Background
MONROE, Thomas Bell was born on October 7, 1791 in Albemarle County, Virginia, United States, United States.
MONROE, Thomas Bell was born on October 7, 1791 in Albemarle County, Virginia, United States, United States.
Born in Albemarle County, Virginia, Monroe attended Transylvania University and was a Kentucky state representative in 1816 before reading law to enter the bar in 1821.
His parents moved to Barren County, Kentucky, when he was young, and he pursued a public school education. Early active in Kentucky politics, Monroe was elected to a term in the state legislature in 1816. He studied law two years later, and became a lawyer in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1819.
His marriage to Eliza Palmer Adair produced a son and namesake who was a major in the Confederate Army. Monroe was also an educator. At one time he taught as a lecturer in the Law Department of Transylvania University.
In 1823, he became secretary of state for Kentucky. From 1825 to 1828, he was reporter of the decisions of the Court of Appeals, and he also published Monroe’s Kentucky Reports. In 1830, he was elected U.S. district attorney for Kentucky, and from 1834 to 1861, he was a judge of the U.S. District Court for Kentucky.
A secessionist, he was a lifetime Democrat. He represented Franklin County in the provisional Confederate Congress, where he served on the Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, and Military Affairs Committees. Monroe refused to stand forelection to the permanent Congress and, instead, practiced law during the war.
He retired from public life, simply because he was too old to perform any active service.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.