0805069607
Gary Hart
Notes
Monroe took offense readily. His skin, in modern parlance, was thin. He became especially prickly when his conduct was questioned or his judgement second-guessed. It did not matter whether his critic was a famous president (Washington) or a friend who happened to be president (Jefferson) or a peer to whom he was subordinate (Madison). Monroe felt almost all criticism or disagreement to be a challenge to his intelligence, judgment, or rectitude. Once challenged, Monroe rarely sulked. He instead defended his performance, usually in writing. The inevitable result of his inability to brush aside his critics, including his superiors, was friction. Monroe was inclined to risk lifelong attachments and friendships in defense of his character. And that is what the friction almost always seemed to involve in Monroe’s mind – not a question of judgment but a question of character. He wore his honor on his sleeve and was quick to believe it tarnished. It is something of a tribute to his other attributes that his relationships largely survived his excessive sensitivity. Nevertheless, during service in three presidential administrations, Monroe found himself at odds with those he had been called upon to serve whenever they questioned his performance of his duties.
In many respects, Monroe’s career was unparalleled, but he was singular above all in the experience of being disowned by two Presidents as strongly opposed to each other as Washington and Jefferson, and of being sacrificed by two secretaries as widely different as Timothy Pickering and James Madison.
“Now, as Secretary of both War and State, Monroe was given the greatest opportunity of his long career, in the critical period following the fall of Washington, to prove his ability,” writes W.P. Cresson. He promptly broke ranks with Republican doctrine, heavily reliant on the state militias for homeland defense, and proposed conscription of a one-hundred-thousand-man army in response to threatened British invasions from Canada against New Orleans…”in the long hours he was spending with Madison attempting to restore the prestige of the country and the administration, Monroe could not but be keenly aware that he was mending the warp and woof of his own battered past and gathering up the threads that would fashion the design of his own future,” according to Cresson.
Monroe was providing a powerful example to future presidents in eras of great change, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, as to how to create a ruling majority that might last a lengthy period of time by adopting policies originally proposed by rival factions.
”There is slowness, want of decision, and a spirit of procrastination in the President, which perhaps arises more often from his situation than his personal character.” – JQ Adams. This conclusion he derived from observing Monroe’s habit of deferring decisions following cabinet meetings to develop consensus in his administration. Ammon observes that “Monroe did not meet with his Cabinet primarily for advice (his mind was usually already made up on most issues) but to hammer out an agreement and to secure a commitment to his program.”
The application of the Missouri Territory in 1819 to become a recognized state forced the issue (slavery) and also forced Monroe, a born moderate, into a search for a compromise.
Speaking today, Monroe might have reduced his foreign policy principles to a single premise: we will resist hegemony without seeking hegemony. (The Monroe Doctrine is a statement, not a binding law, that they will oppose any Eastern Hemisphere power from intermingling in the Western Hemisphere. The United States would also refrain from intermingling on any Eastern Hemisphere issues.)
He was at his most pathetic when, while desperate to maintain a sense of personal dignity, he found it necessary to petition a series of presidents, secretaries of state, and Congresses for reimbursement of expenses incurred in his nation’s service. More often than not his repeated pleas were ignored or denied, often to his abject embarrassment. He borrowed money from family and friends. Even as a retired president, Monroe was petitioning his successors and various Congresses, and awkwardly urging his friends to do likewise on his behalf, for long-denied repayment for service abroad over more than two decades. In a kind of self-imposed internal exile, far from his beloved Virginia home, the fifth president of the United States would die in virtual poverty.