James Monroe

Spence Monroe died in 1774 and left his 16-year-old son a farm in Westmoreland County and the care of four younger children. An uncle, Joseph Jones, took over the boy's prospects and sent him to the College of William and Mary. Monroe walked out of it at 18 to join the 3rd Virginia Regiment. At Trenton, on December 26, 1776, a musket ball severed an artery in his shoulder and he nearly bled out on the field before a surgeon clamped it shut. He was a captain by the end of the day. He read law afterward under Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, and in February 1786 married Elizabeth Kortright at Trinity Church in Manhattan. He was 27. She was 17.

Eight years, 1817 to 1825. He absorbed the Federalists rather than beating them, took Florida from Spain by treaty, recognized the new republics of Latin America, and signed the Missouri Compromise into law while the men around him understood exactly what it postponed. In December 1823 he read the hemisphere's closing notice to Congress. BriefHistory carries all of that and what came of it. What follows is the account nobody settled while he was alive.

Washington recalled him from Paris in 1796, and Monroe answered with a book-length pamphlet accusing the administration of selling out France. Washington bought a copy and filled the margins with numbered rebuttals, one of only six books in his library he is known to have marked that way. The money was the worse wound. Monroe had borrowed privately to pay for his own diplomacy, began petitioning Congress for repayment in 1797, and waited until 1826 for the first 30,000 dollars, which did not cover what he owed. He sold Highland, his plantation two miles from Monticello, to the Second Bank of the United States. He enslaved dozens of people there, and as governor in 1800 he let at least 26 men hang for Gabriel's conspiracy while quietly steering pardons to others.

His wife died in September 1830 and he stopped trying. He moved into his daughter Maria's house on Lafayette Place in Manhattan, and died there on July 4, 1831, the third president in five years to die on the anniversary and the last one to do it. Congress voted another 30,000 dollars that year and afterward bought his papers from his heirs, which is the only way the debt was ever squared. New York buried him. In 1858, for the centennial of his birth, Virginia sent a delegation to bring him home, and he was reinterred at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond under a cast-iron Gothic canopy that visitors call the Birdcage. The doctrine kept his name. So did Monrovia.

James Monroe's life against the full span of the corpus.

• A View of the Conduct of the Executive of the United States book
  The pamphlet Washington answered in the margins of his own copy 1797
• Louisiana Purchase Treaty other
  Signed in Paris for far more land and money than his instructions allowed 1803
• Monroe-Pinkney Treaty other
  Negotiated with Britain and killed by Jefferson, who never sent it to the Senate 1806
• Missouri Compromise law
  Signed rather than authored, and understood at the time as a postponement 1820
• The Monroe Doctrine speech
  Delivered inside his seventh annual message to Congress 1823
• The People, the Sovereigns book
  Written in retirement and published 36 years after his death 1867

• April 28, 1758 aged 0 Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia
• December 26, 1776 aged 18 Nearly bleeds to death at Trenton A ball severed an artery in his shoulder. A surgeon clamped it on the field. He was promoted captain the same day.
• February 16, 1786 aged 27 Marries Elizabeth Kortright at Trinity Church in New York He was 27 and she was 17.
• 1796 aged ~38 Washington recalls him from Paris Monroe replied the next year with a book-length attack on the administration.
• 1800 aged ~42 As governor, presides over the hangings after Gabriel's conspiracy Between 26 and 35 men were executed. Monroe arranged pardons for some of the accused.
• 1803 aged ~45 Signs the Louisiana Purchase in Paris, far beyond his instructions
• March 4, 1817 aged 58 Takes the oath as the fifth president
• September 23, 1830 aged 72 Elizabeth Monroe dies at Oak Hill Her son-in-law had died two days earlier. Monroe left Virginia for good soon after.
• July 4, 1831 aged 73 Dies at his daughter's house in Manhattan The third president to die on the Fourth of July, and the last.

• Alexander Hamilton 1755–1804
  Founding Father who established the nation's financial system and co-authored the Federalist Papers. nearly dueled
• Aaron Burr 1756–1836
  Third vice president who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and was later tried for treason. mediated his quarrel with Hamilton
• John Marshall 1755–1835
  Chief justice who established judicial review and strengthened the Supreme Court and federal government. rival
• John C. Calhoun 1782–1850
  Vice president and theorist of slavery and states’ rights whose doctrines intensified sectional conflict. appointed
• Henry Clay 1777–1852
  Senator and statesman known as the Great Compromiser for his role in preserving the Union. opposed