James+Monroe

By Steve The US president from 1817-1824

[[image:http://surftofind.com/jmonroe.jpg]]President James Monroe:Republican
Important stuff: Legacy Monroe's presidency was one of the most important in American history because it set the stage for later events to build upon for better or for worse. It was he who ratified the Missouri Compromise, the one bill that would cause the slavery debate to heat up when more states were added to the Union, ultimately starting the Civil war. It was also during this presidency that a Boom and Bust would cause so much resentment for the Bank of the United States that later ones would make this a major national issue and lead to its downfall with Andrew Jackson effectively repealing its charter about 10 years later. The Supreme Court at this time rose from it undefined existance and began ruling on cases that defined its power in the US government while also raising the national government over the states. That effort would balance the government so that the Court held sway with the president and Congress later on (repealing FDR's bills, Civil rights, etc.). Finally the Monroe Doctrine was one of the first for the US that dealt internationally, the US was still considered by many as a bakwater place on the other side of the Atlantic at the time. That bill was built upon and used first to aid the US in creating colonies in South America (legally) and then as justification for the US's continuing inflence there during the Cold War. So many important things happened in this presidency that it would be unreasonable to think it wasn't one of the most important in US history.
 * Belonged to the United States first Republican Party (coming after the first political party in the US the Federalist)
 * Was the secretary of State for the previous president James Madison, thus with Madison's blessings the electoral college voted hime into the presidency with almost no competition with the by then defunct Federalist Party
 * Was one of the older presidents elected, he was 61 when he was elected
 * As soon as he was elected he launched a goodwill tour of America, the first since Washington, and explained his presidential plan to the American people. In essence he was campaigning for himself after he won the presidency.
 * Appointed the next president John Quincy Adams as the secretary of state, Adams was a skilled diplomat and basically established the foreign policy of the Monroe presidency.
 * When Jackson invaded Spanish held Florida Adams implied to the Spanish ambassador that a full invasion might happen if a treaty wasn't signed quickly, and ine was. The Adams-Onis treaty gave control of Florida to the US while the US would ditch its claims in the Texas area (like that lasted)
 * The Panic of 1819, caused by reckless speculation and easy credit from banks; was caused when banks began calling in those loans and nobody could pay up. The Bank of the United States (think the US treasury before Jackson took it down) took most of the blame since most of the settlers thought that the government was trying get their land and money before they were fully settled.
 * Missouri Compromise was a bill that was signed in 1819 allowing the state of Missouri to enter as a slave state (the Northenors didn't want another slave state to imbalance the Senate) and Maine as a free state. That avoided early conflict between the North and the South over slavery, though the other clause about no slave states above the compromise line (Missouri's southern border with Arkansas) caused problems in Kansas later.
 * Around this time John Marshall was strenghining the judicial branch into mostly what it is today, holding sway in Congress and the presidency. His decisions in landmark cases like McCullock v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden placed the federal government over the state in matters involving laws and interstate commerce.
 * In Dartmouth College v. Woodward a private company or in this case college, was trying to defend itself against the State violating its contract and trying to turn the college into a state university. Marshall decides in favor of the college in that contracts placed are still contracts and state contracts couldn't violate them. A short time later in Cohens v. Virginia he further proclaims that the Supreme Court can review State courts and overturn or uphold decisions.
 * In Worcester v. Georgia Marshall, in explaining why the US's claim to Native American land overrides the settler's; defines the limited legal protections that all Native American tribes have. The little rights they have in the eyes of US law is to be treated as sovereign nations above local governments (like the states listened), but always treated as wards of the US Congress.
 * Back to Monroe, his Monroe Doctrine set an international precedent in that it proclaimed that Europeans aren't allowed to interfere in Latin American countries through force or other subversion. Again Adams put most of the work in, and seemed to have worded it well enough that it was never challenged by other nations openly. It was later added upon by later presidencies and used as justification for the United States government to interfere in these countries for the sake of keeping the peace.

Sources: The picture was from [], and looked the best to outline how he still looks somewhat young at 61. Most of the info came from Brinkley, Alan. __American History- A Survey__. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.