MONROE, JAMES (1758-1831), fifth president of the United States, was born on Monroe's creek, in Westmoreland county, Virginia, on April 28, 1758. His father, Spence Monroe, was of Scottish, and his mother, Elizabeth Jones, of Welsh descent. At the age of 16 he entered the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va., but in 1776 he left college to take part in the Revolutionary War. He enlisted in the Third Virginia regi ment, in which he became a lieutenant, and subsequently took part in the battles of Harlem Heights, White Plains, Trenton (where he was wounded), Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. In 1780 he began the study of law under Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, and between the two there developed an intimacy and a sympathy that had a powerful influence upon Monroe's later career.
In 1782 he was elected to the Virginia house of delegates, and though only 24 years of age he was chosen a member of the gov ernor's council. He served in the Congress of the Confederation from 1783 to 1786 and was there conspicuous for his vigorous insistence upon the right of the United States to the navigation of the Mississippi river, and for his attempt, in 1785, to secure for the weak Congress the power to regulate commerce, in order to remove one of the great defects in the existing central govern ment. On retiring from Congress he began the practice of law at Fredericksburg, Va., was chosen a member of the Virginia house of delegates in 1787, and in 1788 was a member of the State con vention which ratified for Virginia the Federal constitution. In 1790 he was elected to the United States senate and although in this body he vigorously opposed Washington's administration, Washington in 1794 nominated him as 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 the friends of France in the United States. His warm reception in France and his enthusiastic Republicanism, however, displeased the Federalists at home ; he did nothing, moreover, to reconcile the French people to the Jay treaty (q.v.), which they regarded as a violation of the French treaty of alliance of 1778 and as a possible casus belli. The ad ministration therefore decided that he was unable to represent his government properly and late in 1796 recalled him.
Monroe returned to America in the spring of 1797, and in the following December published a defence of his course in a pamphlet of 500 pages entitled A View of the Conduct of the Ex ecutive in the Foreign Affairs of the United States. Washington seems never to have forgiven Monroe for this, though Monroe's opinion of Washington and Jay underwent a change in his later years. In 1799 Monroe was chosen governor of Virginia and was twice re-elected, serving until 1802. At this time there was much uneasiness in the United States as a result of Spain's restoration of Louisiana to France by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, in Oct. 180o; and the subsequent withdrawal of the "right of de
posit" at New Orleans by the Spanish intendant greatly increased this feeling and led to much talk of war. Resolved upon peaceful measures, President Jefferson in Jan. 1803, appointed Monroe envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to France to aid Robert R. Livingston, the resident minister, in obtaining by purchase the territory at the mouth of the Mississippi, including the island of New Orleans. and at the same time authorized him to co-operate with Charles Pinckney, the minister at Madrid, in se curing from Spain the cession of East and West Florida On April 18. Monroe was further commissioned as the regular min ister to Great Britain He joined Livingston in Paris on April 12, after the negotiations were well under way; and the two ministers, on finding Napoleon willing to dispose of the entire province of Louisiana, decided to exceed their instructions and effect its purchase. Accordingly, on April 3o, they signed a treaty and two conventions, whereby France sold Louisiana to the United States (see LOUISIANA PURCHASE). In July 1803 Monroe left Paris and entered upon his duties in London; and in the autumn of 1804 he proceeded to Madrid to assist Pinckney in his efforts to secure the definition of the Louisiana boundaries and the acquisi tion of the Floridas. After negotiating until May 1805, without success, Monroe returned to London and resumed his negotiations concerning the impressment of American seamen and the seizure of American vessels. As the British ministry was reluctant to discuss these vexed questions, little progress was made, and in May 1806 Jefferson ordered William Pinkney of Maryland to assist Monroe. The British government appointed Lords Auckland and Holland as negotiators, and the result of the deliberations was the treaty of Dec. 31, 1806, which contained no provision against impressments and provided no indemnity for the seizure of goods and vessels. In passing over these matters Monroe and Pinkney had disregarded their instructions, and Jefferson was so displeased with the treaty that he returned it to England for revision. Just as the negotiations were reopened, however, the questions were further complicated and their settlement delayed by the attack of the British ship "Leopard" upon the American frigate "Chesa peake." Monroe returned to the United States in Dec. 1807, and was elected to the Virginia house of delegates in the spring of 181o. In the following winter he was again chosen governor, serv ing from Jan. to Nov. 1811, and resigning to become secretary of state under Madison, a position which he held until March 3, 1817. The direction of foreign affairs in the troubled period im mediately preceding and during the second war with Great Britain thus devolved upon him. On Sept. 27, 1814, after the capture of Washington by the British, he was appointed secretary of war, and discharged the duties of this office, in addition to those of the state department, until March 1815.