The USA in the Time of James Monroe
1817-1825
By Mike Donovan
‘Jimbo’ Monroe The Man and the Doctrine
Lawyer - William and Mary – Era of Good Feelings - US Population in 1820, 9.6 million, an increase of 33 percent since 1810 - VP D.D. Tompkins - In the election of 1816 he beat Rufus King of New York, 183-34 - Monroe ran unopposed in 1820.
The Virginia dynasty continues and then ends -
Although average in height, Monroe was physically strong and could do manual labor tirelessly or wrestle Madison to the ground effortlessly if he wanted to. Monroe was reserved but had an easy smile and was cordial with everyone.
James was a uniter, not a divider. His good nature may have been a problem in the end because he didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings when in ‘24 it was time to name his successor, so he didn’t. The party was left to fight amongst itself, which it did. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison had given the Virginia torch to Monroe and he dropped it. As a result the Virginia dynasty died a quiet natural end.
Monroe’s cabinet
Sec. of State - John Quincy Adams 1817-1825
Sec of War - Isaac Shelby - 1817
George Graham -1817
J.C. Calhoun ---1817-1825
Sec of Treasury - W.H. Crawford 1817-1825
Att. General --- Richard Rush - 1817
William Wirt – 1817-1825
John Quincy Adams was the real author of the Monroe Doctrine.
Issac Shelby accepted the Post of Secretary of War for one day. He was a soldier in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and became the first governor of Kentucky. Shelby resigned because of poor health.
War man George Graham was also a soldier and he once hung out with pirate Jean Lafite at JL's outlaw colony in Texas.
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina is just getting warmed up in American the History story. He will go on to become a Senator, Secretary of State and a Vice President. Calhoun was famous for being one of the few Southerners that simply said that slavery was a good thing. What a guy!
Georgia's Billy Crawford at Treasury was Secretary of War under Madison and became a candidate for President in 1824.
NOT A GREAT PRESIDENT
Historians Bailyn and Stampp say that the American presidency was at its all time weakest in the era between Jefferson and Jackson, so that doesn’t speak well of Monroe. Indeed when Monroe left office he was at the Truman nadir of his popularity.
James Monroe made a lot of mistakes in his life and had some serious setbacks. But he overcame his foibles and rose to Secretary of War and then Secretary of State before becoming a two-term president who ran unopposed for re-election. He didn’t start a war so he can’t be great. We’ll have to settle for his era of good feelings.
BIO
James Monroe III was born April 28, 1758 in General Westmoreland County.
Jim's parents were Virginia planters, just like the first three members of the VLD, Washington, Jefferson and Madison (VLD - Virginia Lawyer Dynasty).
At 16, James went off to college at Williamsburg where at William and Mary he became a classmate of future Supreme Court Justice John Marshall.
When the news of Lexington and Concord swept the halls of the great college, students and faculty marched off to war for liberty, leaving classrooms empty. James Monroe fought in many battles for 'The Glorious Cause.' He took a musket-ball in the shoulder at the Battle of Trenton and participated in the fights at Harlem, White Plains, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. JM hoped to rise further and was not thrilled with the lieutenant colonel stripe.
JM then studied to be a lawyer under the refined tutelage of no less of a figure than Thomas Jefferson, the Governor of Virginia. A lifelong friendship developed that helped carry Monroe to the Presidency. Imagine getting a private tutor to come to your house, and it's Thomas Jefferson.
In 1785 Monroe was a delegate to the Continental Congress in NYC where he made a new friend on Mulberry Street, a certain miss Elizabeth Kortright. EK was the 17-year-old daughter of a wealthy New York businessman. James Monroed the future first lady in 1786, giving her his last name in marriage.
From 1790 to 1794 Monroe was US Senator from Virginia. President Washington appointed him minister to France from 1794-1796. But Monroe was such a Francophile that he gave a speech in the French legislature that reached above and beyond his authority. Jimmy went too far in stating America'a pro-France position. Then he was so critical of the Jackie Jay treaty with England that Washington had him recalled to the states. On returning Monroe wrote a 489 page book criticizing Washington titled A View of the Conduct of the Executive. Washington's feelings were very hurt by Monroe's bitter book.
In 1799 Monroe was elected Governor of Virginia. He resigned to become Minister to the Court of St. James.
As Minister to Britain in 1803 James helped to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. Monroe showed initiative and wisdom at a key moment in history and was far more responsible for the Louisiana Purchase than was President Jefferson (even John Adams in 1799 did as much as Jefferson in 1803 to enable the Louisiana Purchase by personally refusing the clamorous demands for war with France. In keeping the peace, Adams kept the line of diplomatic friendship open to France which paved the way for the deal of 1803.)
Monroe had a long-standing dislike of snob Federalist Al Hamilton, not an uncommon sentiment among the Democratic Republicans of his day. When some of Monroe’s indiscreet criticisms of Hamilton were printed in public, he almost found himself challenged to a duel with the troublemaker on the ten. The two men simmered down, but Hamilton and Monroe almost had it out (Hamilton dies in a duel later on in the USA story.)
President Madison appointed Monroe to the post of Secretary of State. During the War of 1812, when the battles were not going well for the USA, Monroe pestered Madison to give him the job of Secretary of War. Monroe wanted both jobs at once. When the British burned Dolly Madison’s dinner in 1814 James Monroe got the job he wanted as head of the War department. By all accounts Mr. Monroe did a good job and improved the defense condition of the US armed forces in a time of danger. Monroe's good work during the War of 1812 helped to win him the nomination for President in 1816.
EVENTS
ELECTION OF 1816
GOOD FEELINGS TOUR
LATIN AMERICAN REVOLUTIONS
PANIC OF 1819
ELECTION OF 1820
MISSOURI COMPROMISE
SLAVE TRADE ISSUES
TEXAS ON HOLD-EM
RUSH-BAGOT TREATY
MONROE DOCTRINE
DAVID MCULLOCH VS MARYLAND
MARBURY VS MADISON
PAWTUCKET STRIKE 1824
ELECTION OF 1816
Monroe was a clear choice for the Republicans.
The fading Federalist Party chose Rufus ‘the Dufus’ King to run against him. Rufus King was a fine and moral man who was strenuously opposed to slavery. King was a Harvard grad from Scarborough, Mass (Maine today) who would never have agreed to the Missouri Compromise of 1820 if he had been elected President.
King was minister to Great Britain under Washington, Adams, and Jefferson and later returned to the position under Quincy Adams. He was United States Senator from New York when he ran against Monroe in 1816.
King was a Massachusetts man who became a New York Senator, as was Robert Kennedy later. RK had been a member of the Massachusetts delegation to the Confederation Congress from 84 to 87, and he was part of the Massachusetts group at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
King was willing to accept the idea of compensating the slave owners for their lost “property” but he was uncompromising about gradualism. Rufus wanted the slaves freed immediately.
1816 Down with the King
Some historians think that if Rufus King had won in 16, the American Civil War might have come about right then and there as a result of his election!
INAUGURATION
Monroe took office with the USA in a state of national euphoria. We were at peace, growing every day, and it seemed like the opportunities for continued growth of all kinds was limitless. In his inaugural address in 1817 Monroe said,
“The heart of every citizen must expand with joy when he reflects how near our Government has approached to perfection; that in respect to it we have no essential improvement to make.”
Monroe obviously wasn’t factoring in the opinion of women, Indians and blacks. The Government wasn’t the mark of perfection for them.
Even though he was a Democratic-Republican of Jefferson’s team, Monroe was the redneck in 1816 compared to his anti-slavery opponent Rufus King of NY. Monroe tried to avoid the race and slavery issues and would later try to stay above the debate over the admission of Missouri as a slave state in 1820. But he at the same time let the information leak that he would be willing to sign legislation that admitted Missouri as a slave state.
BEGINNINGS OF GOOD FEELINGS
Monroe tried to show his spirit of geo-bipartisanship by appointing Yankee John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State and John Calhoun on the deep Southern other hand as Secretary of War. Clay was mad that he didn’t get Secretary of State but Monroe was concerned over anger in the North towards the Southern domination of the presidency and he needed to throw something to keep New England appeased, hence the naming of Quincy from Quincy to head of State.
In 1817 Monroe took a great publicity and friendship tour of the great cities of the North and West. He took a super-tour from Boston to Detroit. James was received with celebration and joy wherever he went and one Federalist Boston newspaper was so caught up in the spirit of things that the next day it editorialized that this marked a new “era of good feelings.” The remark was coined and popularized and has now become the title page to the Monroe administrations.
President Monroe was opposed to federal spending on roads, canals and other internal improvements. Jimbo was willing to go along with this only if a constitutional amendment was passed first, making clear the governments right to do so.
TAKE THIS DISPUTE AND BAG IT
One way to ensure peace with British Canada was to keep armed fleets of both nations off of the Great Lakes. The Rush-Bagot agreement, signed in 1817 pledged both sides to keep the waters between the two countries demilitarized for the foreseeable future.
In 1818 the dispute over the western stretch of northern boundary was settled. By the terms of the British American Convention the latitude of the Lake of the Woods in present day Minnesota was to be the dividing line west to the mountains.
The Pacific region was a mess left to be settled in a later decade.
Both of these agreements have proven an historical success. The lakes have been pacific since the end of the War of 1812 and relations with England have slowly (with some ups and downs along the way) but surely dissolved from enmity and evolved into friendship. The USA needed its northern flank secure so it could concentrate on expansion south and west. After two wars with England in less than 30 years, it was time stop the pattern.
Indeed the entire foreign policy of the United States in the nineteenth century was primarily concerned with not going to war any more with Great Britain. For all its bravado the USA had a wise fear of the British Navy. In addition Britain was the mother country in language, law and custom, and the two economies were interlocked. Neither UK nor US wanted to spoil a chance for steady growth, profits and prosperity.
DISNEY WORLD PURCHASED
Under President Monroe the United States “purchased” Florida from Spain after letting the Spanish government know that since Spain could not control its Indian subjects from raiding American territory, the USA would be soon forced to invade and occupy the peninsula. Spain saw the red white and blue light and it was a good time to sell. We had made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
West Florida, today’s gulf coast region, had never been clearly defined, geographically or politically. When Jefferson’s ministers bought Louisiana in 1803 no one was quite sure who owned West Florida. Spain, France, the US, native Americans and rogue frontier plotters all had a claim to a slice of the West Florida pie. In 1812, the US had taken some of West Florida and called it part of Louisiana in defiance of Spanish protests. Spain had a clear title to East Florida, (Florida proper, the peninsula,) but not so clear a claim to West.
In the closing weeks of the War of 1812 Andy Jackson raided Florida in pursuit of renegade slaves and troublemaking Indians. He hanged two British citizens he said were supporting the Reds. Jackson also seized some Spanish forts.
When word of his actions reached Washington, there was much criticism of his truculent moves. But Secretary of State Adams liked the situation and convinced his boss Monroe to support Mr. Jackson’s aggressions. Monroe and Adams thought that Spain, threatened by the Jacksonian American pressure would be willing to sell Florida in exchange for some security on its Mexican frontier. Sam essentially told Spain, ‘sell us Florida and we promise not to conquer Mexico.’
This is what came to pass. It was formalized in the Adams-Onis Treaty (or the ‘Amos Otis Treaty’ as one Kansas historian later called it) of 1819. Spain gave up all of Florida and the US agreed to a definite boundary in the southwest that included the forty-second parallel all the way to the Pacific Ocean. This marked the first time there was a legitimate coast-to-coast United States of America.
MONROE DOCTRINE
The world famous Monroe Doctrine was actually the work of John Quincy Adams.
The Monroe Doctrine states that the two continents of the Americas are for the Americans and that no European or other outside power may colonize or interfere in American affairs in this hemisphere. It is still in effect today but has never had the sanction of international law or American legislation.
In Monroe’s time the US was becoming distressed by the extreme southerly claims of the Russians on our west coast. The Czarina owned Alaska and we had no problem with that, but the Russians were creeping down the side of the cliff and had planted a base near what is now San Francisco. It was called Fort Ross. The US understood that a dispute in claims between the two nations in the region could reach conflict proportions and it was best to try to settle sooner rather than later. The US State Department was contemplating a warning to the Russians.
Meanwhile the Central and South American republics had shaken off their European oppressors, and we had shown a marked sentimental attachment to their cause of freedom and democracy. We also (paradoxically perhaps) supported their cause of anti-colonialism. The United States did not want to see wars of re-conquest from overseas, disrupting our trade and prosperity. You Euros lost your American colonies and that’s that. Don’t come over here and try and take them back. That was the heart of the Monroe Doctrine. The USA liked the idea of a large number of independent republics to the south as opposed puppet elements of some European Empire.
America was becoming realistic about the need for a standing Army and Navy. Memories of the abuse of American ships on the high seas for the two decades leading to the War of 1812 were not far removed from the minds of men in 1823. The mood of the nation was for isolationism through strength. The time was right for a tough new foreign policy.
Then one afternoon in 1823 British Foreign Secretary George Cunning, I mean Canning, approached the American Minister in London with a flattering proposal. The British Empire and the USA should issue a declaration to the world that the new hemisphere was no longer open territory for colonization by any other European power, especially monarchial powers. The declaration should specify that the continental European system of government (absolute monarchy with powerless assemblies) was as equally unwelcome in the western hemisphere as colonization itself.
Monroe’s cabinet urged him to accept the offer. That a great power like Great Britain was offering its hand in alliance with its old enemy the United States was a welcome show of respect for America. The effect of such a prestigious alliance could not help but be beneficial to the USA.
But Secretary of State John Quincy Adams argued sternly against accepting the Canning proposal. ‘The Q’ pointed out that we would look like a rowboat pulling along in the draft of a large warship and that would be humiliating. If we accepted this condominium agreement, Britain would be allowed to infiltrate the hemisphere herself. Some protection.
Besides, Quincy said, Britain was going to take this action anyway. The UK would end up using her navy anyway to enforce this political decision because it was in Britain’s best interest to keep the other powers out of the Caribbean and the Pacific. Why sacrifice our political independence to induce the English Navy to do something it was going to have to do anyway? Didn't our godfather Washington warn us against foreign alliances?
Quincy Adams thought that the US could issue this same declaration proudly and all alone, knowing full well that Britain would have no choice but to back it up.
Monroe found the wisdom of Quincy Adams persuasive. The President delivered the famous Doctrine in his message to Congress in December of 1823.
The Doctrine was directed almost by name at the Holy Alliance. The HA's were Prussia, Russia, France, and Austria. The Holy Alliance sought to put out the fires of rebellion against monarchy whenever it rose up in any of the four kingdoms. Or perhaps the HA could do some subtle intervention now and then. The HA was in these years openly contemplating intervention in the Latin American region. The MD stopped the HA in its tracks.
Meanwhile Russia was miffed at the arrogance of the United States for thinking it had scared off the Russian Bear. It was the Union Jack that set them back, not the Betsy Ross. America was unfairly dusting its hands off like a contented bouncer that just threw a drunk out into the alley. But if not for the deterrent of England's navy who knows what parts of Latin and South America could have become European colonies in the 1800's ? The new revolutionary democratic nations of the Latin American regions might have been conquered for having become independent, democratic and small. The Queen and the Doctrine kept them all on the map.
The Monroe Doctrine was doubly insulting to Russia because it disrespected her claims to California. Passages also condemned the rule of despotic tyrants as compared to our own superior government. ‘Gee, I wonder who that could be directed at,’ thought the Tsarina.
The Royal Navy scoffed at the Monroe Doctrine throughout the 19th century while helping us enforce it. Russia defied it in 1962 and it almost led to the Third World War.
Monroe’s Doctrine was last invoked in 1983 with Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada.
MISSOURI COMPROMISE
In 1819 there were 11 slave and 11 free states. Missouri was petitioning for admission to the Union as a slave state. In the meantime Maine, a subdivision of Massachusetts, was trying to secede from the Bay State and become a new state. With the admission of Missouri a foregone conclusion, Mass. called off the dogs and allowed Maine to seek admission to the USA as a free state. Massachusetts did not want to see a Senate controlled by pro-slavery senators, even if it did have to give up its irredentist satellite of Mainiacs.
The Missouri case for statehood was far more controversial. A New York Democratic-Republican named James Tallmadge Jr. presented an amendment to be attached to the admission of Missouri as a slave state. The Tallmadge amendment said that no new slaves could be admitted into Missouri after it gained state status. The Amendment also stipulated that all children born of slaves in the state of Missouri would be free upon reaching the age of 25. The House approved the Tallmadge caveat but it was rejected in the US Senate.
Jefferson at this point made his famous remark (in a letter of course) that the slavery question disturbed him like a fire alarm in the middle of the night.
The North and South from this point on were divided primarily over the slavery question. It is noteworthy however that prior to the Missouri controversy, it was other issues that divided North and South, such as tariffs, the idea that Virginia was spawning a dynasty, the Jay Treaty and Hamiltonomics.
The solution to the Missouri statehood crisis came with a group of separate bills which have come down to history collectively as “The Missouri Compromise.” By its terms Missouri would come into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free (and very cold) one. As a major concession to the anti-slavery faction, human bondage was prohibited in all Federal territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri, which was 36-30 on the map. Established states were still free to make their individual slavery call. Massachusetts could still vote in slavery if it had a mind to, but slavery was now forbidden by federal law in unorganized territory in the north. This line of 36 30 would later be overturned in Dred Scott vs. Sanford in a shocking move by the Supreme Court – this is getting ahead of the chronology but it is mentioned here so that the significance of the 36 30 decision is clear.
Then Missouri wrote a constitution that forbade free blacks from entering the state. As a result, the Congress did not admit Missouri to the Union in 1820. Barring free blacks was unconstitutional as far as most northern legislators were concerned. The national constitution, the Great Constitution guaranteed citizens of one state the same rights as in another. Legal slavery wasn’t enough for these racists. They even had to bar free blacks. Even South Carolina allowed free blacks.
The Slavery Compromise of 1820
Henry Clay now stepped foreward to engineer the first of his many great compromises. Missouri would be prohibited from discriminating against citizens from other states but the question of whether blacks were citizens would be left open for debate. This so-called ‘second Missouri Compromise’ admitted Big Mo to the Union in 1821.
Four other states came into the USA under Monroe. Mississippi on December 10, 1817, Illinois on December 3, 1818, Alabama on December 14, 1819, and Maine escaped from Mass on March 15, 1820.
PANIC OF 1819
The United States left the stove on n 1819. It had a panic attack in the financial department. This was the first of many famous financial disaster cycles in American history. There have been about five. Some feel that the one I am writing in, at the beginning of the Obama Administration makes about six. There was a major Panic in 1957. There was the Panic of 1873, the Panic of 1893, and the Great Depression which lasted more than the entire decade of the 1930's.
The Bush-Obama depression of 10% unemployment in 2009, doesn't have an historical name, so its had to say if it's going to make the A-list of depressions. In any case, the Panic of 1819 was the first quake.
Historians do not agree on what caused the Panic of 1819, but the symptoms were unmistakable. Severe unemployment, the big cities crawling with beggars. Low farm prices producing food surpluses in the middle of abject poverty. The debtor prisons were soon stocked to the brim with thousands of Americans who couldn't pay their bills.
Many people blamed the Democratic-Republicans for causing the financial calamity. They got tough with the Bank of the United States, so the BUS had to, in turn, get tough with its customers. The Bank of the United States began calling in its loans. People couldn't pay, and the currency was worse than unstable. The currency chaos grew much worse when many state and local banks began to fail.
The economic boom of the era was largely due to the stimulations from the War of 1812. Europe was ravaged and needed food and lumber real bad. America supplied a flood of both and at high prices. That prosperity carried over into 1816 and beyond. But Europe got its farm game back up into full throttle and prices fell in the US, leaving many farmers soon facing foreclosure.
The bad economy lingered until 1823, then picked up again under John Quincy Adams. So Monroe was re-elected in a landslide in spite of a bad economy and high unemployment.
ELECTION OF 1820
The Election of 1820 was over before it started.
With defeat in 1816, the Federalist Party dropped out of the picture. So from 1816 to 1826 the United States had only one political party of any consequence, the Democratic Republican Party of Jefferson. Monroe was up for re-election and no one was interested in challenging him from within the party. This was the high tide of the era of good feelings. There was no campaign for the presidency in 1820. There was no “I'm James Monroe and I approve this message,” attack ads against some Federalist banker candidate. Monroe ran unopposed and won virtually unanimously.
Monroe won 231 out of a possible 232 electoral votes. One New Hampshire elector voted for John Quincy Adams because (he claimed) he wanted to honor George Washington by insuring that “W” (as Hamilton called him in private) was the only unanimously elected President.
A few electors however, did vote for a Federalist challenger for Vice President. Richard Stockton, a stout Federalist got eight electoral votes for VP. Most of Dick Stockton's delegates were from Massachusetts. In spite of the Stockton challenge, the sitting VP DR Daniel Tomkins won re-election with more than 200 electoral votes..
There was no “Battle of 1820”
Monroe was the last candidate to run unopposed for president (unless you count Reagan in 84.)
ANDY JACKSON ARRIVES IN FLORIDA 1821
The first decision Monroe made in his second administration was to appoint Andrew Jackson as Governor of newly acquired Florida. Andrew had just been read out of the Army by the Congress and Monroe saw his chance to reinstall him. There were no laws governing the power of the governor of Florida, so this maverick would have a free hand in running the place. Monroe was confident that Jackson would maintain order in Florida.
In July of 1821 Andrew Jackson trotted in on horseback to Pensacola to begin the American occupation. The Spanish people of the town wept openly in the streets. They were not happy to be liberated. But at least they were free from the constant sanguine revolutions and counterrevolutions that were then sweeping the Spanish Empire in the Americas.
SPAIN LOSES ITS EMPIRE IN THE AMERICAS
Mexico broke away from Spain as did almost all of South America in the Monroe years. Mexico started the revolutionary ball rolling in 1821. Simon Bolivar led the South American rebellion.
Juan Valdez led the revolt of Central America which created the United Provinces, a five state union in Central America that later broke up into five separate new nations.
EL SALVADOR COULD HAVE BEEN THE 51st STATE
The new nations of Central America feared the new nation of Mexico. When in 1822 El Salvador anticipated a Mexican invasion it sent emissaries to the United States asking annexation and statehood. By the time the missionaries were given an audience, Mexico was in control of the El Salvador capital and the issue became irrelevant. But it almost could have been. El Salvador asked to join the United States of America and before we could answer it was too late.
Throughout their history the Central American states, while condemning the United States for its greed and avarice, sought US protection from the greed of Mexico! If not for the United States, Mexico might have grown into an imperialist colonialist power in Latin America, possibly a great one.
SUPREME COURT UNDER MONROE
There were an extraordinary number of landmark Supreme Court decisions in the Monroe years. The most famous three were McCulloch vs, Maryland 1819 – Dartmouth College vs. Woodward 1819 – and Gibbons vs Ogden 1824.
In McCulloch vs Maryland a state bank owned by Tony McCulloch was trying to tax the Bank of the United States. Justice Marshall ruled this unconstitutional because it got to the heart of whether the federal government was the supreme branch of the USA. If a state bank could tax a federal bank, then state law could supersede federal law in ten thousand cases in the future. “The power to tax is the power to destroy, and McCulloch can drop dead,” said the ever-frank Marshall.
Dartmouth College vs. Woodward got to the heart of the matter of corporate contracts and the right (or lack of it) of a state to dictate terms to private enterprise. I've played Dartmouth College many times as a comic. Its always about 3 degrees above zero. Of then ten coldest days I have ever known, three were on nights I played Dartmouth.
Mad King George granted Dartmouth College a charter in 1769. The state of New Hampshire decided in 1815 that this was a new day and a new way. NH jumped in and changed the charter and installed a new set of trustees.
Two of the old geezers on the board were originals from 1769. They were pushing 90 but they couldn't be pushed around. They refused to resign and the rest of the board got on board.
The Dart. Board took the case to the courts on the grounds that – one; a contract is a contract, period and – two; the states had no right to interfere with the operational terms of any private enterprise. The case reached the Supreme Court in 1819 and New Hampshire lost and got yelled at. The concept that a private enterprise was a sacrosanct empire within an empire was now confirmed in law. This ruling has been called “The Magna Charta of Corporations.”
Gibbons vs. Ogden was about monopoly of the steamboat trade and ferry revenue on the Hudson River. The state of New York had granted the famous Robert 'Steamboat' Fulton a monopoly for all commerce on state waterways.
Justice Marshall ruled that federal jurisdiction was not related to commerce alone. In transporting passengers across the Hudson, Fulton was crossing over into areas of the general public welfare and that was Washington's business. He ruled the Fulton monopoly illegal and decreed that the federal government was supreme in all aspects of interstate relations, not just commerce.
LABORIOUS STORIES
Labor made faint gains in Monroe's time. The down economic times of 1819-20 set labor way back. By 1824 the national economy was back up and running and labor was beginning to feel brave again. But when labor disputes reached higher courts, the judges almost always sided with capital and often threatened to prosecute the strikers for restraint of trade!
In Monroe's era there wasn't a single union of unions, like the AFL. Each union was a self-contained association of workers from one factory, unable to pool their political power for larger goals.
Imprisonment for debt was still common. Capital could go under and tell the workers, “Sorry, but those three weeks pay we owe you? It isn't happening.” The workers couldn't sue the owners for back pay or go the government for help. But if the workers owed money to the owners or anyone else, they could easily end up in jail.
The city of Pawtucket Rhode Island witnessed the first women's strike of American history. The women in a big Pawtucket factory walked off the job and started a peaceful strike. A few men were with them in support but the history books tend to forget that and call it an entirely female strike, which it was not exactly, but for historical purposes, yes, close enough.
The factory made red stockings, and that is how the Pawtucket Red Sox got their name.
AFTER OFFICE
After he left the White House, Monroe experienced financial difficulties. Quincy Adams wrote, “His life for the last six years has been one of abject penury and distress.” Quincy A reflected that Monroe had been very popular at the start but, “no one regretted the termination of his Administration.”
No one? That’s tough.
Monroe died on the Fourth of July 1831 in New York City. Three Presidents, Jefferson, Adams and Monroe all died on the Fourth of July. That's kind of creepy.
The man and his doctrine are buried in Richmond, Virginia.
SOURCES
America and its Peoples, A Mosaic in the Making, 5th Edition 2004, by Steve Mintz and other left wing professors.
The American Pageant, A History of the Republic, by Thomas A. Bailey of Stanford University – c) 1961, Second Edition – D.C. Heath
Bailey always writes like he's not trying to impress you, which is really impressive.
A Century of American Diplomacy, by John Foster – This is a history of diplomacy written by a US Secretary of State – I guess he knows his stuff.
A Diplomatic History of the United States, by Samuel Flagg Bemis, Farnam Professor of Diplomatic History in Yale University – c) 1934 Henry Holt
2 a.m., a pot of coffee, plenty of time, everyone's asleep, no phone calls, a book like this, three good pens, and this, my friends, is my idea of paradise.
Sam is very opinionated at times, and I think this is not a good introduction to American diplomatic history. It's better to learn the basics somewhere else, then come to Bemis for his his scholarly take on it.
This is a deservedly famous book.
Empire For Liberty, The Genesis and Growth of the United States of America, by Dumas Malone and Basil Rauch – c) 1960 – Appleton Century Crofts
College freshman textbook of two volumes and I only have Volume One. These two Columbia pro-Democrat prejudiced historians are fine writers. This is a treat.
The Enduring Vision, A History of the American People - by seven college history professors - Paul E. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, Thomas L. Purvis, Harvard Sitkoff (the most famous of the bunch), and Nancy Woloch – c) 1990.
The Growth of the American Republic, Vol. 1, by Morrison and
Commager
History of a Free People, by Henry W. Bragdon and Sameul P. McCutchen – c) 1954 MacMillan
Bragdon taught history at Phillips Exeter in New Hampshire, and Samuel at NYU – They collaborated on this staid strict general history for the high school slave/student. They assign more homework per page of reading than any schoolbook ever written.
History of the People of the United States, From the Revolution to the
Civil War, Vol V, by John Bach McMaster, c)1900
JBM provides a very detailed account of the Monroe years.
History of the United States of America, by Henry Elson –
This fine general history for real people was revised and reprinted about 22 times! I can't begin to tell you how readable this guy is. “This is how we do it.”
Inevitable Revolutions, by Walter Lefeber, c)1983 –
Latin American history for brainiac lefties. I like my history meals a little more basic.
Labor in America, A History, by Foster Rhea Dulles – c) 1949
This is a very useful book, but I have one criticism. His writing is the dullest. The joke fits totally.
The March of Democracy, The Rise of the Union by James Truslow
Adams – c) 1935 - Lively writing by an interesting jerk.
Out of Many, A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher (Yale); Mary Jo Buhle (Brown), Daniel Czitrom (Mount Holyoke); and Susan Armitage (Washington State), c)1994 – This is the Bible of PC outrageous liberal pseudo-history, although they don’t really turn up the lefty heat until the chapters covering the 20th century.
The Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison,
c)1965
This book is so thick you could hurt someone with it. Harvard professor Morison is one of the great historians of all time. This is almost 1,200 pages of his conspicuously cultured prose.
A Patriots History of the United States, by Schweikart and Allen
A Short History of the American Nation, by John A. Garraty – c) 1974
A good solid short history by Garraty of Columbia University. Garrity has a tough task squeezing the whole story into 521 Ted Williams pages, but he knows what he's doing. Its too bad he's so mean spirited so often. Whenever he gets opinionated I think less of him than before.
The United States to 1865, by Michael Kraus of CCNY – c) 1959 University of Michigan Press–
This is a beautiful physical book, and a solid work. These hardcovers from the University of Michigan History of the Modern World series can still be found at flea markets all over the world in mint condition for short money. They are all great reads, at least according to the four I own.
Mike Kraus has the usual pro-Dem bias starting with demi-Dem God Jefferson.
The United States, The History of a Republic - by Richard Hofstadter of Columbia, William Miller co-author of The Age of Enterprise, and Daniel Aaron of Smith College out in Western Mass. - c) 1957
These guys do not seem to think that the primary initial purpose of the Monroe Doctrine was to stop Russia from encroaching on the America continent from the northwest, but some other books do.
Three star players on the history field do their 1957 thing.
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