What had happened to the Federalist Party by the time James Monroe became president?

Answer 1

The War of 1812 went poorly for the Americans for two years. Even though Britain was concentrating its military efforts on its war with Napoleon, the United States still failed to make any headway on land, and was effectively blockaded at sea by the Royal Navy. The British raided and burned Washington, D.C. in 1814 and sent a force to capture New Orleans.

The war was especially unpopular in New England: the declaration of war had been driven by Westerners and Southerners looking to grab more land from the Spanish in Florida and the British in Canada and to deny support to hostile British-armed American Indians tribes in the Northwest and Southwest Territories. Moreover, the New England economy was highly dependent on trade, and the British blockade threatened to destroy it entirely. In 1814, the British finally managed to enforce their blockade on the New England coast, so the Federalists of New England sent delegates to the Hartford Convention in December 1814.

During the proceedings of the Hartford Convention, secession from the Union was discussed, though the resulting report listed a set of grievances against the Democratic-Republican federal government and proposed a set of Constitutional amendments to address these grievances. It also indicated that if these proposals were ignored, then another convention should be called and given "such powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis may require". The Federalist Massachusetts Governor had already secretly sent word to England to broker a separate peace accord. Three Massachusetts "ambassadors" were sent to Washington to negotiate on the basis of this report.

By the time the Federalist "ambassadors" got to Washington, the war was over and news of Andrew Jackson's stunning victory in the Battle of New Orleans had raised American morale immensely. The "ambassadors" slunk back to Massachusetts, but not before they had done fatal damage to the Federalist Party. The Federalists were thereafter associated with the disloyalty and parochialism of the Hartford Convention, and destroyed as a political force. They fielded their last presidential candidate in 1816, and their last vice presidential candidate in the following election. With its passing partisan hatreds and newspaper feuds on the decline, the nation entered an "Era of Good Feelings." The last traces of Federalist activity came in Delaware localities in the 1820s.

Answer 2

It fizzled, but their ideas are coming about again.