James Monroe Quotes
The payments which have been made into the Treasury show the very productive state of the public revenue.
Monroe, James. "Second Annual Message." A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, compiled by James D. Richardson, vol. 2, Bureau of National Literature, 1897, p. 44.
The country which had been in great financial difficulty as a result of the Revolutionary War debt, was solvent for the first time—and some jokingly say the last time—until the Clinton administration. It was not any particular management, but it was the incredible growth both in population with people coming from the entire world to become a part of the new experiment in government, and in industrial and agricultural productivity. The growth was so fast that there was no longer any need for any internal taxation and the entire government and the retirement of the war debt could be managed by the revenue from customs duty.
This notion of state owned industries where the profits can pay for some of the costs of operating a government. In modern cases like China, Egypt and Indonesia, the military owned industries the profits of which defrayed the general budget burden. The problem however, has always been that the government tends to give preference to government owned industries in purchases and the lack of competition generally produces inefficient companies over time.
This historical quotation is surprising to us over a century later. We are surprised at the very large revenue from the then relatively low tax rates on alcohol and tobacco and many people who did not pay their taxes at the time. Also, the incredibly small appropriation for the military. WWI was only 4 years away. Generally, until the Second World War, the Democratic party did not advocate large military expenditures and the Republicans were more isolationist and opposed almost all defense spending. After WWII, the Republican Party flip flopped and became the champion of military readiness and defense spending.
James Monroe was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was the last president of the Virginia dynasty; his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings. He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas. He also served as the governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, the U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War.
