First Inaugural Address

Summary

James Monroe was sworn in on 4 March 1817 on a platform outside the temporary Brick Capitol, where Congress met while the building the British burned in 1814 was being restored. It was the first inaugural delivered outdoors. The War of 1812 had ended in 1815, the Federalist party was collapsing, and Monroe, the last Revolutionary veteran to reach the presidency, spoke at length to a crowd rather than a chamber. The address is built around a question Monroe asks aloud: "What raised us to the present happy state?" His answer is the people. Self-government had lasted forty years since the Revolution and twenty-eight under the Constitution; commerce, territory, and new States had grown, no one had been executed for treason, and the late war had shown the government equal to "the greatest of trials." All of it, he says, was owed to an intelligent and virtuous citizenry. The danger he names is the reverse: when a people become "ignorant and corrupt" and "degenerate into a populace," usurpation becomes easy. From that diagnosis come his policies. Coasts and frontiers should be fortified, the army and navy kept moderate but ready, and the militia organized in peacetime, because "National honor is national property of the highest value." Roads and canals, "proceeding always with a constitutional sanction," should bind distant States together, and domestic manufactures should end dependence on foreign supply that the war had exposed. Monroe ends with unusual optimism. Discord "does not belong to our system," the people are "one great family with a common interest," and the government has approached so near perfection that the task is to preserve it, not improve it. A Boston newspaper named the following months an Era of Good Feelings. Readers who know that sectional conflict would return over Missouri within three years can weigh how much of Monroe's harmony was achievement and how much was hope.

Plot or Argument

• Feeling and deficiency

  Monroe thanks his fellow citizens, admits anxiety about his own fitness, and promises never to shrink from responsibility.

• What forty years of self-government produced

  He reviews the record since the Revolution: regulated commerce, new States, territory gained by treaty, protected rights of person, property, and worship, no executions for treason, and a war survived.

• The people as cause and danger

  He asks what raised the country to its happy state and answers that the people did; a people grown ignorant and corrupt would invite a usurper, so intelligence must be promoted by constitutional means.

• Preparing in peace

  Fortifications, a moderate army and navy, an organized militia, roads and canals, domestic manufactures, honest accounting of public money, and debt payment form the program of a nation preparing in peace for possible war.

• Harmony and Providence

  Monroe welcomes the growing harmony of opinion, calls the American people one great family, praises Madison, and closes with prayer for continued divine protection.

Lessons

• A people who can lose self-government

  Monroe gives the credit for American success to the people, and in the same breath warns that a people who "degenerate into a populace" become instruments of their own ruin. Self-government, in his account, depends on a moral and intellectual condition that can be lost. His remedy is to "promote intelligence among the people."

  • What qualities does Monroe say the people possessed that made the Revolution and Constitution succeed?
  • What is the difference between a people and a populace in this speech?
  • Why does Monroe think education is a defense of liberty?

• Preparing for war in a time of peace

  Writing two years after the British had burned Washington, Monroe argues that fortifications and a trained militia are cheaper than a single campaign of invasion. Peace is "the best time for improvement and preparation of every kind." The lesson asks whether preparation preserves peace or anticipates war.

  • What cost comparison does Monroe make to justify coastal fortifications?
  • Why does he keep the army and navy "moderate" while strengthening the militia?
  • What does "National honor is national property" mean, and is honor really a kind of property?

• Harmony that does not belong to the system

  Monroe claims that "Discord does not belong to our system" and that the government is near perfection. The claim fit the collapse of party opposition in 1817, yet the Missouri crisis of 1819-1821 would show deep sectional division. Students can study how a leader describes unity he hopes to keep.

  • What evidence of harmony does Monroe point to?
  • Which sections and interests does he say benefit from Union?
  • Is it wise for a leader to say a government needs "no essential improvement"?

Context

The War of 1812 ended with the Treaty of Ghent (signed December 1814) and Jackson's victory at New Orleans. The Federalist party, damaged by its opposition to the war and the Hartford Convention, won only three States in 1816. Postwar nationalism encouraged a new national bank, a protective tariff, and debate over federal roads and canals.

Composition

Monroe delivered the address outdoors on 4 March 1817, before the Brick Capitol on Capitol Hill, because the burned Capitol was still under repair. The text follows the Project Gutenberg #4938 transcription.

Reception

A Boston newspaper, the Columbian Centinel, coined the phrase "Era of Good Feelings" during Monroe's northern tour that summer, and the label has attached to his presidency since. Later historians stress how quickly sectional and economic conflict returned in the Panic of 1819 and the Missouri debates.

Comparisons

• Second Inaugural Address

  Madison in 1813 defends a war in progress; Monroe in 1817 surveys its aftermath and draws lessons for defense. Read them as before-and-after views of the same conflict.

• First Inaugural Address

  Washington's brief 1789 address hopes for a virtuous people; Monroe's long 1817 survey claims that hope has been fulfilled and warns of how it could fail.

• First Inaugural Address (Jefferson)

  Jefferson's 1801 "We are all republicans, we are all federalists" sought reconciliation after a bitter election; Monroe's harmony came from one party's near disappearance. Compare the two kinds of unity.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The rhetorical question "What raised us to the present happy state?" and the answer Monroe gives.
• The warning about a people who "degenerate into a populace."
• The cost argument for coastal fortification, and the place of the militia.
• The claim that "Discord does not belong to our system."

Key terms and names

Brick Capitol

The temporary building where Congress met after the British burned the Capitol in 1814; Monroe was sworn in on a platform outside it.

Internal improvements

Federally aided roads and canals; Monroe supports them only "with a constitutional sanction."

Populace

Monroe's word for a people who have become ignorant and corrupt and so can no longer govern themselves.

Era of Good Feelings

A newspaper label of 1817 for the period of one-party dominance after the War of 1812.

Militia

The body of citizen soldiers Monroe calls the chief safety of the States, to be organized in peacetime.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How many years of self-government does Monroe count since the Revolution and since the Constitution?
2. Comprehension Name three measures of defense Monroe proposes.
3. Interpretation Why does Monroe mention that no one had been executed for high treason?
4. Interpretation How does Monroe connect the virtue of the people to the danger of usurpation?
5. Interpretation Why does he say roads and canals will "bind the Union more closely together"?
6. Big Question Can a free government do anything to keep its people from becoming a "populace," or does that depend on families and churches?
7. Big Question Is a nation's honor worth defending at the cost of war?

Faith Connections

• Psalm 133:1 (Scripture)

  "How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity" echoes Monroe's "one great family with a common interest," and asks what makes such unity more than a feeling.

• Augustine, City of God XIX.24 (Church Fathers)

  Augustine defines a people by the things they love in common; compare Monroe's claim that the republic stands or falls on the virtue of its citizens.

• Polybius, Histories VI (Great Conversation)

  Polybius describes democracy decaying into mob rule and then tyranny, the same sequence Monroe warns of when a people "degenerate into a populace."

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Because forty years of American success came from an intelligent and virtuous people, Monroe argues, the nation must preserve that character through education while preparing in peace against foreign war through fortification, a moderate standing force, a trained militia, and internal improvements that bind the Union.

Rhetorical device: Rhetorical question. "What raised us to the present happy state? How did we accomplish the Revolution?" Monroe poses a series of questions and answers them all at once: "The Government has been in the hands of the people."

Debate: Resolved: That a republic at peace should spend heavily on defense to deter future war.

Memory Work

destitute of feeling if I was not deeply affected by the strong proof which my fellow-citizens have given me of their confidence in calling me to the high office whose functions I am about to assume

Conscious of my own deficiency, I cannot enter on these duties without great anxiety for the result

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain Monroe's argument that the people are both the cause of American success and its greatest possible danger.

Comparison with Second Inaugural Address: Compare Monroe's survey of the war's aftermath with Madison's 1813 defense of the war itself: how does each President describe the people's role in national survival?

Medical Lens

Presidential inaugurals concern constitutional politics and national crisis; they have no medical content for this library's lens.

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Make a two-column chart of the internal and external dangers Monroe names, with the remedy he proposes for each, and mark which remedies require federal spending.

• Dialogue

  Write a conversation in the outdoor crowd of 1817 between a veteran of the burning of Washington and a merchant who thinks fortifications are a waste of revenue.

• Essay

  Argue whether Monroe was right that the American government had "approached to perfection," using the speech and one event from 1819-1821.

Further Reading

• Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, Avalon Project / GPO

  Parallel official texts for classroom comparison.

• The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey K. Tulis

  A study of how inaugural and other presidential speech reshaped the office.

• American Political Oratory, Survey histories of U.S. public address

  Place this inaugural among other civic speeches of its decade.