Parker Semin
Against James Monroe Essay
I had the election of 1816 in which James Monroe, of the Democratic-Republican party, ran against Rufus King, of the Federalist party. At this point in history the Federalist party was running out of steam quickly, so Rufus King did not even stand a chance. This election came after the effects of The War of 1812; this favored Monroe because the Democratic-Republican party was given the credit of resolving the war. The final voting came out to be Monroe with 183 and King 34. This election would be the last election for the Federalists as their support had diminished greatly.
As a man James Monroe was a very interesting man in and outside of politics. In his early life he dropped out of the college of William and Mary, and in 1775 he raided a Royal arsenal and from that point on he was apart of the Continental Army. A highlight from the war was that he crossed the Delaware with George Washington. He studied the law under Thomas Jefferson and he became a lawyer. He had a vast political career which included being part of the Virginia Assembly and the Continental Congress. He actually opposed the Constitution without a Bill of Rights and expressed his dislike. He was both the Minister to France and Britain including an extended stay in France. Some highlights of his Presidency was that he appointed a multitude of different party members to lower positions which is a big reason for the “Era of Good Feelings”. Of course the biggest thing that he did during his Presidency was the Monroe Doctrine. This stated that there would be no more colonization in the Americas by European countries. Overall his time in office was pretty successful and outside of the Panic of 1819 no real major negatives occurred.
I was in charge of making an against Monroe video so the basis that I was trying to convey was that he was more interested in France than America, and that he was just not the right kind of guy to lead a nation. So to start off I asked the question if James Monroe was American just to get the viewer thinking. My first picture is an article from the Broome Country Patriot 1813, and this illustrated that if it wasn’t for Washington he might have just never come back from France because he loved it so much. The next photo was an article, from the Federal Gazette 1789, that was written about how Monroe was apart of a group that wanted to replace the current system and replace it with “anarchy”/French Liberty. Again this just connects him with France and shows that he would rather live in a French system than the one in the Americas at the moment. An article from the Northern Post 1815, stated that Monroe was one of the best “French Authors”. He now is even considered to be of the French people and hopefully the viewer notices that. At this point in the video I switched the focus from him being tied to France and now tried to show that he was just an unfit man to lead. For all of my quotes for the next three pictures I took from the book Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr. In this book Aaron Burr speaks horrifically about the character of James Monroe. I chose the quotes I did because they contradicted every characteristic that is connected to a good President. The pictures that I accompanied with the first two quotes were done in color so it gave Monroe a somewhat interesting appearance. For the third picture, that accompanied that quote, “Naturally dull and stupid”, I chose to make it black and white which is to show that now that he was called “dull” that he lost all “color” in his life and he lost the interesting appearance. There were two different songs that I chose, one that was the French National Anthem and the other was a song by Mozart. I played the French National Anthem to further connect him to France. When I switched to attacking his character I switched the song to the song by Mozart because it was more quiet and “dull”.
Overall I again tried to make my video as viewer friendly as possible. This time I tried to include a few more quotes and more straight to the point newspaper articles. With the newspaper articles I tried to include “catch phrases” as to make it easier to get the overall concept of the article if the viewer did not want to read. Enjoy!
Articles:
Broome Country Patriot, Bingham, New York, 02-23-1813
http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=EANX&p_theme=ahnp&p_nbid=R54G51FNMTMzMTA1OTUyNC4zOTAyMDQ6MToxMjoxMzcuMTY1LjI3LjM&p_action=doc&s_lastnonissuequeryname=3&d_viewref=search&p_queryname=3&p_docnum=10&p_docref=v2:10E31F474ED0EC48@EANX-10E565F1E07BA898@2383298-10E565F262DA9B80@3-10E565F390F94A88@[American%3B+Codfish%3B+Onions%3B+Legislature%3B+State+Rulers%3B+Natives%3B+National+Government]
Northern Post, Salem, New York, 03-09-15
Federal Gazette, Boston Massachusetts, 03-02-1798
http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=EANX&p_theme=ahnp&p_nbid=R54G51FNMTMzMTA1OTUyNC4zOTAyMDQ6MToxMjoxMzcuMTY1LjI3LjM&p_action=doc&s_lastnonissuequeryname=10&d_viewref=search&p_queryname=10&p_docnum=1&p_docref=v2:109E8108643F1550@EANX-10B7BC395E118E38@2377827-10B7BC39A8F42568@2-10B7BC3AE33E9D10@Communication
Book:
In the book View of the Conduct of the Executive in Foreign Affairs . . . (Philadelphia, 1798) he discussed his displeasure with the government
Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr
Burr’s letter to his son-in-law, Joseph Alston, 15 November 1815
Photos:
James Monroe
James Monroe
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=james+monroe&hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1549&bih=777&tbs=isz:l&tbm=isch&tbnid=0801gPWYQaFTdM:&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Monroe_County_%28New_York%29.jpg&docid=PdCG0Td50q1f1M&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/James_Monroe_County_%28New_York%29.jpg&w=2434&h=3408&ei=8a1XT4H9KKr10gHSoY3GDw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=612&vpy=202&dur=189&hovh=266&hovw=190&tx=104&ty=167&sig=115449678360314623190&page=1&tbnh=171&tbnw=122&start=0&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0
James Monroe
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=james+monroe&hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1549&bih=777&tbs=isz:l&tbm=isch&tbnid=55NO8dZPXYIjrM:&imgrefurl=http://linkrandom.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-thoughts-on-presidency-of-james_21.html&docid=0UB3VV9YaxeTWM&imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H5vLRn3QcoA/TbAMEpKFz9I/AAAAAAAABr8/bdNxUjlGDm8/s1600/james%252Bmonroe.gif&w=1329&h=1600&ei=8a1XT4H9KKr10gHSoY3GDw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=323&sig=115449678360314623190&page=1&tbnh=171&tbnw=132&start=0&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0&tx=82&ty=126
Songs:
Mozart
French National Anthem