Monroe is principally remembered to-day from a "doctrine" enunciated by him and known by his name, which remains a vital portion of American policy. It was in 1823 that he declared that the United States would consider any attempt of a European power to establish itself in this hemisphere as dangerous to her peace and safety, and as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition. The language is cautious and diplomatic, but what it means in plain English is that the United States will resist by force any attempt of a European power to conquer and colonize any portion of the three Americas—in other words, that this country will safeguard the independence of all her neighbors. This principle has come to be regarded as a basic one in the foreign relations of the United States, and while no European power has formally acknowledged it, more than one have had to bow before it. It is interesting to know that the enunciation of such a "doctrine" was recommended by Thomas Jefferson, and that Jefferson was Monroe's constant adviser throughout his career.
Monroe retired from the presidency in 1825, and the seven remaining years of his life were passed principally on his estate in Virginia. Jefferson said of him, "He is a man whose soul might be turned wrong side outwards, without discovering a blemish to the world,"—an estimate which was, of course, colored by a warm personal friendship, but which was echoed by many others of his contemporaries. Certain it is that few men have ever so won the affection and esteem of the nation, and his administration was known as the "era of good feeling." He is scarcely appreciated to-day at his true worth, principally because he does not measure up in genius to the great men who preceded him.
At striking variance with the practical unanimity of Monroe's election was that of John Quincy Adams, his successor. Over a quarter of a century had elapsed since a northern man had been chosen to the presidency. That man, strangely enough, was the father of the present candidate, but had retired from office after one acrimonious term, discredited and disappointed. Since then, the government of the country had been in the hands of Virginians. Now came John Quincy Adams, calling himself a Democrat, but really inheriting the principles of his father, and the contest which ensued for the presidency was unprecedented in the history of the country.
Adams's principal opponent was Andrew Jackson, a mighty man of whom we shall soon have occasion to speak, and so close was the contest that the electoral college was not able to make a choice. So, as provided by the Constitution, it was carried to the House of Representatives, and there, through the influence of Henry Clay, who was unfriendly to Jackson, Adams was chosen by a small majority. An administration which began in bitterness, continued bitter and turbulent. Men's passions were aroused, and four years later Adams repeated the fate of his father, in being overwhelmingly defeated.
But the most remarkable portion of his story is yet to come. Before that time, it had been the custom, as we have seen, for the ex-President to spend the remaining years of his life in dignified retirement; but the year after Adams left the White House, he was elected to the House of Representatives, and was returned regularly every two years until his death, which occurred upon its floor. He did much excellent work there, and was conspicuous in more than one memorable scene, but he is chiefly remembered for his battle for the right of petition. No more persistent fight was ever made by a man in a parliamentary body and some reference must be made to it here.
Soon after he took his seat in Congress, the movement against slavery was begun, and one fruit of it was the appearance of petitions for the abolition of slavery in the House of Representatives. A few were presented by Mr. Adams, and then more and more, as they were sent in to him, and finally the southern representatives became so aroused, that they succeeded in passing what was known as the "gag rule," which prevented the reception of these petitions by the House. Adams protested against this rule as an invasion of his constitutional rights, and from that time forward, amid the bitterest opposition, addressed his whole force toward the vindication of the right of petition. On every petition day, he would offer, in constantly increasing numbers, petitions which came to him from all parts of the country for the abolition of slavery. The southern representatives were driven almost to madness, but Adams kept doggedly on his way, and every year renewed his motion to strike out the gag rule. As constant dripping will wear away a stone, so his persistence wore away opposition, or, rather, the sentiment of the country was gradually changing, and at last, on December 3, 1844, his motion prevailed, and the great battle which he had fought practically alone was won. Four years later he fell, stricken with paralysis, at his place in the House.
It is worth pausing to remark that, of the six men who, up to this time, had held the presidency, four were from Virginia and two from Massachusetts; that, in every instance, the Virginians had been re-elected and had administered the affairs of the country to the satisfaction of the people, while both the Massachusetts men had been retired from office at the end of a single term, and after turbulent and violent administrations. All of them were what may fairly be called patricians, men of birth and breeding; they were the possessors of a certain culture and refinement, were descended from well-known families, and there seemed every reason to believe that the administration of the country would be continued in the hands of such men. For what other class of men was fitted to direct it? Then, suddenly, the people spoke, and selected for their ruler a man from among themselves, a man whose college was the backwoods, whose opinions were prejudices rather than convictions, and yet who was, withal, perhaps the greatest popular idol this country will ever see; whose very blunders endeared him to the people, because they knew his heart was right.
On the fifteenth day of March, 1767, in a little log cabin on the upper Catawba river, almost on the border-line between North and South Carolina—so near it, in fact, that no one knows certainly in which state it stood—a boy was born and christened Andrew Jackson. His father had died a few days before—one of those sturdy Scotch-Irish whom we have seen emigrating to America in such numbers in search of a land of freedom. The boy grew up in the rude backwoods settlement, rough, boisterous, unlettered; at the age of fourteen, riding with Sumter in the guerrilla warfare waged throughout the state against the British, and then, captured and wounded on head and hand by a sabre-stroke whose mark he bore till his dying day, a prisoner in the filthy Camden prison-pen, sick of the small-pox, and coming out of it, at last, more dead than alive.
His mother nursed him back to life, and then started for Charleston to see what could be done for the prisoners rotting in the British prison-ships in the harbor, only herself to catch the prison-fever, and to be buried in a grave which her son was never able to discover.