Politics in a New Nation: the Early Career of James Monroe
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72-15,198 DICKSON, Charles Ellis, 1935- POLITICS IN A NEW NATION: THE EARLY CAREER OF JAMES MONROE. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 History, modern University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan Copyright by Charles Ellis Dickson 1972 POLITICS IN A NEW NATION: THE EARLY CAREER OP JAMES MONROE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Charles Ellis Dickson, B.S., M.A. ###### The Ohio State University 1971 Approved by PLEASE NOTE: Some pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Among the many people who have helped me in my graduate studies at Ohio State, I wish in particular to thank my adviser, Professor Mary E. Young, and my wife, Patricia. This work is dedicated to my father, John McConnell Dickson (1896-1971). ii VITA 13 June 1935 . Born— Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1957 ............. B.S., Indiana University of Penn sylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania 1957-195 8 . Active Duty as Second Lieutenant, U.S.A.R., Port Lee, Virginia 1958-196 6 . Social Studies Teacher, Churchill Area Schools, Pittsburgh, Pennsyl vania 1961 ............. M.A., University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 196^ . Pulbright Grant for Study and Travel in Prance and Great Britain 1967-1970 . Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1970-Present . Assistant Professor, Department of History, Geneva College, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania FIELDS OF STUDY Jefferson-Jackson. Professor Mary E. Young Colonial America. Professor Bradley Chapin and Assistant Professor Paul G. Bowers Tudor-Stuart. Professor R. Clayton Roberts Modern Britain. Professor Philip P. Poirier iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................. ii VITA .............................................. ill Chapter I. EVALUATING JAMES MONROE .................. 1 II. BEGINNING A POLITICAL CAREER IN EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY V I R G I N I A ........................ 22 III. SERVING IN CONGRESS....................... 48 IV. DEVELOPING WESTERN INTERESTS ............ 69 V. DEFENDING THE W E S T ....................... 89 VI. DECIDING ON A C A R E E R .................... 123 VII. OPPOSING THE CONSTITUTION................ 140 VIII. OPPOSING THE FEDERALIST GOVERNMENT FROM THE S E N A T E ............................... 168 IX. CONCLUDING REMARKS ....................... 195 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOURCES CITED ..................... 202 lv CHAPTER I EVALUATING JAMES MONROE James Monroe had a long and generally successful career in public service. As Francis Walker Gilmer, a neighbor of Monroe's, noted in 1816, Monroe had "succes sively occupied almost every station of public confidence which his native state or the national government could confer"; and, he judged, "There have been few more zealous, indefatigable or useful servants of the public than James 1 Monroe." While Monroe's two terms as president (1817-1825) are now his best remembered years, his long career, which corresponds generally to the life of the Republican Party, began during the American Revolution and continued into the ^Sketches of American Statesmen," Richard Beale Davis, Francis Walker Gilmer: Life and Learning in Jeffer son's Virginia; A Study in Virginia Literary Culture in the First Quarter of the Nineteenth Century (Richmond, Va.: Deitz Press, 1939), pp. 353-54. Detailed chronological out lines of Monroe's career can be found in Ian Elliott, ed., James Monroe, 1758-1831: Chronology— Documents— -Biographi cal Aids, Oceana Presidential Chronology Series (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1969) and in Curtis W. Garrison, ed. with David L. Thomas, asst. ed., Guide to the Microfilm Edition of James Monroe Papers in Virginia Repositories ([Charlottesville, Va.:J University of Virginia Library, 1969). 1 early years of the Jacksonian Era. Monroe's first acts of public service were military, for he was an officer in the Continental Army while still in his teens and then became an officer and military commissioner in Virginia. Even before the Revolutionary War was officially over, Colonel Monroe entered political life. He was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in the spring of 1782 and then almost immediately was placed on Virginia's Council of State. In 1783 he was elected to the Congress of the Con federation, where he served with distinction for three years. He was then elected again to the House of Delegates and played a prominent role, on the Antifederalist side, in the Virginia convention called in 1788 to consider the rati fication of the Federal Constitution. After the adoption of the Constitution, Monroe ran unsuccessfully against James Madison for a seat in the new United States House of Repre sentatives but soon afterwards secured a place in the United States Senate. There he became a prominent leader of the opposition to the Washington Administration until 179^, when Washington appointed him American minister to France. He remained in that country for two years, until President Adams recalled him, whereupon he was elected governor of Virginia. He was in the last possible consecu tive year in that office when President Jefferson sent him back to France, where he took part in negotiations for the purchase of Louisiana. When he returned to the United States In 1807, after failing to negotiate a treaty with Great Britain which Jefferson could accept, some dissatisfied Republicans made Monroe a presidential candidate. When he lost to Madison, Monroe made his peace with the Republican leadership and again became governor of Virginia for a short while, and then secretary of state, and sometimes acting secretary of war, In Madison's cabinet. He then succeeded Madison In the presidency. After eight years in the White House, he attempted to retire from public service but was elected a member of the convention on the Virginia constitution. This meeting, filled with such distinguished Virginians as James Madison and John Marshall, further honored Monroe by electing him to preside over that body. After Monroe's death, John Quincy Adams praised his "long and illustrious career in war and peace";2 but, despite the many Important state and national offices which Monroe had held during the eventful early years of the United States, scholars have written very little of sig nificance about him. Although many have commented on p An Eulogy: on the Life and Character of James Monroe, Fifth President of the United States. Delivered at the Request of the Corporation of the City of Boston, on the 25th of August, 1831 (Boston: JL H"I Eastburn, City Printer, 1831), P ■ 18■ "a near famine of recent publications about the man and his presidency,"3 it appears that no one has ever written a doctoral dissertation on any aspect of Monroe's life other than his connections with the Monroe Doctrine. Many writers of general histories have discussed the last part of Monroe’ public career, especially the period when he was secretary of state and president;** but Monroe rarely receives much attention for his important activities during the last two decades of the eighteenth century. Merrill Jensen, for example, can write an entire book on the Confederation period, The New Nation, discussing details of the time when Monroe was one of the major figures in Congress, without making more than three references to him. Jackson Turner Main's The Antifederalists likewise contains only a few incidental references to Monroe, although he was the only Antifederalist leader to become president. In addition, many historians have written about the Republican Party ^Elliott, James Monroe, p. 8l; cf. Stuart Gerry Brown, The First Republicans: Political Philosophy and Public Policy in the Party of Jefferson and Madison (LSyracuse, N .Y.:] Syracuse University Press, 195^)> p. 173 **Probably the first historians to consult the Monroe Papers (then in the Dept, of State and now in the Library of Congress) were John Robert Irelan, The Republic: or, a History of the United States of America in the Administra tions, From the Monarchic Colonial Days to the Present Times (18 vols.; Chicago: Fairbanks and Palmer Publishing Co., 1887-88), esp. Vol. V, subtitled History of the Life, Admin istration, and Tlmesof James Monroe, Fifth President of the United States and James Schouler, History of the United States of America, under the Constitution (7 vols., rev, ed. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company [189^-1913])• 5 without emphasizing Monroe?s important role in its founding: for example, Joseph Charles in his The Origins of the Amer ican Party System mentions Monroe only three times.^ Unfortunately, no contemporary of Monroe has left an adequate account of his career; and a recent biblio graphic survey of his period concludes that the "figure of £ James Monroe has yet to find a superior biographer." Other than a long eulogy by John Quincy Adams, only four book-length biographies have been published on Monroe. The first, not published until the last part of the nineteenth century, was Daniel Colt Gilman's biography in the American Statesmen series. Barely more than a sketch, it accomplished only the most basic scholarly spadework; and yet the next biography did not appear until 1921, when George Morgan produced a popular account consisting mainly of extensive ^The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation, 1781-1789 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950), pp. 35b, 403, 41U-19; The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788 (Chapel Hill: Uni- versity of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Va. [1961])» pp. 15, 113, 131, 140, 224, 283; The Origins of the American Party System: Three Essays, with a Foreword by Frederick Merk, Harper Torchbooks— The Academy Library (New York: Harper & Brothers [1961]) pp. 82, 124, 127. ^Morton Bordon, Parties and Politics in the Early Republic, 1789-1815, The Crowell American History Series (New York: Thomas Y . Crowell Company [1967]), p. 108. There is a brief Autobiography of James Monroe, ed.