Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
James Monroe
The 5th president's policies helped create an “Era of Good Feelings,” a prosperous time never seen before or since in American history.
Editor's Note: Harlow Giles Unger is the author of twenty-eight books, including more than a dozen biographies of America’s Founding Fathers. Read more >>
Monroe was seen guilty of impropriety, not wrongdoing. But his reputation suffered.
President Monroe twice diverted public funds for private use (probably to cover expenses for his travel to try to reunite the country after the War of 1812.) Read more >>
As Adams and Jefferson died, America came of age
Written in haste, on an April midnight in 1803, the unedited text of the message that led to the Louisiana Purchase is printed for the first time.
In 1817, “Old Pewt’s” rebellious cadets met their master in Sylvanus Thayer
It was June 15, 1817, and up at West Point newly elected President James Monroe, staunch friend of the Military Academy, was in a towering rage. The place was in poor shape, its curriculum had unraveled, examinations were unknown, and discipline was non-existent. The acting superintendent, Captain Alden Partridge, Corps of Engineers, seemed to be running a “Dotheboys Hall” of sorts, where favoritism governed and cadets were being graduated without reference either to academic standing or military ability. Read more >>
Nearly two centuries after Crèvecoeur propounded his notorious question—“What then is the American, this new man?”—Vine Deloria, Jr., an American Indian writing in the Bicentennial year on the subject “The North Americans” for Crisis Read more >>
The idea goes back to the very beginnings of our national history. Then as now, it was built upon human relationships, and these—as Mr. Jefferson found to his sorrow—make a fragile foundation.
Andrew Jackson won a stunning victory over a veteran British army that would eventually propel him to the White House
On August 24 and 25, 1814, British forces were in full possession of Washington; from August 29 to 31 other forces held Alexandria. From September 11 to 14 they were feeling out the defenses of Baltimore. Then the greater part of them vanished out of sight; once the British ships were over the horizon there was almost no means of knowing where they were and far smaller means of knowing what they intended, for by this time the blockade of the Atlantic Coast was highly effective, and there were few ships to bring in news even of the outside world, certainly not of the movements of the British lleet. No one could even be sure that any further offensive movement was meditated, but it was the duty of the American government to act on the hypothesis that the enemy would attempt to do all the harm possible —and that implied that British movements must be foreseen and guarded against.
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