James Monroe

James Monroe served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas. He also served as governor of Virginia, the U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War. He died in New York City on July 4, 1831, and is buried in Monticello, Virginia.

About James Monroe in brief

James Monroe served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas. He also served as governor of Virginia, the U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War. Monroe’s presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, as the Federalist Party collapsed as a national political force. He has been generally ranked as an above-average president by historians. He died in New York City on July 4, 1831, and is buried in Monticello, Virginia. His paternal great-great-grandfather Patrick Andrew Monroe emigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17th century, and was part of an ancient Scottish clan known as Clan Munro. His father Spence Monroe was a moderately prosperous planter and slave owner who also practiced carpentry. His mother Elizabeth Jones was the daughter of James Jones, who immigrated from Wales and settled in King George County, Virginia in 1700. His maternal uncle, Joseph Jones, became a surrogate father to Monroe and his siblings. The James Monroe Family Home Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The marked site is one mile from the unincorporated community known today as Monroe Hall, Virginia, where Monroe was born on April 28, 1758, in a wooded area of Westmoreland County,Virginia. He was forced to withdraw from school to support his younger brothers, both of whom were 16-year-old planters. Though he inherited property, including slaves, from both of his parents, he later became an member of the House of Burgesses, a member of Virginia House of Representatives, and served as a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1780 to 1783.

In 1790, he won election to the Senate, where he became a leader of the Democratic-Republican Party. He left the Senate in 1794 to serve as President George Washington’s Ambassador to France, but was recalled by Washington in 1796. Monroe won election as Governor of Virginia in 1799 and strongly supported Jefferson’s candidacy in the 1800 presidential election. Monroe fell out with his longtime friend James Madison after Madison rejected the Monroe–Pinkney Treaty that Monroe negotiated with Britain. As president, Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and banned slavery from territories north of the parallel 36°30′ north. In 1823, Monroe announced the United. States’ opposition to any European intervention in the recently independent countries of the Americas with the Monroe doctrine, which became a landmark in American foreign policy. Monroe and Secretary of. State John Quincy Adams favored a Policy of conciliation with Britain and a policy. against the Spanish Empire. In the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty with Spain, the. United States secured Florida and established its western border with New Spain. He unsuccessfully challenged Madison in the 1808 presidential election, and they had five children: Elizabeth, James, Spence, Andrew, and Joseph Jones.

Related posts:

Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar James Madison Marilyn Monroe Cannibal Holocaust