US President Monroe Attempts To End Slavery

Posted: 6/18/2016

Trigger

Among the Founding Fathers, James Monroe is least known to me. Today, I finally took some time to read most of the Wikipedia article on him.

Anti-Federalist

To my positive surprise, I was reminded that James Monroe was among the Anti Federalists. Given the Big Government we have today and the unnecessary American Civil War, one sometimes wonders what history would have been like if the Anti Federalists had prevailed or if they had  had more influence. I have a sense, We The People, would have been better off.

Death On Fourth Of July

I did not know there was a third U.S. President that died on Independence Day and who was among the Founding Fathers. But, I digress.

A Few, Brief Remarks

In the Wikipedia article on James Monroe, I found following passages (emphasis added):

1. “As president of Virginia's constitutional convention in the fall of 1829, Monroe reiterated his belief that slavery was a blight which, even as a British colony, Virginia had attempted to eradicate. "What was the origin of our slave population?" he rhetorically asked. "The evil commenced when we were in our Colonial state, but acts were passed by our Colonial Legislature, prohibiting the importation, of more slaves, into the Colony. These were rejected by the Crown."
2. “To the dismay of states' rights proponents, he was willing to accept the federal government's financial assistance to emancipate and transport freed slaves to other countries. At the convention, Monroe made his final public statement on slavery, proposing that Virginia emancipate and deport its bondsmen with "the aid of the Union."””
3. “Monroe was part of the American Colonization Society formed in 1816, the members of which included Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson. They found common ground with some abolitionists in supporting colonization. They helped send several thousand freed slaves to the new colony of Liberia in Africa from 1820 to 1840. Slave owners like Monroe and Jackson wanted to prevent free blacks from encouraging slaves in the South to rebel. With about $100,000 in Federal grant money, the organization also bought land for the freedmen in what is today Liberia. The capital of Liberia was named Monrovia after President Monroe.”

The above passages clearly convey that there were alternatives to an American Civil War to free slaves pursued prior to the civil war. The federal government together with northern states and abolitionists could have done so much more to peacefully free slaves and abolish slavery over time.

Last, but not least he promulgated what is referred to as the Monroe Doctrine of 1822 to keep the European powers/colonizers out of the Americas. Since the Monroe Doctrine was largely successful, this may have also contributed to significantly reduce slavery in the Caribbean region, Central and South America.