Great Britain, whose commercial interests were also best served by a free and independent Latin America, offered to make a joint declaration. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who was the principle author of the declaration, convinced Monroe to make it a unilateral statement. Adams said a joint declaration with Great Britain would make the United States appear "a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war." Still, everyone understood that the United States could not then enforce this policy without the support of the British. This policy came to be called the Monroe Doctrine, and is probably the single most memorable event for which Monroe is remembered.
Monroe retired at the end of his second term to Oak Hill, his estate near Jefferson's in Virginia. He served for five years as a regent of the University of Virginia. In 1829, he was the presiding officer of the Virginia Constitutional Convention. His many years of public service left him a poor man, and in 1830 he was forced to move to New York and live with his daughter and her husband. He died on July 4, 1831, the third President to die on the 4th of July.
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