Civic Calendar: Remembering the birth of James Monroe, fifth U.S. president

The Forty-Ninth State Fellows Program of the UAA Honors College calls the attention of the University community to the anniversary of the birth of James Monroe, April 28, fifth U.S. president. Born of the Virginia planter aristocracy in 1758, he fought in the Revolutionary War, served in the Continental Congress and the Virginia convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution.

Though he opposed ratification, Monroe, a protege of Thomas Jefferson, actively participated in the new government. Elected President in 1816, he is most noted for his declaration of hemispheric policy in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine, following the South American revolutions throwing off Spanish rule.  The Doctrine articulates American opposition to colonial enterprises in the New World.  After his presidency, Monroe lived on the campus of the University of Virginia, and then with his daughter in New York City, where he died on July 4, 1831, the third U.S. president to die on July 4 (the others were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson).