EDUCATORS ’ PERSPECTIVE
The Personal Finances of Presidents , Part 5 : James Monroe
The White House Historical Association
Dear Sir ,
Permit me to congratulate you on your Honorable retirement for which I most sincerely wish you may enjoy that Peace and Tranquility to which you are so justly entitled . Without wishing to cause you any Inconveniency [ sic ] on account of the loan I so long since made to you I would be glad to put it in a train of sittlelment [ sic ] if not the whole let it be a part with the interest Due .
I hope Dear Sir that you and Mrs . Monroe enjoy the best of health and that you may live many years to wittness [ sic ] the Prosperity of the country to which you have so generously contributed .
I am most Respectfully Dear Sir your obed S . & c .
J . J . Astor 1
By Brian Grinder and Dan Cooper
James Monroe retired from public life in 1825 . Accolades poured in congratulating him on his many years of public service , which began in the spring of 1776 when he enlisted in the Third Virginia Infantry and ended with the expiration of his second term as President of the United States . 2 John Jacob Astor wrote the above letter to the former President in April 1826 . Its congratulatory beginning soon gives way to a polite request for repayment of a longstanding debt with interest .
Financial distress was nothing new to Monroe ; it dogged him for most of his life . Orphaned at the age of 16 , young James became the de facto head of the Monroe family . Although he inherited a 500-acre farm at his father ’ s death , he constantly scrambled to keep his head above the stormy financial waters of 18th century Virginia . His younger brothers , Andrew and Joseph , were a perpetual source of frustration as Monroe was frequently called on to rescue them from financial mishap . In 1776 , Monroe left the family
President James Monroe ’ s White House portrait , by Samuel Finley Breese Morse , 1819 . farm in the able hands of his uncle , Joseph Jones , and set off with the Third Virginia to fight in New York during the Revolutionary War . The 18-year-old lieutenant fought bravely through the first year of the war . At the Battle of Trenton , he took a bullet to the chest and spent several months recovering from the injury . The bullet remained lodged in his chest for the rest of his life .
After the war , Monroe purchased a plantation known as Highland that was three miles south of Monticello . Proximity to Thomas Jefferson was apparently more important to Monroe than a profitable plantation . As a result , borrowing became a regular part of plantation life . Monroe studied law under Jefferson but was unable to establish a successful law firm because there was a glut of lawyers in Virginia . So , he turned to politics . Monroe served in the Virginia legislature , as governor of Virginia , US senator , US minister to France , minister to Great Britain , special minister to France and Spain , Secretary of State during the Madison administration , acting Secretary of War and President of the United States .
Like Jefferson , Monroe ’ s frequent absence from Highland forced him to rely on plantation managers who delivered mixed results and left Monroe ’ s finances in a sad state of affairs . According to Monroe biographer Tim McGrath , Monroe ’ s total indebtedness in 1825 exceeded $ 65,000 . More than half of this debt was owed to the Bank of the United States , $ 9,000 was owed to local Virginia banks , $ 6,500 to Charles Ingersoll and $ 10,000 to John Jacob Astor . Monroe hoped to extinguish his debts by selling Highland Plantation . It was a heart-rending decision , but if he could get his asking price of $ 67,000 , all of his debts would be paid . Unfortunately , no one was interested in buying Highland at that price . Desperate , Monroe sold 900 acres of his best farmland for $ 18,000 . All of the proceeds from the sale went to the Bank of the United States to pay down his debt obligations there .
Given the failure to sell Highland , Monroe ’ s only chance to extinguish his debts lay in an appeal to the federal government for funds to satisfy what Monroe felt were unpaid obligations for services rendered during two missions to Europe . The first mission ( 1794 – 1796 ) occurred during the Washington administration when Monroe was appointed minister to France . Monroe ’ s second mission ( 1803 – 1807 ) to Europe as special minister to France to
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