A New Posting

James Monroe

Fifth President of the United States

James Monroe was born on April 28, 1758 and died July 4, 1831.  He did many things in his life and became the fifth President of the United States.  Today people talk about "founding fathers".  James Monroe was the last founding father of the country to become president.  He was a really important person for this country.

James Monroe did a bunch of things before becoming president. He fought in the American Revolutionary war.  He was a lawyer.  He was the governor of his own state of Virginia.  He was also an envoy and Secretary of State and Secretary of War.  After all that he became President as well.

Before he became President he did some big things. America was a small country.  It wanted to be bigger. James Monroe helped work out a big deal with France called the Louisiana Purchase.  The United States made a deal with France for a big piece of land in the middle of the country.  James Monroe helped President Jefferson with that.

James Monroe became president in 1816.  He was very popular and won his election very easily. He won a second term as president again in 1820.  People called his time as president the "Era of Good Feelings."  I guess that was because people felt happy.  But he had some real problems also.  

Slavery still happened in America.  That means some people owned other people.  Some states allowed slaves while others did not.  It was a terrible thing.  People argued over this all the time.  In 1820 there was a thing called the "Missouri Compromise". This deal let the new state of Missouri become part of the United States without slaves.  James Monroe agreed with this compromise even though he disagreed.  He was in favor of slaves.  So this did not solve the problem.  Latter the Civil War would be fought to solve this problem.

 

The most important thing he did as president was to make the Monroe Doctrine.  The United States was growing but still small compared to older countries.  Russia was hug and was moving into Alaska.  Countries from Europe wanted to have land all around the United States.  This was called making colonies.  Like when the country first was created.  Colonies were made first.  They turned into states and that turned into the United States.  

What President Monroe said was that both North and South America we closed to anymore colonies.  He said people in the Americas could figure out their own future and that they did not need those other counties sticking their noses in our business.  So basically, this area is closed!  No more colonies.  No more of being told what to do.

The Monroe Doctrine was really important.  Presidents after Monroe used it in many ways to protect the United States.  It told the world that the United States was not going to be a wimp and have the other big bullies tell it what to do.