James Monroe (1758 – 1831) was the fifth president of the United States (1817–1825). Monroe was a wealthy Virginia plantation owner who owned numerous slave plantations. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, Monroe opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Still, he was elected to the Senate of the first United States congress. During the War of 1812, he was both Secretary of State and the Secretary of War under President James Madison. As Secretary of State, Monroe dismissed Mordercai Manuel Noah in 1815 from his post as consul to Tunis because he was Jewish. Monroe was elected president in 1816, winning over 80 percent of the electoral vote. He took several slaves with him to Washington to serve at the White House. In 1823, he announced the United States' opposition to any European intervention in the recently independent countries of the Americas with the Monroe Doctrine, which became a landmark in American foreign policy. His political party was Democratic-Republican.
