James Madison: A Life Reconsidered

by Lynne Cheney

  Jefferson and Madison offered differing views on the right policy for the United States toward the ambitious and charismatic Toussaint Louverture, who had helped lead a slave rebellion in Saint Domingue (the Dominican Republic and Haiti today) and now ruled the island. Because Saint Domingue was one of France’s most valuable possessions, the French chargé d’affaires, Louis Pichon, tried early in the administration to determine whether the United States would be of assistance if France tried to regain control. He got studied neutrality from Madison, who said that the United States was not ready to become involved. But from the president Pichon got quite a different message. “Nothing would be easier,” he said, “than to supply everything for your army and navy and to starve out Toussaint.”15

  Rumors abounded in 1801 that Saint Domingue was not France’s only interest in the Western Hemisphere. Napoleon was said to be trying to get Spain to agree to give back the Louisiana Territory, which France had ceded to it in 1762. This “retrocession,” as it was called, had, in fact, already occurred, though France was not admitting to it, and for France to be in control of Louisiana was clearly not in the interests of the United States. It was one thing to have a weak and feckless government such as Spain’s in control of New Orleans and the vast territory to the west of the Mississippi. It was quite another to have Napoleon on one’s doorstep. In this light, Madison’s message to Pichon seems much more sensible than Jefferson’s. Why help Napoleon get a foothold?

  Jefferson’s response likely had to do with the worry most Virginians had about slave revolt, particularly after a planned insurrection had come to light in 1800. An enslaved man named Gabriel and hundreds of others had planned to march on Richmond under the banner “Death or Liberty” and to kill anyone who got in their way. The rebels were betrayed, caught, and tried. Thirty-five men, including Gabriel, were hanged.16 They had been inspired by many things, including Toussaint Louverture, and Jefferson wanted him gone. The president had a moment of too much candor—and a secretary of state on whom he could depend to convey the proper message, even though Madison no doubt shared Jefferson’s concerns about slave uprisings.

  Madison was not the only cabinet member whom Jefferson had wisely chosen. The sharp-witted Treasury secretary, Albert Gallatin, had a blunt manner that was refreshing in the evasive world of politics—though one wonders if his wife, Hannah, always appreciated it. He once described her as “neither handsome nor rich, but sensible.” Gallatin had come to the United States in 1780, served in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention and state legislature, and was chosen for the U.S. Senate in 1793. He served only a short time, being removed from his seat for not having been a citizen long enough. He had made himself a nuisance by asking pointed questions of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, and the vote against him, which turned on what Gallatin called “a nice and difficult” legal point, was along party lines. He did not help his case, however, when he matter-of-factly expressed his own doubts about whether he had actually been a citizen for the requisite nine years.17

  As Treasury secretary, Gallatin helped the president craft the “frugal government” he had promised in his inaugural address. When the Seventh Congress convened in 1801, Jefferson recommended cutting government expenditures, getting rid of the internal taxes that Federalists had imposed to support the conflict with France, and gradually paying off the nation’s debt—all proposals that met with congressional approval. In the interest of smaller government, Jefferson also suggested that Congress take a close look at the Judiciary Act of 1801, which had been passed in the closing days of the previous administration. The Republican Congress turned to that eagerly, not least because Federalists had used the act to provide themselves with sinecures.18 On his last day in office, John Adams had spent part of his time signing commissions for judgeships that the act had created.

  Repealing the Judiciary Act of 1801 and replacing it with the Judiciary Act of 1802 meant that some judges lost their jobs, which brought heated Federalist objections because the Constitution provided for service during good behavior. The new act also provided for one rather than two Supreme Court sessions each year, which meant the court would not meet until February 1803, and that caused more angry outbursts from Federalists. But they raged in vain. The Revolution of 1800 proceeded on its way, leading some Federalists to fear that anarchy lay ahead. Fisher Ames believed there would be plunder and bloodshed. The only hope, as he saw it, was that states might provide a shelter for “the wise and good and rich.”19

  In point of fact, Jefferson proceeded cautiously in replacing Federalists with Republicans. As he saw it, anyone Adams had appointed after he had lost the election was inherently disqualified, as was anyone guilty of official misconduct. Early on, he expanded this policy to include removing men from office in order to obtain a better political balance, pointing out that under the late Federalist administration Republicans had been excluded. Federalists naturally objected, but so did Republicans who thought the president wasn’t moving fast enough. Jefferson found the matter of appointments extremely vexing, but two of them must have given him particular satisfaction. He appointed Hore Browse Trist, son of Eliza, to be a customs collector, and after his old political ally John Beckley, who had been fired by the Federalists, was reinstated as clerk of the House, Jefferson saw to it that he also became the first librarian of Congress.20

  • • •

  BRITAIN AND FRANCE signed a preliminary peace agreement in October 1801, enabling Napoleon to send a fleet and an army to Saint Domingue, where his men, using lies and deception, captured Toussaint Louverture. Napoleon had him transported to a prison high in the Jura Mountains on the border of Switzerland, where he died. Soon, however, Napoleon’s troops began to sicken with yellow fever, and after he issued orders to reenslave the blacks of Saint Domingue, his men faced a fierce insurrection. Napoleon’s commander on the island, Charles Leclerc, reported that of the twenty-eight thousand men sent to Saint Domingue, four thousand remained able to serve, and then Leclerc, who was Napoleon’s brother-in-law, died. Napoleon had been bested by yellow fever and what Henry Adams described as “the desperate courage of 500,000 Haitian Negroes who would not be enslaved.”21

  Meanwhile, Madison had been speaking in strong terms to the French chargé d’affaires about Louisiana. Given the pressure of the burgeoning American population, the secretary said, France was unlikely to hold the territory long. Moreover, its possession of it was likely to drive the Americans into an alliance with the British. The president himself, going through back channels, delivered the same message.22 Both Jefferson and Madison hoped that France could still be talked out of taking possession of Louisiana and that the United States might purchase New Orleans, thereby ensuring access by way of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. The president and the secretary also looked longingly on West Florida, land that is today contained in Louisiana, southernmost Mississippi and Alabama, and a portion of the Florida Panhandle. The watershed of several rivers, West Florida, like New Orleans, promised access to the gulf.

  How tenuous U.S. navigation rights were on the Mississippi became apparent at the end of 1802 when the Spanish intendant of New Orleans closed the port to American commerce. Madison, who had by now been working the issue of the Mississippi for more than twenty years, urged Charles Pinckney, whom Jefferson had appointed America’s minister to Spain, to be sure that the Spanish government understood the importance that America’s western citizens attached to commerce on the river: “The Mississippi is to them everything. It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac and all the navigable rivers of the Atlantic states formed into one stream.” He hinted to the French chargé d’affaires that the thousands of Americans floating their cargoes down the Mississippi might be moved to take up arms when they found the port of New Orleans closed to them. He sent bellicose talking points to Robert Livingston, the U.S. minister to France: “There are now or in two years will be not less than 200,000 militia on the waters of the Mississippi, every man of whom w
ould march at a minute’s warning to remove obstructions from that outlet to the sea, every man of whom regards the free use of that river as a natural and indefeasible right and is conscious of the physical force that can at any time give effect to it.”23

  Madison was not exaggerating western anger, which was being aided and abetted by accusations from eastern Federalists that the administration had gone soft when it came to defending America’s interests. To quiet the agitation, the president took the step of nominating James Monroe as envoy extraordinary to France and Spain. Monroe had holdings in Kentucky and had long been involved in matters concerning the territory beyond the Appalachians, with the result that he was well regarded in the West. The president also managed to get a two-million-dollar appropriation from Congress. Its purpose, discussed in secret session, was to allow Monroe, acting with Livingston and Pinckney, to begin negotiations to buy New Orleans and the Floridas.24

  Monroe, who heard of his nomination after it had been made, was initially reluctant, in part because he was strapped for cash. He had just finished two terms as Virginia’s governor and was hoping to make some money practicing law in Richmond, where he had just leased a house. Moreover, he knew that the salary that Congress paid diplomats was not enough to cover their expenses. Madison helped out by agreeing, in exchange for some china and silver, to pay off loans that Monroe took out. It was a deal that Monroe was no doubt glad to make because he could replace the china and silver in Paris for less than Madison was paying. For Madison, on the other hand, the arrangement might have been something of a strain. He had explained to a visitor the previous summer that after he had covered expenses for farming the land around Montpelier, his profit was about equal to the amount he paid his caretaker. He did have a two-thousand-acre tract farther away, but the income from it, the secretary of state said, was “very fluctuating.”25

  At the same time that Madison was acquiring table settings from Monroe, he was also buying a dark green silver-monogrammed carriage fitted out with venetian blinds and candleholders. The Madisons probably justified these purchases as investments in their expanding social life, which in Washington, they were discovering, was usually indistinguishable from political life. Now living in a three-story brickhouse on F Street, the Madisons had begun to entertain, and in a way quite different from Jefferson’s. The president had small dinner parties of a dozen or so, usually stag affairs, but when women were to be in attendance, he often invited Mrs. Madison and her sister Anna Payne to act as hostesses. At first Jefferson’s dinners were bipartisan, but he didn’t like debate at his dinner table and was soon hosting gatherings where the dinner guests were of the same party. Even then, he let it be known, he did not want politics discussed. The Madisons, on the other hand, mixed men and women, as well as Federalists and Republicans, and they had no objections to crowds or political discussions. John Quincy Adams, a Federalist, wrote in his diary of a February party at the Madisons’ where “there was a company of about seventy persons of both sexes.” Adams reported that he “had considerable conversation with Mr. Madison on the subjects now most important to the public.”26

  People enjoyed coming to the Madisons’ in large part because of Dolley’s seemingly artless charm. “Very amiable and exceedingly pleasant and sensible in conversation,” the Reverend Manasseh Cutler pronounced her. At dinners she served southern comfort food, such as ham surrounded by mashed cabbage. After tea, she might have card tables set up. A favorite game was loo, and ladies failing to take a necessary trick would daintily announce, “I’ve been loo’d.”27 In his home and among people he knew, the secretary of state dropped his public reserve and was warm and witty. Republicans grew closer to him in such a setting, and Federalists, having accepted his hospitality, might have found it a little harder to demonize him.

  • • •

  AS MONROE was sailing to France, the peace accord between the British and the French was falling apart. Napoleon added the financial requirements of war resuming with Britain to two other circumstances: the French catastrophe in Saint Domingue and the clear message he was getting from the United States that his plans for an empire in the Western Hemisphere would meet staunch resistance. He heard this not only from his diplomats, who reported on their Washington conversations, but from the press. One recent story told of a congressional effort to authorize the president to seize New Orleans. On Monday, April 11, 1803, Napoleon called in one of his ministers, Barbé-Marbois, who had been Madison’s companion on the Mohawk valley excursion some two decades before. “I renounce Louisiana,” the first consul told Barbé-Marbois. “It is not only New Orleans that I cede; it is the whole colony without reserve.” In a letter to Madison, Livingston reported a meeting with Talleyrand in which the foreign minister inquired whether the United States wanted to buy all of Louisiana. Livingston told him no, he reported to Madison. His instructions didn’t encompass such a purchase. But Livingston soon came to his senses, and after Monroe’s arrival a deal was struck. In documents dated April 30, 1803 (though actually signed some days later), the United States purchased the 828,000 square miles of French Louisiana for fifteen million dollars.28

  Word of the purchase began to arrive in the United States at the end of June, and official news of it followed not long after, enclosed in a letter to Madison. The public announcement was made on July 3, 1803, and there was widespread acknowledgment that this was, as Madison described it, “a truly noble acquisition.” After years of struggle, the United States had gained control of the mouth of the Mississippi and nearly doubled its territory in the process. “This mighty event forms an era in our history and of itself must render the administration of Jefferson immortal,” wrote the newspaper editor Samuel Harrison Smith. The Fourth of July began in Washington City with an eighteen-gun salute. The anniversary of independence was one of two days each year when Jefferson opened the executive mansion to the public, and in 1803 citizens flocked to see their president. As they celebrated one of the most momentous events in the nation’s history, Meriwether Lewis was finishing up preparations to set out from Washington City to begin his fabled expedition with William Clark. The trip, months in the planning, was more compelling now than ever. The Corps of Discovery would be exploring lands that were now part of the United States.29

  • • •

  WHILE THOMAS JEFFERSON was overseeing the historic acquisition of Louisiana, James Callender was making every effort to destroy him. On September 1, 1802, a Callender essay on the president in the Richmond Recorder had declared, “It is well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps and for many years has kept as his concubine one of his slaves. Her name is Sally.” Callender’s article, picked up by the Federalist press, led to an outpouring of bawdy verse, including one ditty to be sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle”:

  Of all the damsels on the green,

  On mountain, or in valley,

  A lass so luscious ne’er was seen,

  As Monticellian Sally.

  Jefferson’s daughters gathered around him, coming to Washington in late November, but the salacious rhymes and vicious commentary did not stop and even gained new energy when Thomas Paine, “the greatest infidel on earth,” as one newspaper called him, took up a two-week residence at the president’s house. Jefferson’s enemies lumped them together as blasphemers and atheists, and one balladeer suggested that Paine, too, was sleeping with Sally.30

  Jefferson refused to address Callender’s charge about Hemings but found it necessary to take action when Callender enthusiastically promoted another theme: that Jefferson had made unwanted advances to a married woman, Betsey Walker, many years before. Mrs. Walker’s embarrassed husband, John, decided that the situation was an affair of honor, and Madison helped with damage control. Jefferson and Walker met at Montpelier to sort things out, and Madison was able to report to Monroe on April 20, 1803, that a duel had been averted. Putting many of his words into cipher, he wrote, “The affair between the president and J. Walker has had a hap
py éclaircissement.”31

  The enormous significance of the acquisition of Louisiana helped the administration move beyond James Callender and his stories about Jefferson’s intimate life, as did Callender’s death just a few weeks after word of the purchase reached Washington. Callender drowned in three feet of water in the James River in what the coroner’s jury ruled was an accident caused by his being intoxicated. One of Jefferson’s friends thought it was suicide, an explanation that fits what must have been Callender’s psychological situation.32 He had tried to bring down a powerful man he had hated beyond measure and no doubt thought that he had the information to do it. How it must have stung to see Jefferson move onward and upward, to ever greater glory.

  During a visit to Monticello a year or so after the scandal, Dolley Madison, so the story is told, promised Sally Hemings a gift if she could name Hemings’s newborn child. Hemings consented, and Dolley, according to Sally’s son, “dubbed me by the name I now acknowledge”—which was Madison. Sally’s children had been named after people important to Jefferson. Was Dolley slyly acknowledging the naming pattern with her suggestion and perhaps as well indicating an understanding of the reason behind it? Southern white women typically wore blinders when it came to masters sleeping with slaves, but one wonders if Dolley grew momentarily weary of the pretense. Of course, something simpler might have been at work, but Dolley was not a simple person. Whatever the explanation, Madison Hemings later wrote that his mother never received the gift Mrs. Madison had promised: “Like many promises of white folks to the slaves she never gave my mother anything.”33

  • • •

  LIKE MOST GREAT EVENTS, the acquisition of Louisiana was not over when it was announced. There was contention about who should get the credit, and Madison had to soothe Monroe, who was aggrieved by what he perceived as Livingston’s self-promotion. There was also concern that the Floridas had not been part of the bargain and still belonged to Spain. It was generally agreed at a July 16 cabinet meeting, however, that after the purchase of Louisiana, “they cannot fail to fall into our hands.” Indeed, Robert Livingston had already advised that by reading past treaties, it was possible to make a case that West Florida was part of the purchase. Madison would hold fast to this interpretation in the years ahead.34