Trump echoes one of our most overlooked presidents, James Monroe

Our 47th president takes the oath of office on Monday, and in his declarations about wanting to acquire Greenland and reacquire the Panama Canal we hear echoes of our fifth president, the Virginian James Monroe.

Whatever you may think about Donald Trump’s bluster about invading a fellow NATO country’s property — Greenland belongs to Denmark — there is a serious issue behind this. Two things are happening that draw Trump’s attention north: As the Arctic ice melts, new sea passages are opening up that have both commercial and military implications. And, of course, China is becoming assertive as a global power. 

“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” Trump said recently. “I’m talking about protecting the free world. You look at — you don’t even need binoculars — you look outside. You have China ships all over the place. You have Russian ships all over the place. We’re not letting that happen. We’re not letting it happen.” 

Likewise, Trump’s interest in the Panama Canal is also at least partially influenced by growing Chinese influence in Latin America. 

Somewhere, the ghost of Monroe might be nodding approvingly — or not. 

Many have likened Trump’s recent interest in both the Arctic island and the canal through Panama as a revival of the Monroe Doctrine. Those who follow foreign policy more closely than through a social media post are not surprised. Back in September, the Americas Quarterly, which focuses on the western hemisphere, wrote: “If Donald Trump wins in November, Latin America should be prepared for yet another resurrection of the Monroe Doctrine — with a real-world impact on everything from investment and technology to the region’s ties with China.”

That, along with the inauguration, provides us with an opportunity to look anew at Monroe, the least-known of the four Virginians who served as president in the early days of the republic. George Washington stands revered in history, with the nation’s capital named in his honor, along with one state and 31 counties. It is the most common county name in the United States. Thomas Jefferson likewise has been practically deified in some quarters, with 26 counties named after him, second only to Washington. James Madison earned the sobriquet “Father of the Constitution” and has 20 counties and a university named in his honor. Monroe was honored enough in his day to warrant 17 county names but today is often an afterthought. His face is not carved onto Mount Rushmore, no state university is named in his honor, no Broadway musical features him singing and dancing.

Quick: How many of you can name Monroe’s home? It’s Highland (formerly Ash Lawn-Highland). The Albemarle County property is now owned and operated by the College of William & Mary and is open for tours but doesn’t have the fame or glamour of Mount Vernon or Monticello or even Madison’s Montpelier. It looks pretty modest compared to those more famous estates; after he left the presidency, Monroe was so plagued by debts that he had to sell the place. He did have a more palatial estate for a time in Loudoun County; Oak Hill is now being pushed for a state park but it’s certinly not famous in the way those other presidents’ homes are.

We often refer to the University of Virginia by way of its founder as “Mr. Jefferson’s University,” but the school is on land once owned by Monroe. A statue of Monroe was put up on the Grounds in 1905 but was later replaced by one of the Greek poet Homer. The University of Virginia has a delightful account of the mystery surrounding what became of the Monroe statue but the fact remains, when it comes to our nation’s founders, Monroe’s name ID remains pretty low.

He does, though, have that famous foreign policy doctrine, although its real author might have been his secretary of state, and those who invoke its name in connection with Trump’s interest in Greenland and the Panama Canal are misunderstanding what it really said. 

For those who were asleep during this part of history class, here’s the short version of Monroe: He was born in Westmoreland County on the Northern Neck, the power center of the state in those days. Orphaned as a teenager, Monroe inherited both debt and enslaved laborers and quit school to run the family estate. A childless uncle who served in the House of Burgesses paid off Monroe’s debt and made sure he went to William & Mary. As a student in Williamsburg in 1775, he saw the political turmoil engulfing the Colony’s capital firsthand; he joined the militia that stormed the Governor’s Palace, part of the showdown between Colonists and the royal governor, Lord Dunmore. 

Shameless self-promotion: If that part of Virginia history fascinates you, now is a good time to sign up for our monthly Cardinal 250 newsletter, which tells some of the little-known stories of that era. The next installment goes out on Tuesday:

Monroe eventually dropped out of school and joined the army. He was part of Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware. In the battle that followed, Monroe was wounded, nearly died, but recovered and was cited for his bravery. When the war ended, he was a colonel. After the war, he resumed the study of law, made friends with Thomas Jefferson, and went into politics. He served in the Congress that existed under the Articles of Confederation and later, under the Constitution, he was one of Virginia’s U.S. senators. President Washington made him minister to France; President Jefferson made him minister to Great Britain; Virginians made him governor; President Madison made him secretary of state. When Monroe was elected to the top job in 1816, he might have been one of our best-prepared presidents.

Monroe presided during a time of peace and prosperity known as “the Era of Good Feelings,” which made him popular (amazingly he had no opposition when he ran for re-election) but popularity doesn’t necessarily lead to lasting fame. Historians, though, think pretty kindly of Monroe. A 2021 C-SPAN survey of historians ranked Monroe as our 12th-best president (with Abraham Lincoln first and Washington second). Other surveys of historians over the years have ranked him as high as seventh and as low as 18th, which still puts him in the top third.

Monroe’s legacy is blotted by his connection with slavery. Like many of that era, his views were conflicted. He called slavery an “evil,” yet owned human property anyway. He doubted the institution could be eliminated in the South and favored sending freed slaves to Africa; that’s why the Liberian capital is named Monrovia. He backed the Missouri Compromise, which kept the peace in 1820 but allowed slavery to spread westward.

Monroe is also responsible for the state that Trump now calls home. Monroe sent Andrew Jackson to take a military force into Spanish-owned Florida to battle the Seminoles. Jackson wound up seizing the Spanish capital of Pensacola. In the end, Spain sold the territory to the United States and Jackson, already famous for the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, became more celebrated (and controversial). Monroe got a county in Florida named after him but it’s mostly swampland. Jackson got a city, which today has an National Football League franchise.

What Monroe is best known for, and which is still relevant today, is the foreign policy doctrine that bears his name. 

Part of the context for the Monroe Doctrine involved Russia. At the time, the Pacific Northwest was disputed territory. Both the U.S. and Great Britain claimed it, and agreed to jointly occupy the region and work out the details of boundaries later. However, Russia was interested in the West Coast, too. It already had Alaska, along with scattered outposts as far south as modern-day Sonoma County, California, north of San Francisco. In 1821, Czar Alexander I issued a proclamation in which he claimed everything down the Pacific Coast to modern-day Oregon. This would not do.

Meanwhile, the colonies in South America were starting to declare their independence, mostly from Spain, and Spain wasn’t always happy with that. There was talk that Spain wanted to take some of those restive colonies back. Britain opposed this, fearing that renewed Spanish ownership would hurt its trade with those emerging nation-states. The United States didn’t look forward to a bigger Spanish presence, either. The subject of Spain possibly retaking much of Latin America occupied multiple meetings of Monroe’s cabinet. 

The British foreign minister proposed that the United States join it in a declaration that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open for colonization. Monroe’s secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, thought he had a better idea: The U.S. should issue its own declaration. No need for the British to get involved.

The venue for this was the annual State of the Union address, which Monroe delivered in December 1823. If Cardinal News had been around then, we’d have probably focused on Monroe’s support for a canal to connect the Chesapeake Bay and the Ohio River and skipped the foreign policy part, which occupied only a small part of the address. That part, though, is what the world remembers. 

Monroe declared that “the American continents … are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers” and 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.” The United States did not have the military means to enforce that bravado, although it would later. Latin American nations generally appreciated the United States telling European powers to leave them alone but were also cautious about American intentions. The Chilean politician Diego Portales observed: “We have to be very careful: for the Americans of the north [from the United States], the only Americans are themselves.”

All that is history. Here’s the present day: Monroe would quite likely sympathize with Trump’s desire to reduce the Russian and Chinese presence in the Arctic and Latin America. It’s always dangerous to try to read minds across the centuries, so we have no clue what Monroe — who sent troops into Spanish territory in Florida — would think of Trump’s intimations about the use of military force. As a textual matter, though, there’s nothing in what Monroe said that would justify taking either Greenland or the Panama Canal by military means. Monroe said the European powers should leave their hands off the Americas; he said nothing about Americans putting our hands on territory. 

That’s why we ought to be careful with our words here. When Trump voices concern about Chinese and Russian influence in the Arctic, that’s very much within the spirit of upholding the Monroe Doctrine. When it comes to possibly buying Greenland, or seizing it and/or the Panama Canal, that’s something else entirely. 

Monroe would not have been unhappy about Greenland being the possession of a European kingdom — at least not unhappy enough to do anything about it. Denmark already owned Greenland when Monroe took office, and he never seems to have given any thought to the matter. Of course, uranium and other minerals buried under the ice weren’t a big deal then, either. “With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere,” Monroe said in his address to Congress.

Monroe might, though, support Greenland’s independence, if that’s what Greenlanders wanted. His Monroe Doctrine didn’t explicitly encourage independence movements, although it implicitly did. Again, Monroe’s policy was really aimed at making sure those countries that were already independent stayed that way: “With the governments who have declared their independence and maintained 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.” 

Ultimately, of course, it doesn’t matter what Monroe might have thought about politics today. Each president charts their own destiny and carves out their own legacy. However, if Trump does nothing else, he has, at least, caused us to look again at our own history, and that’s not a bad thing, no matter what we find.