James Monroe, 5th President of the United States, was born on April 28, 1758 in Westmoreland County, Virigina. His term in office was eventful: the territory of the United States was increased by purchasing Florida from Spain, the Missouri Compromise set the pattern for how slavery was to be handled politically for the next 35 years, and several states were added to the Union including my birth state, Missouri, and my state of residence, Illinois.
In his annual address to the Congress in 1823, Monroe enunciated what has since been called the Monroe Doctrine:
“We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new Governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgement of the competent authorities of this Government, shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security.”
These were bold words for the times. The United States was still a fledgling country and nearly every country in Europe had American colonies which they were eager to expand including England, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Holland, and Denmark. Nonetheless this established the foreign policy that was to hold in the United States until its entrance into World War II.
Here’s one of his finest and most famous quotations:
“Of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trial by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms… If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny.”
