From the Ashes: James Monroe and the Monroe Doctrine
…an excerpt from Under This Roof, from Paul Brandus of the award-winning West Wing Reports — pre-orders available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
That the United States had been attacked and the nation’s capital ravaged by invasion in 1814 was tragically ironic. One goal of Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, concluded a decade before, was to enhance the nation’s security by expanding westward. Such a move, it was thought, would eliminate, or at least degrade, any designs that European powers like Spain, France, Britain, and Russia had on North America. But the British invaders had arrived from the east, by sea. America paid a grievous price, losing its most valuable symbols of democracy — the Capitol building and White House — on one terrible summer night.
In 1816, the man who bore part of the blame for that War of 1812 humiliation — James Monroe — was elected as the fifth president of the United States. Just two years before, as James Madison’s secretary of state, he had at first downplayed the possibility of an attack on Washington, advising Madison that it was highly unlikely to occur.
But it did occur, and as a result Monroe, for the first seven months of his presidency, was forced to live in a modest rowhouse at 2017 I Street NW, asthe President’s House — two blocks south and four blocks east — was rebuilt. That the young nation had been so vulnerable to attack from a faraway foreign power would leave a lasting impression on the fifth president. The lasting achievement of his eight years in office would be the creation of a policy to discourage future European intervention, and expansion, in the Western Hemisphere, which the United States declared as within its sphere of influence. A quarter-century after he left office, and nineteen years after his death, this policy would be dubbed the “Monroe Doctrine,” which for more than a century would be a key pillar of American foreign policy.
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No man has ascended to the presidency with the kind of qualifications that James Monroe brought to the job. Nineteen presidents had previously been governors. Sixteen were senators. Six served as secretary of state. Just two were secretary of war (now defense). Not only did James Monroe serve with distinction in all four roles — the only president to do so — he was also the only man in American history to serve as secretary of state and secretary of war at the same time.2 Monroe was also ambassador to both France — where he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase — and Great Britain.
It was the most glittering of resumes, and Monroe, the last of America’s founding fathers to become president, used this extensive experience to guide the United States in the years following the war. The conflict with Britain had secured American independence once and for all, and Monroe worked to burnish the nation’s reputation as a growing power on the world stage. To that end, he stabilized relations with America’s two-time enemy, resolving disputes that carried over from the war, including the establishment of what is today the world’s longest international border, running between the United States and Canada.
Aside from being exceptionally prepared to serve as president, James Monroe looked every inch as one. Standing an even six feet tall, the fifth president and the fourth from Virginia, Monroe was born in what is today Westmoreland County — the birthplace of George Washington and his predecessor, James Madison. Monroe even looked like Washington, those who had the honor of knowing both men observed.
Washington himself admired Monroe tremendously. The general, who was also commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, led Monroe, then a teenaged officer, in several key battles of the Revolutionary War. During the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, just hours after Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware River, Monroe was shot in the shoulder. An artery was severed and he nearly bled to death on the battlefield.4 For this and other displays of bravery, Monroe earned a promotion to captain and still greater respect from his superiors. In fact, George Washington, who wrote few letters of recommendation, wrote one on Monroe’s behalf in 1778 when his protégé wished to return to Virginia to assume his own field command:
. . . it is with pleasure I take occasion to express to you the high opinion I have of his worth. . . . he has in every instance, maintained the reputation of a brave, active and sensible officer . . . if an event of this kind could take place, it would give me particular pleasure; as the esteem I have for him, and a regard for his merit, conspire to make me earnestly wish to see him provided for in some handsome way.
A gushing letter of recommendation from the father of his country: What young man wouldn’t be thrilled to have that? It was more than enough to have Monroe, just twenty-one, appointed colonel in the Virginia infantry. He soon began a friendship with another towering figure of the revolution, Thomas Jefferson, who, in the afterglow of his Declaration of Independence, had been elected governor of Virginia. Jefferson sent him to North Carolina to gather intelligence on British forces. When the war ended the next year with the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, Jefferson urged Monroe to study law, which Monroe did at the College of William and Mary. This crucial bit of advice would set the young man on his path to political greatness.
21 Presidents, 21 rooms, 21 insider stories. That’s “Under This Roof,” by Paul Brandus of the award-winning White House-based news service West Wing Reports. Pre-order your copy now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble — and follow Paul on Twitter: @WestWingReport
