James Monroe was the fifth president of the United States (1817-1825) and the last of the so-called Virginia dynasty of U.S. presidents. Monroe was president during the Era of Good
             Feelings. He gave lots of good impressions on people. One lady said about him: "He is tall and well formed. His dress plain and in the old style.... His manner was quiet and dignified. From the frank, honest expression of his eye ... I think he well deserves the encomium passed upon him by the great Jefferson, who said, 'Monroe was so honest that if you turned his soul inside out there would not be a spot on it."
             Monroe was born in 1758 to wealthy Virginia planters. He inherited the family's estate while still in his teens. James Monroe enrolled at College of William and Mary in Williamsburg but found revolutionary activity more interesting. He joined Continental army and six month later was fighting at the side of George Washington in New York. At the age of twenty he was appointed by Thomas Jefferson to military commissioner of Virginia. After the war, in 1783 Monroe was elected to the Continental Congress, and while fulfilling his role in New York, he met his future wife, Elizabeth Kortright. They've got married when he was twenty seven and she was only seventeen.
             James Monroe believed in direct popular election of both President and the members of Senate, he fiercely supported the inclusion of a bill of rights in the constitution. Monroe voted against the ratification of the Electoral College and election of senators by state legislatures. When it was ratified, he lost a congressional election to James Madison and was appointed to the Senate by Virginia state legislature. During next years Monroe had an experience of being the U.S. minister in France, and then was elected as the governor of Virginia, later the U.S. minister in Great Britain. He returned home to challenge James Madison for the Democratic-Republican pre...