James Monroe

A

2

Marriage

While in Congress, which was meeting in New York City, Monroe met Elizabeth Kortright, whom he married in the spring of 1786. They had two daughters, and a son who died in childhood.

A

3

Return to Virginia

In October 1786, Monroe resigned from Congress and settled with his bride in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he began a law practice. His retirement from politics was brief. He was soon elected to the town council, and then once again to the Virginia legislature.

However, Monroe never lost touch with national politics. He corresponded regularly with both Jefferson and Madison. In 1786 Monroe attended the Annapolis Convention, which had been called to consider interstate commerce and other matters not covered by the Articles of Confederation. The delegates decided to seek a new constitution for the nation. However, Monroe was not named a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He blamed Madison and Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, for the oversight. “The governor ... hath shewn ... a disposition to thwart me,” he wrote Jefferson, and “Madison, upon whose friendship I have calculated, whose views I have favor'd, and with whom I have held the most confidential correspondence” he believed to be “in strict league” with the governor.

B

Virginia Convention Delegate

After the Constitutional Convention drafted the new Constitution of the United States in 1787, Monroe was elected a delegate to the Virginia convention called to ratify it. Among the Virginians, Madison and Randolph were the chief spokesmen for ratification, while Monroe, in the beginning at least, adopted a neutral stand. Finally, however, he opposed ratification because the Constitution created too strong a central government. Monroe made a strong appeal to the delegates from the western part of the state, arguing that the Constitution was a threat to free navigation on the Mississippi River. Madison effectively rebutted this argument, but it won over a number of western delegates. Monroe also deplored the absence of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Although he voted against ratification, Monroe accepted the new government without any misgivings. Soon afterward he ran for a seat in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Congress of the United States formed under the newly ratified Constitution. He was defeated by Madison.

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C

United States Senator

In 1789 Monroe moved to Albemarle County, Virginia, near Jefferson's estate, Monticello. Monroe's estate, Ash Lawn, was for almost 20 years the home to which he returned whenever he was free from public duties. In 1790 he was elected to a recently vacated seat in the U.S. Senate (the upper house of Congress). He was named to a full six-year term the following year.

Although there were no political parties in the United States at this time, there were factions. The Federalist faction, identified with Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, favored an active federal government, a treasury that played a prominent role in the nation's economic life, and a pro-British foreign policy. By 1800 this faction became the Federalist Party. The Anti-Federalists, of whom Thomas Jefferson was most prominent, favored a limited federal government and a pro-French foreign policy. This faction later became the Democratic-Republican Party. In the Senate, Monroe aligned himself with the Anti-Federalists. Like them, he opposed any tendency toward centralization of power in the national government at the expense of state sovereignty. In international affairs, Monroe was sympathetic to the French Revolution (1789-1799) and supported France in the wars that followed. Nevertheless, he agreed with President Washington's policy of neutrality during the European wars that followed the French Revolution.

D

United States Diplomat

D

1

Minister to France

In the spring of 1794, Monroe resigned from the Senate to accept the diplomatic post of minister plenipotentiary to France. His assignment was to help maintain friendly relations with France in spite of U.S. efforts to remain on peaceful terms with France's enemy Great Britain. He was chosen at least in part because of his known sympathy for France, and it was hoped that he could calm any fears France might have of American favoritism toward Britain.

The situation in France was complicated. Apparently, from the outset, Monroe went too far in identifying with the new Republic of France. His ardently pro-French speech to the French assembly brought a reprimand from President Washington: “Considering the place in which ... delivered and the neutral policy the country had to pursue, it was a measure that does not appear to have been well devised by our minister.” Nor was the administration satisfied with Monroe's attempts to justify Jay's Treaty, which the United States signed with Great Britain in 1794 and which the French government found offensive because it made concessions to the British.

In September 1796, Monroe was recalled. He believed he had been betrayed by the Federalists in the administration, who had, he felt, used him to appease France while they made broad concessions to Britain in Jay's Treaty. This opinion was also held by many other Americans, who were beginning to be molded into an opposition party by Jefferson. Although Monroe blamed the policies and motives of his superiors for the failure of his mission, he remained bitter about it for the rest of his life.

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