James Monroe: Second Inaugural Address

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Monroe's Second Inaugural Address is important for the light it casts on Monroe's thinking midway through his presidency. He had managed to maneuver the United States through a minefield of foreign problems, especially the Florida affair (the invasion and occupation of Florida by General Andrew Jackson), which could have brought war between the United States and European countries. Great Britain loomed as a potential antagonist, and Monroe was alert to the possibility of Great Britain's launching a war against the United States if the United States appeared to be aiding rebellious Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Great Britain would do so to secure for itself trade advantages that could be lost if the United States became an ally of the former colonies. Monroe was not yet ready to publicly assert America's dominance in the New World, so he focuses in his address mostly on domestic matters.

The excerpt begins with Monroe's comments on Native Americans, which were among the most sympathetic of those of American leaders of his era. Like most Americans of the time, he assumed that the imposition of American rule would make Native American lives better, and he looked forward, he says, to a time when the nation could provide the Indians with “civil government,” “education of their children,” and “instruction in the arts of husbandry.” He reveals an unusually acute understanding of their difficult position, caught between their own aspirations and those of Americans migrating westward, and he acknowledges that the “dense population” of settlers “has constantly driven them back, with almost the total sacrifice of the lands which they have been compelled to abandon.” His identification of the pressures on Native Americans is a significant statement in the history of relations between the United States and Native American tribes. He goes on to urge the Congress to devise some plan that will work to the benefit of Native Americans.

Monroe goes on to function partly as a cheerleader: He wanted Americans to realize that their lives were improving, and he calls attention to how well the American experiment in republican rule was working. He states that the nation had grown in strength and that “self-government” had enabled the young nation to solve internal problems. He celebrates America's representative democracy, which had allowed the nation to avoid the “defects” that undermined earlier republics, particularly by creating one social order—the people—that controlled the reins of government. He observes that the federal and state governments had largely avoided conflict, and he looks forward to a time when “our system will … attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable.” In the final paragraph of the excerpt, he takes note of the nation's extraordinary growth, both geographically (through, for example, the Louisiana Purchase, made during the administration of Thomas Jefferson, and the accession of Florida) and in population. He congratulates the nation for simultaneously being a “great power” and one “with an utter incapacity to oppress the people.”