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part of the retiring President, and a correspondence on the subject ensued.
Jefferson candidly explained his course and assured him that his
preference was based solely upon solicitude for the success of the party, the
great majority of which had declared in the favor of Madison. The
misunderstanding ceased and Monroe withdrew from the canvass. In 1810

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he was again elected to the general assembly of Virginia, and in 1811 once
more Governor of the State.
In the same year he was appointed Secretary of State by President
Madison, and after the capture of the capitol in 1814, he was appointed to
take charge of the war department, being both Secretary of State and
Secretary of War at once. He found the treasury exhausted and the national
credit at the lowest ebb, but he set about the task of infusing order and
efficiency into the departments under his charge, and proposed an increase
of 40,000 men in the army by levying recruits throughout the whole
country.
His attention was also directed to the defence of New Orleans, and finding
the public credit completely prostrated, he pledged his private means as
subsidary to the credit of the Government, and enabled the city to
successfully oppose the forces of the enemy. He was the confidential
adviser of President Madison in the measures for the re-establishment of the
public credit of the country and the regulation of the foreign relations of the
United States, and continued to serve as Secretary of State until the close of
Madison's term in 1817.
In that year he succeeded to the Presidency himself, by an electoral vote
of 183 out of 217, as the candidate of the party now generally known as
Democratic.
His Cabinet was composed of some of the ablest men in the country in
either party. Soon after his inauguration President Monroe made a tour
through the Eastern and Middle States, during which he thoroughly
inspected arsenals, naval depots, fortifications and garrisons; reviewed
military companies, corrected public abuses, and studied the capabilities of
the country with reference to future hostilities.
On this tour he wore the undress uniform of a continental officer. In every
point of view this journey was a success. Party lines seemed about to
disappear and the country to return to its long past state of union. The
President was not backward in his assurances of a strong desire on his part
that such should be the case. The course of the administration was in

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conformity to these assurances, and secured the support of an
overwhelming majority of the people.
The great majority of the recommendations in the President's message
were approved by large majorities. The tone of debate was far more
moderate; few of the bitter speeches which had been the fashion in the past
were uttered, and this period has passed into history as the "Era of good
feeling." Among the important events of the first term of President Monroe
was the consummation in 1818 of a treaty between the United States and
Great Britain in relation to the Newfoundland fisheries—the interpretation
of the terms of which we have of late heard so much; the restoration of
slaves and other subjects; also the admission into the Union of the States of
Mississippi, Illinois and Maine; in 1819 Spain ceded to the United States
her possessions in East and West Florida with the adjacent islands.
In 1820 Monroe was re-elected almost unanimously, receiving 231 out of
the 232 electoral votes. On August 10th, 1821, Missouri became one of the
United States, after prolonged and exciting debates, resulting in the
celebrated "Missouri Compromise," by which slavery was permitted in
Missouri but prohibited 
elsewhere north of parallel thirty-six
degrees and thirty minutes. Other events of public importance during the
second term of President Monroe were the recognition in 1822 of the
independence of Mexico, and the provinces in South America, formerly
under the dominion of Spain; and the promulgation in his message of
December 2, 1823, of the policy of 'neither entangling ourselves in the
broils of Europe, nor suffering the powers of the old world to interfere with
the affairs of the new,' which has become so famous as the "Monroe
Doctrine." On this occasion the president declared that any attempt on the