President James Monroe Enthusiastically Begins the Era of Good Feeling, Promising to Give Every Encouragement to the Nation

During the summer of 1817, to promote and encourage a spirit of unity that he hoped would animate the nation, the new President made a tour of the northern United States, a section that had been disaffected over the War of 1812.

Monroe traveled from Washington, D.C. to Portland, Maine, and then westward to Detroit, covering some 2,000 miles in 15 weeks. He took along just two aides and traveled as a private citizen, paying his expenses out of his own pocket. However, if in so doing he was expecting a low-key reception, he was badly mistaken.

The President was received everywhere with parades, dinners, military reviews, addresses, public festivities, and invitations from private citizens (including from many former Federalist opponents). He inspected military installations, visited universities and other cultural facilities, met with important leaders (including former president John Adams), and made innumerable speeches. In New England there was such enthusiasm and acclaim that many said it equalled the reception given Washington in 1789. Monroe was in the Boston area in early July; more than 40,000 turned out to cheer him in that city, the former center of Federalist activity. This was a number equal to the city’s entire population at the time.

Most Americans felt so good about themselves and their leader, that on this very tour a newspaper called the new President’s time in office the Era of Good Feeling, a name which stuck. The nearby town of Salem, Mass. set up a committee, led by one of its most prominent citizens, Benjamin Pickman, Jr., to invite Monroe there and prepare a suitable reception. After being well received, the President wrote to Pickman and the Committee, both to express his gratitude and to assure them that he would be sympathetic to their needs.

Letter Signed with Monroe’s handwritten revisions, early July 1817, to the Committee of the Town of Salem. “The respectful invitation to visit the town of Salem was highly gratifying to me; and the flattering reception I have met with has excited emotions which I am unable to express. With regard to the important interests which are noticed in your address, they shall always receive from me, while I have the honor to administer the government, every encouragement, which is consistent with a due regard to the other great interests of the country. And I earnestly hope that your ancient town may long continue to enjoy that prosperity to which its commercial industry and enterprise have so largely contributed.”

This is the only letter we can ever recall seeing from Monroe’s triumphant northern tour, and it records the generally unemotional Monroe’s ability to express the deep feelings generated within him during that heady time.. It would be important for that reason alone. However, the letter is made all the more significant by his changes in wording in his own hand. In discussing the desired responsiveness to the hopes and needs of New England as expressed to him in Salem, Monroe crossed out “…it is equally the disposition and duty of the American government and people to cherish and support them…”, and inserted a much more personal “they shall always receive from me…,” expressing his own intended personal concern and involvement. It was outreach just such as this that made his presidency so successful. Of additional interest is the letter’s state. The integral address leaf is still present, and the letter has been folded, both of which indicate that this is the mailed copy and not a retained draft; yet Monroe’s cross-outs remain. Usually corrected drafts like this are replaced by new, clean copies, but being pressed for time as he swept from one place to another, and having just two men to assist him, Monroe apparently did not order a fresh copy prepared. He signed and sent the draft as it was, thus preserving the haste and excitement of the moment.