The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness by Harlow Giles Unger

…harmony among Americans…will be the object of my constant and zealous attentions. ~
President James Monroe

Prior to reading The Last Founding Father, I had a vague impression of the fifth American President as little more than an acolyte of Thomas Jefferson. Harlow Giles Unger does a superb job of dispelling this and other misconceptions.

 

One of the qualities I most admired in Monroe was his uncompromising commitment to national interest over personal loyalty. This ideal led him, on several occasions, to stand opposed to the party line and national heroes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Despite this, Monroe was able to maintain a close and enduring friendship with his fellow Virginians.

 

In his opening chapter, Unger offers the following synopsis of Monroe’s life:

 

James Monroe was the last of the Founding Fathers – dressed in outmoded knee-breeches and buckled shoes, protecting the fragile structure of republican government from disunion. Born and raised on a small Virginia farm, Monroe had fought and bled at Trenton as a youth, suffered the pangs of hunger and the bite of winter at Valley Forge, galloped beside Washington at Monmouth. And when the Revolution ended, he gave himself to the nation, devoting the next forty years to public service, assuming more public posts than any American in history: state legislator, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, ambassador to France and Britain, minister to Spain, four-term governor of Virginia, U.S. secretary of state, U.S. secretary of war, and finally, America’s fifth president, for two successive terms.

 

Unger carefully details each of these accomplishments and many more. One of Monroe’s most impressive achievements occurred near the end of the War of 1812, when he served as Secretary of State and later as Secretary of War under President Madison. Madison, sickly and slight at the best of times, deferred to Monroe on most matters, making Monroe de facto Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief. Monroe’s competence, decisiveness, and courage were not lost on the American Public who elected Monroe by landslide in the election of 1816.

 

Monroe’s presidency, often called the “Era of Good Feelings” was marked by the greatest peace, prosperity and unity the young nation had ever known. It also marked the end of party politics…for a few years.

 

Monroe had studied the Washington years carefully and pledged that, like Washington, promoting “harmony among Americans…will be the object of my constant and zealous attentions.”

 

There is one glaring omission in Unger’s synopsis of Monroe’s life: author of the Monroe Doctrine. (omitted in the synopsis, but not from the biography)

 

If the Monroe Doctrine quelled European ambitions for new conquests in the Americas, it dispelled American fears of imminent attack by foreign powers and unleashed a surge of popular energy that strengthened the nation economically and militarily.

 

It comprised only three paragraphs of the State of the Union Address. The heart of the doctrine is this:

 

…the rights and interests of the United States are involved that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

 

It was met at once with resounding approval – near euphoria. It is probably Monroe’s most enduring legacy.

 

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