A native of Westmoreland county, Virginia, graduated at William and Mary College, 1776, joined the American Revolutionary army, rose to the rank of major, and acquired great distinction by his important services. After the war he studied law with Thomas Jefferson; was elected to the Legislature of Virginia, 1782, and to the National Congress, 1783, and also from 1790 to ’94; served abroad as ambassador to France and also to England; Governor of Virginia, 1799—and 1802 and 1808–11; Secretary of State of the United States, 1811, of War, 1814; President of the United States, 1817–25. 1. “View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Affairs of the United States,” &c., Philadelphia, 1798, 8vo.; London, 1798, 8vo…. 2. “A Tour of Observation through the North-Eastern and North-Western States in 1817,” Philadelphia, 1818, 8vo.

Personal

  In his stature he is about the middle height of men, rather firmly set, with nothing further remarkable in his person, except his muscular compactness and apparent ability to endure labor. His countenance, when grave, has rather the expression of sternness and irascibility; a smile, however (and a smile is not unusual with him in a social circle), lights it up to very high advantage, and gives it a most impressive and engaging air of suavity and benevolence. His dress and personal appearance are those of a plain and modest gentleman. He is a man of soft, polite, and even assiduous attentions; but these, although they are always well-timed, judicious, and evidently the offspring of an obliging and philanthropic temper, are never performed with the striking and captivating graces of a Marlborough or a Bolingbroke. To be plain, there is often in his manner an inartificial and even an awkward simplicity, which, while it provokes the smile of a more polished person, forces him to the opinion that Mr. Monroe is a man of a most sincere and artless soul.

  The old notions of republican simplicity are fast wearing away, and the public taste becomes more and more gratified with public amusements and parade. Mr. Monroe, however, still retains his plain and gentlemanly manners, and is in every respect a very estimable man.

  In the midst of the festivities of the celebration of independence yesterday, the death of James Monroe was announced. He died at the house of his son-in-law, Mr. Samuel L. Gouverneur, in this city. This venerable patriot has been ill and his life despaired of for some months past, and he seems to have lingered until this time to add to the number of the Revolutionary patriots whose deaths have occurred on this memorable anniversary.

  Such, my fellow citizens, was James Monroe. Such was the man who presents the only example of one whose public life commenced with the War of Independence and is identified with all the important events of your history from that day forth for a full half-century.

  In person Mr. Monroe was about six feet high, perhaps rather more; broad and square-shouldered and raw-boned. When I knew him he was an old man (more than seventy years of age), and he looked perhaps even older than he was, his face being strongly marked with the lines of anxiety and care. His mouth was rather large, his nose of medium size and well-shaped, his forehead broad, and his eyes blue approaching gray. Altogether his face was a little rugged; and I do not suppose he was ever handsome, but in his younger days he must have been a man of fine physique, and capable of great endurance…. There was no grace about Mr. Monroe, either in appearance or manner. He was, in fact, rather an awkward man, and, even in his old age, a diffident one. Nevertheless, there was a calm and quiet dignity about him with which no one in his presence could fail to be impressed, and he was one of the most polite men I ever saw to all ranks and classes. It was his habit, in his ride of a morning or evening, to bow and speak to the humblest slave whom he passed as respectfully as if he had been the first gentleman in the neighborhood.

  There was nothing peculiarly striking or impressive in the personal appearance of Monroe. He was not so tall as Jefferson, but taller than Madison. His face was not so shrunken as the former’s, nor so full as that of the latter. His countenance indicated the possession of the highest reflective faculties and perfect candor and sincerity—wholly without dissimulation. For these qualities he was universally esteemed, and it was impossible to observe him closely and hear him converse, without concluding that, in this respect, his reputation was well deserved. I had been always taught thus to regard him, and this estimate of him became fixed in my mind by personal observation. He was a fine specimen of what, in my boyhood, was called an “old Virginia gentleman,”—sincere in manner, simple in tastes, courteous in deportment, and manly in intercourse with all.

General

  In December, 1817, Mr. Monroe met the first Congress that was assembled under his administration. Never, since the immortalized and sainted Washington first appeared at the head of that august body, has any President been received with more marked tokens of sincere respect, and deserved admiration. The great counsellors of the nation reposed in him a confidence almost unlimited…. His first message is in the hands of all, and by all admired. It evinces a familiar knowledge of the great principles of our admirable Constitution, and of the great interests of our expanding Republic.

  His knowledge of the history and the men of our first constitutional age must have been extensive, minute, and accurate. His memory was a storehouse of valuable facts, a gallery lined with the most valuable pictures and portraits. Had he been content to write of what he knew, and part of which he was, he might have produced a work that would have been unrivalled in its kind. But it never seems to have occurred to him that he had a story to tell that could have secured for him the nation as an audience, and he allowed his real knowledge and rich experience to die with him, instead of adding them to the intellectual treasures of the world. He devoted his time and attention to the composition of a work in which a comparison was instituted between the government of the United States and the governments of the ancient republics. But when a man enters upon an elaborate political and literary work at sixty-seven, his chances of having health enough and life enough to complete it are not of an encouraging character. Mr. Monroe’s treatise is a fragment…. We cannot express much regret that this treatise was not completed, nor do we think the world would have lost much had it been allowed to remain in manuscript. It is a literary curiosity, and nothing more—and it has not much value even as a curiosity. As the work of a practised and practical statesman, treating of the higher politics, it has a sort of attraction that is not common,—but things that are not common are not always valuable. They may be rare, and yet not rich.

  His numerous state papers are not remarkable in style or in thought, but his views were generally sound, the position which he took in later life on public questions was approved by the public voice, and his administration is known as the “era of good feeling.” His attention does not seem to have been called in any special manner to the significance of slavery as an element of political discord, or as an evil in itself. If he foresaw, he did not foretell the great conflict. He does not seem expert in the principles of national finance, though his views are often expressed on such matters. The one idea which he represents consistently from the beginning to the end of his career is this, that America is for Americans. He resists the British sovereignty in his early youth; he insists on the importance of free navigation in the Mississippi, he negotiates the purchase of Louisiana and Florida; he gives a vigorous impulse to the prosecution of the second war with Great Britain, when neutral rights were endangered; finally he announces the “Monroe doctrine.”