Prior to moving into the still damaged Executive Mansion, which was burned by the British during the War of 1812, President James Monroe revived the presidential tour of the country, which was first undertaken by George Washington.
Explanation:Prior to moving into the still damaged Executive Mansion, which was burned by the British during the War of 1812, President James Monroe revived the presidential tour of the country, which was first undertaken by George Washington. The stated reason for the tour was to inspect defense fortifications, but it also allowed Monroe to reach out to Americans throughout the nation and exhibit his relaxed and affable personality. In June 1817, Monroe began his first tour of the North, traveling up the coast to Portland, Maine. From there, he turned west to Detroit and then southeast back to Washington, D.C. The trip took fifteen weeks and allowed Monroe to come in contact with more people than any previous sitting President. Everywhere he went, he was praised and applauded. The Boston Columbian Centinel described his reception in Massachusetts as the beginning of an "Era of Good Feelings" for the nation—a phrase that is now often used to describe Monroe's presidency.
The first tour was such a success that Monroe embarked on two others—one of the Chesapeake Bay area in 1818 and one of the South and West in 1819. Although those trips did not match the enthusiasm of the first, they gave Monroe an opportunity to reach out to different regions of the country. All three tours helped familiarize the people with their President, and Monroe's endearing personality won many converts.
Â
One of Monroe's first acts as President was to put together his cabinet. Wanting to assemble a group of advisers from different regions of the country, he turned to New England native John Quincy Adams as his secretary of state. Adams had a long diplomatic career, and with their similar backgrounds in foreign affairs the two men established a good working relationship. Monroe then chose William H. Crawford from Georgia as secretary of treasury and sought out a westerner to serve as secretary of war. Unable to persuade his first choices, he picked to John C. Calhoun from South Carolina. Monroe turned to an old friend, William Wirt, to be his attorney general and decided to keep Benjamin Crowninshield as secretary of the navy. Monroe's cabinet has often been noted as an exceptionally strong one. The President assembled a group of intelligent and talented men who were very good administrators. He then gave them a lot of freedom to do their jobs. Although he encouraged debate and solicited advice from his cabinet, there was never any doubt that he was firmly in charge. He made the final decisions and expected his cabinet to support and implement them.The North held a small majority in the House of Representatives in 1819, and the South controlled a bare majority in the Senate. Voting on the Tallmadge amendments was strictly sectional: the amendments passed in the House but lost in the Senate. The House refused to admit Missouri as a slave state and the Senate insisted upon it. Monroe, along with many congressional leaders, understood the volatile nature of the debate and the strong regional divide over slavery.
However, he thought it was unconstitutional to place special restrictions on the admission of one state, as the Tallmadge amendments did, and threatened to veto any bill including such restrictions. Monroe feared that the dispute would divide the Union and worked in support of a compromise package in Congress. However, he did not forcefully inject himself into the process because he did not want to be accused of meddling in congressional affairs. A new Congress convened in the winter of 1819, allowing legislators to reach an accord that settled the dispute. Massachusetts allowed its far northern counties to apply for admission to the Union as the free, or non-slave, state of Maine, thus offsetting fears that the South would gain votes in the Senate with the admission of Missouri. Additionally, it was agreed—after much behind-the-scenes deal-making—that Missouri would be admitted as a slave state in return for the South's willingness to outlaw slavery in western territories above the 36/30' north latitude line. That line would open present-day Arkansas and Oklahoma to slavery but would forbid it throughout the rest of the Louisiana Territory—land that would eventually be organized into nine states. Monroe signed the bill on March 6, 1820, after he was satisfied that the provisions were, indeed, constitutional.
