biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1758–1831)
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| biography:
| US statesman and fifth president (1817–25), born in Westmoreland Co, Virginia, USA. A combat veteran of the American Revolution, he studied law with Thomas Jefferson, who became a lifelong mentor. After serving in the Virginia legislature, he served a three-year term in the Confederation Congress (1783–6), and chaired the committee (1785) that prepared the way for framing the Constitution, though in the end he did not participate in its making and objected to the power it gave the central government. As a US senator (1790–4), he opposed George Washington and the Federalists, but was still appointed ambassador to France (1794–6) until an angry President Washington recalled him for opposing the Jay Treaty. He returned to Virginia as governor (1799–1802), and as a delegate for President Jefferson (1803) he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. The next four years were spent in less successful diplomacy in Madrid and London. More offices followed: again governor of Virginia (1811), secretary of state under Madison (1811–17), and also secretary of war (1814–15). Monroe ascended to the presidency in 1817 and was almost unanimously voted a second term in 1820. A popular president in a peaceful time, his administration came to be called ‘the era of good feeling’. Among the notable events of his presidency were gaining Florida from Spain (1818), the settlement of fishing-rights disputes in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Monroe Doctrine (1823), which proclaimed American hostility to any further European colonization or interference in the Americas. The activities of his later years included serving as regent of the University of Virginia (1826–30). His years of public service left him so poor that he had to spend the last months of his life with his daughter in New York City, where he died. |
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