The Era of Good Feelings
The Monroe years 1817-25, are commonly referred to as “The Era of Good Feelings,” with fair reason. The country was at peace, following a military and economic misery known as the War of 1812. The Democratic-Republicans were in high political ascendancy; the old Federalist Party was practically moribund, with little political leadership or clout. The country was growing by leaps and bounds, both in land and population. The economy was strong, and anyone who wanted to work could find it easy to find a job – or a piece of cheap land for the taking. Times were good.
And James Monroe (1758-31), sometimes considered the last of the Founding Fathers, perhaps more like an older brother, was a man well known to the electorate, and one who came with long list of public offices on his resume.
Born and raised in Virginia, he attended the College of William and Mary just prior to the American Revolution, and served as scout and officer to General George Washington himself. Recuperating from serious wounds, he returned to Virginia to read law with its Governor Thomas Jefferson. Preferring public service to mundane law practice, he held various offices in Virginia’s Legislature plus a couple of terms as its Governor. He served via the Articles of Confederation and was named to the Constitutional Convention, and knew just about everyone who counted.
Once the USA became officially the USA, served as Virginia’s Senator. President George Washington assigned him to high diplomatic post in Paris. Once Thomas Jefferson became President in 1803, more diplomatic assignments followed. Once James Madison became President in 1809, cabinet positions followed. Monroe was a sure winner in 1816.
The Distaff Monroes
The tall Senator serving in then-capital New York, saw and fell in love and married a pretty and petite daughter of a former British soldier (French-Indian War) who stayed in America. In early 1786 when they married, Monroe was twenty-seven. His bride, Elizabeth Kortright, was seventeen. In a difficult to document relationship (they were seldom apart), it appears to have been a happy marriage of more than 40 years, despite her frail health, which modern history believes to include recurrent seizures: epilepsy. Her condition was downplayed. It bore a stigma kept from public knowledge.
Their first child, a daughter named Eliza, was born within the year.
When Eliza was about six or seven, the Monroes were sent to Paris by President George Washington. The French Revolution was already underway, but the upstart USA (who understood Revolution pretty well) needed to maintain diplomatic ties with its former friend and ally – without getting too involved or alienating any other country.
Little Eliza was placed at the Maison d’education de la Legion de Honneur, run by the aristocratic Henriette Campan, who had been a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette. But the former French Monarchs had been deposed and indeed executed. The “Reign of Terror” was giving way to the Age of Napoleon.
One of little Eliza’s school chums was Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Josephine, the stunning widow who became Napoleon’s wife. The friendship between the two little girls lasted the rest of their lives. They continued to correspond regularly, and in later years, when Eliza (now Mrs. George Hay) bore her only child, she named her Hortensia. Hortense de Beauharnais (now the wife of Louis Bonaparte) was the Queen Consort of Holland, happy to stand godmother to the daughter of her American friend.
The imperial connections also colored the image and behavior of both Elizabeth and Eliza Monroe permanently, and both mother and daughter were indelibly stamped with the formality of diplomatic Europe, and maintained those remote “aristocratic airs” permanently.
When Monroe became President in 1817, his wife and daughter considered themselves equal in status to the crowned heads in Europe.
President Monroe’s Social Headache
Undoubtedly the First Lady’s predecessor Dolley Madison was a social entity unto herself. Confident, sincerely outgoing and accessible to all, she was a hard act to follow. The Monroe mother and daughter had no intention of even making the effort.
From the outset, they announced that in the European style, they would neither pay or return calls. Claiming poor health, Elizabeth Monroe generally declined many of her First Lady social duties, allowing “Mrs. Hay” to substitute. It did not set well in the new democracy.
Believed to be in a contentious marriage with attorney and legislator George Hay, Monroe’s elder daughter had neither charm nor diplomatic skills. Her pretensions and tactless comments alienated much of social Washington, making White House dinners and receptions formal, icy and stag affairs, devoid of society’s matrons.
Even when she arranged her much-younger sister’s wedding (the first Presidential daughter to be married in the White House), Eliza Hay further estranged much of official Washington, limiting the guest list to only family and very close friends. The new couple, Maria Hester and Samuel Gouverneur, were overpowered by the domineering Mrs. Hay, and said to have moved to New York as soon as possible to disassociate themselves from their officious relative and her imperious manners.
One story about the bickering Hays’ comes from a diary entry of one Egbert Watson… “I do not think I heard them agree on one subject since I am here…I think I heard him tell her today at dinner 3 distinct times “that she talked too much and should talk less.”
Later….
When her mother, father and husband all died within a year, Eliza Hay moved to Paris, where she had enjoyed her happiest times. She converted to Catholicism, and became a nun. She did not have to socialize.
Sources:
Caroli, Betty Boyd – First Ladies: An Intimate Look at How 38 Women Handled what may be the most Demanding, Unpaid, Unelected Job in America – Oxford University Press, 1995
Unger, Harlow Giles – The Last Founding Father – DeCapo Press, 2009
Wead, Doug – All The Presidents’ Children: Triumph and Tragedy in the Lives of America’s First Families – Atria – 2003
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/bios/james-monroe
First Ladies Never Married to Presidents: Eliza Monroe Hay
Presidential History Blog 