northwest Ordinance, which banned slavery north of the Ohio river. Hence, slavery was never legal in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.

As US Senator, Monroe voted against the First National Bank in 1791.

He was the #3 leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, behind Jefferson and James Madison.

As Ambassador to France during the French Revolution, 1794-95, Monroe freed Thomas Paine from prison and certain death. He also freed Marquis de Lafayette and his wife, Adrienne, from death.

In 1803, President Jefferson appointed Monroe to be the Special Envoy & Minister Plenipotentiary to France to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase!

During the War of 1812, Monroe was the Secretary of State and Secretary of War at the same time! Once he became Secretary of War on September 27, 1814, America never lost a single battle!

He was elected President in 1816 by an electoral vote of 183-34. As President, he overlooked the first financial panic in US history, the Panic of 1819. Monroe did almost nothing to deal with it, and it went away by itself quickly, from the free market.

In 1819, President Monroe also acquired Florida via purchase from Spain, a vast area of 65,700 square miles.

Then Monroe oversaw the famous Missouri Compromise of 1820. This compromise was massively anti-slavery because the deal ultimately created ten free states (Maine, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana), and only two slave states (Missouri and Arkansas).

Monroe’s first term was so impressive that he won all 23 states in the Election of 1820. The opposition party (Federalist party) disolved. Wouldn’t it be nice if the democrat party dissolved after the next election!

James Monroe was so zealously scrupulous of the Constitution, that when the US Navy discovered an uninhabited island in the Pacific ocean, he spent weeks contemplating whether it was Constitutional to claim it (he did).

In his second term, James Monroe proclaimed the fabled Monroe Doctrine. This doctrine saved millions of people in Central and South America from colonization. When the European powers gobbled up Africa from 1870-1900, no new colonies were established in the Western Hemisphere, because of the Monroe Doctrine.

In 1824, freed slaves who moved back to Africa liked President Monroe so much that they named the capital of Liberia; Monrovia!

Many other people and places are named after Monroe, including Marilyn Monroe, Earl “the Pearl” Monroe, Monroe, Wisconsin, Monroe County, Wisconsin, 16 other Monroe counties in other states, and Fort Monroe in Virginia.

At the very end of Monroe’s second term in 1825, he brandished red-hot fire tongs in an argument with Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford.  Crawford then apologized because he raised his cane first.

Monroe’s presidency was part of two glorious eras of American History:  The Virginia Dynasty and the Era of Good Feelings.

After his presidency, James Monroe served as President of the 1829 Virginia Constitutional Convention, which made modest progess against slavery and in favor of more democracy.

James Monroe is sometimes considered our “Last Founding Father,” and he died on July 4, 1831, the 55th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.