James Monroe

James Monroe: A Life by Tim McGrath

Tier 2

As mentioned last week, I went into this project with substantial momentum. And then I finished the disappointing Madison biography and was left with the prospect of James Monroe to follow. Not the most exciting proposition.

James Monroe was most famous for a doctrine named after him that was used to justify future imperialist presidential action. He’s also renowned for confusing generations of schoolchildren who can’t seem to distinguish him from his similarly initialed predecessor.

Aside from that, I knew very little about him.

As you can imagine, I wasn’t excited about this biography.

But that’s the beauty of a project like this. Yes, it’s fun to listen to Chernow’s book on Washington. It’s a masterclass in the genre, an unimpeachable work. But everyone knows that. The most famous biography of the most famous president, written by one of the great biographers of our day, is bound to be good. Where’s the fun in that?

It’s a book like this, Tim McGrath’s impeccable biography James Monroe: A Life, that makes a project like this come to life. I’d never have decided to listen to this unprompted. I had no interest in Monroe and assumed he was just a historical footnote. And what I found was quite the opposite.

As some of you know, I’m a fiction writer as well. I have a novel coming in 2025 and have had some stories published. I don’t mention this as shameless self-promotion (patrickrodowd.com patrickrodowd.compatrickrodowd.com) or to brag, but rather to say if I were going to write a historical fiction novel of one of the early presidents, it would likely be Monroe. The ebbs and flows of his life, the things he saw, the people he interacted with. It’s a story of undeniable narrative scope.

And McGrath tells that story beautifully.

Monroe was the last president of the revolutionary generation (this fact is punctuated by his successor being a child of one of that generation) and, as such, is often cosigned to a lesser position. He would never be Washington in his godlike grandeur, and he doesn’t possess the intellectual presence or lasting impact of Jefferson, Adams, or Madison. But he lived through exciting times and, in the end, served (mainly) admirably.

He was a soldier in the revolution, dropping out of college to serve under Washington. The position of soldier readily defines much of his later life. He went where he was told – France during the revolution and England later. He followed his commanders – Washington at first and later Jefferson. He waited his turn when he considered a run for president in 1808, understanding that it was Madison’s turn and he must fall in line with his party.

These traits rarely set a person out for note in history, but we need these people in a representative democracy. Someone who takes orders and votes the party line. We don’t like to admit it, but nothing would ever get done without these party stalwarts.

And it would’ve been simple for McGrath to write off much of Monroe’s political life to this. He could’ve described him as a historical afterthought—the last of his generation, a copy of a copy of a copy. I feel Brookhiser’s biography of Madison takes this path in many ways. It attaches Madison first to Washington and later Jefferson neutering its subject to remain expedient.

McGrath doesn’t take that path. He shows how Monroe internally disagreed with his bosses – notably, he negotiated a trade deal with Great Britain that Jefferson proceeded to reject. And he reveals in the drama that so defined his life.

Overall, Monroe went along with the stream of Jefferson’s party. He toed the line and waited his turn. But McGrath paints those periods with a vibrant brush. He shows him revolutionary France growing discontented with the wanton violence and anarchy. He shows Monroe rallying troops during the War of 1812. He creates a person, nuanced and flawed but always captivating.

While the previous biographies I listened to in this series were hyper-focused on glorifying their subject, McGrath seems willing to admit to Monroe’s deficits. He doesn’t claim Monroe to be some brilliant philosopher or political tactician. He wasn’t a Renaissance man like Jefferson or a legal genius like Adams, and I found this candor refreshing and all too uncommon in presidential biographies.

As for Monroe’s presidency itself, it was a mixed bag. Most presidencies are. We like to imagine that there’s a person out there who could bat a thousand and nail every decision, but it's not reasonable. People are imperfect, presidents, most of all.

Monroe is primarily remembered historically for the aforementioned doctrine – which I would assume he never could’ve imagined being used in the way it has been – and for The Missouri Compromise. This decision is now seen as an early fault line leading to the Civil War. It allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, despite being in the North. It would take dozens of pages to discuss the various political entailments of a compromise like this, but I believe the blame shouldn’t be laid solely at Monroe’s feet. The country was always going to grapple with slavery and the general divide between an increasingly industrialized North and an agrarian South. To put too much of that on Monroe feels unfair.

Overall, his presidency coincided with what is known as the Era of Good Feelings. This was a time after the collapse of the Federalist Party when partisan politics were often put to the side in favor of the nation overall. This wasn’t universal, and party politics always rear their ugly head in our country, but this was a period where much of that was put aside. Monroe, a staunch Jeffersonian Democrat, led this charge. He put the nation first, which seems like it should be the minimum requirement for being president, but as we all know from recent history, this is not always the case.

I believe Monroe’s general lack of brilliance in any one field allowed him to put the nation first more easily. Someone like Jefferson had trouble with that as he saw the country as his to mold. Monroe didn’t see it that way. I don’t think he felt the nation should be defined in his image. In the end, this is perhaps a better way to govern. The cult of personality that characterizes so many of our presidents is dangerous. It's high variance. Even the good ones allow that godlike presence to affect many of their decisions negatively.

There is so much more in this biography that I couldn’t even touch on here. I would highly recommend reading or listening to this book. It gives you a different perspective on the Revolution and the early years of our nation while being well-written and enthralling.

As always, if you know someone who might like this, please tell them about my substack, website, or both. It would be a great help to me. Thanks for reading!