The Last Founding Father Quotes

“Elected fifth president of the United States, Monroe transformed a fragile little nation - "a savage wilderness," as Edmund Burke put it - into "a glorious empire." Although George Washington had won the nation's independence, he bequeathed a relatively small country, rent by political factions, beset by foreign enemies, populated by a largely unskilled, unpropertied people, and ruled by oligarchs who controlled most of the nation's land and wealth. Washington's three successors - John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison - were mere caretaker presidents who left the nation bankrupt, its people deeply divided, its borders under attack, its capital city in ashes.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Contrary to the writings of some historians, Monroe's proclamation was entirely his own creation-not Adam's. The assertion that Adams authored the "Monroe Doctrine" is not only untrue, it borders on the ludicrous by implying that President Monroe was little more than a puppet manipulated by another's hand. Such assertions show little insight into the presidency itself and the type of man who aspires to and assumes that office; indeed, they denigrate the character, the intellect, the intensity and the sense of power that drive American presidents.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Now he recognized that protection of national interests was the raison d’être of all governments, whether born of revolution or not. Expansion of individual liberties had simply been a by-product of the American Revolution because it was essential for uniting the American people and, therefore, in the national interest. Tyranny—indeed, Napoléon—had been the by-product of the French Revolution, because it was essential for maintaining the unity of the French people and, therefore, essential to French national interests. Monroe”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“At the end of June 1783, Monroe's first year of government service came to an end. Although he had accomplished nothing, he had done no less than his colleagues - which is exactly what Virginia planters had elected them to do.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Monroe also saved Tom Paine, whose revolutionary fervor had inspired him to become a French citizen and win a seat in the Convention. When Paine voted against executing King Louis XVI, however, Robespierre sent him to prison, where he languished in ever-deteriorating health until Monroe rescued him in November 1794, and brought him to La Folie to recuperate.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“He supported Jefferson’s proposed Land Ordinance of 1784,22 ceding Virginia’s western territory to Congress for division into fourteen future states in which “there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude.” Congress defeated the Ordinance by one vote.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“By March 1766, colonist boycotts had proved so costly to British merchants that Parliament repealed the stamp tax without having collected a single penny.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Monroe was not unmoved. Indeed,”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying . . . that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Nothing,” he declaimed to the assembled town, “could be more gratifying to eight millions of people than to behold the man whom they have voluntarily placed at the head of their government, ardently laboring to promote the welfare and happiness not of a few, not of a faction; not of his dependents and flatterers; but of the whole American Republic.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Respect,” he declared, “forms the basis of every negotiation with these powers. The respect which one power has for another, is in the exact proportion of the means which they respectively have of injuring each other with the least detriment to themselves.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“He was curious, courteous, open - never arrogant or condescending - and generous to a fault. Abigail Adams later noted his "agreeable affability," "unassuming manner," and "polite attentions to all orders and ranks"...”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Monroe's presidency made poor men rich, turned political allies into friends, and united a divided people as no president had done since Washington.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“which are plainly adapted to that end,”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Monroe”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“Fathers—dressed”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

“history informs us that the passage of dethroned monarchs is short from prison to the grave.”18”
― Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness