SOLD James Madison Assesses James Monroe

After President Monroe’s retirement from office in 1825, his most pressing concern was to lift the heavy debt that had been accumulating since his first mission to France and been fueled by later land acquisitions. He owed the Bank of the United States approximately $75,000, a considerable sum at that time, and that Bank held a mortgage lien on 3,500 acres of Monroe’s land in Albemarle County, Va. In early 1826, Monroe was forced to sell a portion of his Highland estate to make payments, but the depressed state of Virginia land values made it impossible for him to solve his problems through the sale of real estate. He attempted to obtain reimbursement for much of these debts from the U.S. Treasury, on the grounds that the expenditures were made in the course of his work for the government and on its behalf. Monroe specifically claimed that he and his family often resided overseas on diplomatic missions, or in Washington, D.C., incurring debts related to those residences.

Monroe began to petition Congress for reimbursement of his debts in 1826, providing details of his diplomatic service as U.S. minister to France in 1794 and 1803 and of the monetary outlays involved. Supporting evidence included letters from Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and Talleyrand. A resulting government report seemed promising to Monroe’s cause.

James Madison also supported Monroe, as we learn in the following Autograph Letter Signed, Montpelier, April 18, 1826, to Samuel Pleasanton, who was involved in the affair. In it, Madison looks beyond the issue of reimbursement to praise Monroe’s career and character. “I have recd your letter of the 12th with a printed copy of the Report on the claim of Mr. Monroe. No one acquainted with his great personal worth, and who reflects on his long and distinguished devotion to the service & welfare of his country, must but feel a particular interest in the result of the Report. With my thanks for the communication, you will please to accept the expression of my esteem and my good wishes.” The address leaf, with Madison’s franking signature, is still present.

However, not everyone felt that way. Monroe’s efforts to obtain recompense were frustrated by the outright opposition of Andrew Jackson and William Crawford, who considered his claims not only excessive but embarrassing, and by the lukewarm support of the new Adams administration, which balked at the high cost. It was not until February 1831, as Monroe’s health failed and his financial plight became generally known, that Congress appropriated $30,000 in settlement of his claims.