James and Dolley Madison

by Bruce Chadwick

  Friends scoffed at the criticism. “If he does not guide the helm successfully, the requisite qualifications for that station cannot be found on earth,” snapped brother-in-law John Jackson.51

  When he took office, the town's and nation's newspapers wondered how he would do. The editor of the Washington Expositor, like many, told him not to listen to his advisers and do what he thought was best for the nation. He wrote that “you will either be at once proclaimed by shouts and hosannas as the second savior of the liberties of the United States or you will stand charged and justly loaded with all the evil consequences upon that state of public affairs which shall shake the very existence of the union and overwhelm the peace and happiness of the country…like all men going into power, your virtues are now trumpeted forth and there are not wanting characters, and a good many of them, who are prepared to assure you that you are transcendentally great.”52

  The Federalist press was critical, but Madison paid little attention to them. Jefferson had ignored them, too, but in private he admitted that the criticism hurt. One had to expect “the extreme of their wrath,” he wrote Levi Lincoln in 1801.53 “The laws of the present day withhold their hands from blood, but lies and slander still remain to them.”

  President Jefferson told Madison that he would be a fine president and told all Americans with confidence that “what man can do will be done by Mr. Madison.” His beaming smile at Madison's swearing in, and congratulations to him at the ball, reminded all of their deep friendship. “I do believe father never loved son as more than he loves Mr. Madison,” wrote Margaret Smith.54

  Jefferson left town shortly after the ceremonies. The third president simply saddled a horse and headed home to Monticello. He left Washington amid a torrent of praise and thanks from Republican newspapers. “As members of a great and flourishing nation, over which you have so illustriously presided, your virtue, talents and service commanded their esteem, admiration and gratitude,” wrote Robert Brent in the Aurora.55

  Thomas Jefferson and his friend would keep in close touch over the coming years. They were so friendly that Jefferson would ask Madison to bring him clothes that he had left in the White House the next time Madison visited him at Monticello. Few people in American public life were as close as the pair. They were so attached that Dolley was at Monticello when Jefferson's alleged illegitimate son with Sally Hemings was born in 1803. The story went that Sally asked Dolley if she could name the boy Madison, after her husband. Dolley approved heartily (another version of the story has Jefferson just doing it and telling a delighted Madison later). Madison said that he had known Jefferson as “a luminary of science as a votary of liberty, as a model of patriotism, and as a benefactor of human kind. I have known him…for a period of…years…during which there was not an interruption or diminution of mutual confidence and cordial friendship, for a single moment in a single instance.”56

  Jefferson was glad to be back at Monticello and as far away from Washington as his horse could carry him. His party had fallen into infighting among different factions, and the oppression of Britain against American merchant ships on the high seas had increased during his last two years in office to the point where it was insufferable. Now he could have breakfast at Monticello, take a walk, look down over the forested valleys that surrounded him, and ignore the rapidly growing problems of Washington. “Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall in shaking off the shackles of power,” he said of his retirement.57

  President Madison faced a world that had changed considerably since he wrote the Constitution and lobbied to get it ratified by writing most of the essays in the Federalist papers and campaigning with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to have it approved in all the state conventions. Now, in the winter of 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte was wreaking havoc with his wars in Europe, the government of the Caribbean-island nation of Haiti had been overthrown in a slave revolt, the Russian oligarchy grew, and England had started to harass American shipping once again. At home, the invention of the cotton gin and the profitability of farm products had brought about a dramatic increase in slavery in the southern states. The size of the country had doubled with the Louisiana Purchase; two political parties now ran the country, with the Federalists in decline and the Republicans on the rise; newspapers had increased by tenfold, and many of them were controlled by Federalists and were highly critical of the Jefferson/Madison government; hundreds of political clubs of all kinds had started to appear; the Supreme Court was feeling its power; cities had exploded in population; and the Industrial Revolution had started, pitting farmers against manufacturers. Young men and women had started to leave their families and farms to find jobs in the burgeoning cities. The failed embargo had pitted many American business and interest groups against the federal government.

  America was, in 1809, settling in as a country of many factions struggling to succeed individually and, together, as a nation. It was exactly the kind of country Madison had envisioned when he wrote the Constitution and the kind of diversified population, driven by religious, social, and political factions he had foreseen. His Republican government, on paper, had been realized. All of these factions, no matter how loud or aggressive they became, would push hard against the fabric of democracy, but not tear it. He was certain that a large government, designed to represent everybody, would hold up under the pressures of many new and very vocal opponents.

  It was a stressful time to become president. The embargo had failed, Britain had continued to impress seaman, and now, it seemed, the United States had no means by which to stop them from establishing draconian rule of the sea. “Aversion to war, the inconveniences produced by or charged on the embargo, the hope of favorable changes in Europe, the dread of civil convulsions in the East and the policy of permitting the discontented to be reclaimed to their duty by losses at sea,” Madison wrote, telling friends that these all contributed to the weakness of the new Non-Intercourse Act.58

  He had written Jefferson in 1787 that those who believed that all Americans had the same interests were wrong. “We know, however, that no society ever did or can consist of so homogeneous a mass of citizens…. In all civilized societies, distinctions are various and unavoidable. A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free government gives to unequal faculties for acquiring it…[there are also] differences in political, religious or other opinions, or an attachment to the persons of leading individuals,” he wrote.59

  Madison had said the same thing in his essay “Federalist #10,” when he told newspaper readers that a large government would function like a big tent, expansive enough to cover all, no matter what their political and social beliefs. The government would change as the people under the tent changed, too, so it would always work well.

  Now Madison was in charge of the government itself and the head of it at a time when there were far more factions than he had ever anticipated and more acrimony between the factions than he had ever envisioned. Now he had to hold it together. He could do so not with his starry-eyed dreams but with practical political skills. It would be a challenge for him just as it had been for Jefferson, Adams, and Washington.

  His critics said he made one great mistake as president. Madison had misread the British from the day he became secretary of state back in 1801. They were not going to back down over anything, and he never realized that. And, too, his archenemies said, he was a president of a struggling country who had absolutely no administrative experience. He had been a long-term congressman and a long-term secretary of state, but he never actually ran anything like Jefferson, who had been a governor, and Washington, who had run the army for eight long years.60

  What kind of a president was America getting? James Madison had been a figure on the public stage since the 1770s, and yet few truly understood him. Critics had numerous complaints about him. In public, they said, he seemed a quiet and staid figure, soft-spoken, reluctant to give speeches, happy to bathe in the glory of his wife and n
ot take center stage himself. Many thought he was not able to make decisions and, when made, would not stand by them. He was good working for somebody else, but not good at being in charge. He was a magnificent counsel but not a capable leader. He was cold and cheerless. He took a very long time to make a decision. He did not want to offend anybody. Madison seemed to rely more on his aides in the State Department than on himself. He never stepped forward and always remained in his friend Jefferson's shadow.

  Yet those who knew him well saw an entirely different James Madison. To them, he was not only a brilliant man but also a man who, in small circles of people, sparkled. He told jokes and long, funny stories. He poked fun at other politicians and foreign diplomats. He may have taken a long time to come to a decision, they said, but that is only because he weighed the consequences of every issue and person involved. He was a good administrator, and those who worked for him liked him.

  Some saw him as man caught between both personas. Senator William Plumer wrote that Kentucky senator John Adair, for instance, said that Madison was a superb secretary of state and adviser to Jefferson, but that when he stepped out into spotlight he was a weak an ineffective politician. “I considered Mr. Madison an honest man, but too cautious—too fearful and timid to direct the affairs of this nation,” Plumer quoted Adair as stating.61

  Others saw steadfastness but reluctance. Senator Plumer wrote that Madison would make up his mind on an issue, such as the embargo, and tell everyone it was right. Then he would backtrack and say, well, I am right but what do you think? I am right, but let's not be hasty. I am right, but we should wait and see what happens later. “Something of this disposition is seen in most men, but it was a remarkable characteristic of Mr. Madison and forms the true explanation of his conduct in more than one important transaction,” Plumer lamented.62

  Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin, who knew him well, shrugged his shoulders when describing the new president. “Mr. Madison is, as I always knew him, slow in taking his ground, but firm when the storm rises,” he said.63

  So was he the boring, timid thinker or the bold, animated warrior? America would find out as soon as Jefferson departed and Madison moved into the White House.

  Madison understood people and their motivations very well and was an excellent judge of both character and ambition. He knew what people were looking for when they talked to him, and he conducted conversations with them in such a way as to not let them know what he was really thinking about their goals. For example, he wrote his friend James Monroe in 1803 that he always cast a skeptical eye on the cantankerous longtime minister from Britain, Anthony Merry. “He appears to be an amiable man in private society, and a candid and agreeable one in public business,” he wrote Monroe. He told his friend that Merry and his wife had recently caused a stir in social circles over a snub, or a snub as they saw it, from President Jefferson at a White House dinner. Madison explained to Monroe that the Merrys made much of social troubles, but that did not affect the minister in his public responsibilities. They did, he believed, simply like to “make noise” to draw attention to themselves.

  The temperamental Elizabeth Merry drove Dolley crazy. Dolley complained of Mrs. Merry's “airs” in 1805. “The other evening she came in high good humor to pass three hours with [me] when Merran [a servant] called in and mentioned that General [Turreau] and his family were walking near the house. Mrs. Merry instantly took the alarm and said they were waiting for her to depart in order to come in, seized her shawl and in spite of all I could say marched off with great dignity and more passion. You know when she chooses she can get angry with persons as well as circumstances.”64

  In 1804, exasperated by her, Dolley wrote her sister, “Mrs. Merry is still the same strange lass. She hardly associates with anyone, always riding on horseback.”65 Dolley's favorite way to get back at Mrs. Merry was to shower her with gifts in order to completely confuse her.

  James Madison had told Anthony Merry that James Monroe would see him on the problem of the impressment of American seaman by British ships. “His ideas appeared to be moderate and his disposition conciliatory I am not without hopes that Mr. Merry sees the business in a good degree in the same light, and that his representations will co-operate with your reasonings on it,” he said.66

  Madison had no qualms in participating in schemes to bring in people who he thought might help the United States in a touchy situation or to remove people who were hindering the chances for American success. One man was Juan Morales, the former “intendant,” or mayor, of New Orleans when it was held by the Spanish. He was trouble and threatened to cause problems in the new Louisiana Territory that the United States had just purchased from France. In a private letter, Madison told William Claiborne, the new governor of Louisiana, that Morales was “a mischievous member of society” and that “his removal to some other part of the United States, where he would be unimportant and harmless would be agreeable to the President.” He told Claiborne to charm Morales and explain to him that he would face nothing but opposition in New Orleans, but have nothing but support from all if he moved to another part of the country. It was backdoor politics at its best and showed the Madison had mastered the art of cutthroat diplomacy.67

  Madison's political shrewdness was shared by his wife. One foreign diplomat said, now that she was First Lady, that she would be assaulted by flatterers and needed to be prepared for false adulation. By 1809, Dolley was not surprised by anybody or anything. She had expected false adulation for years. She had learned politics from a master, her husband, plus President Jefferson and other skilled political players. Her eight years as the “unofficial hostess” at Jefferson's White House and director of her husband's busy social life had taught her all there was to know about national politics and the social world. She was just as savvy as her husband and, like him, able to cover up her Svengali-like knowledge of politics with a happy public persona. She wrote that Madison had always warned her of political pitfalls in the public world and false friends.68

  And her husband taught her to be discreet. She could talk about anything she wanted to him, and express all of her opinions to him, positive or negative, but to no one else. She followed his advice, too, and would not even confide in her beloved sister. She wrote Anna in the spring of 1804 that “there is so much I could tell you about these new French people [Napoleon's ambassador and his wife, whose marital troubles were the scandal of the year in Washington], things that could not fail to divert you, but I must forbear, and am learning to hold my tongue well.”69

  The Madisons kept their friends close when they moved to the White House, and those friendships sustained them. Dolley had many friends from her days living in Philadelphia. One was Phoebe Morris, whom she knew for years, a young woman who adored her. A few months after Madison was inaugurated, Morris wrote the First Lady, “Those who formerly enjoyed the pleasure of your acquaintance, retrace the lines, features and expressions of a face and form on which they had gazed with delight; & those who have not been so favored gratify an anxious and amiable curiosity, in beholding a just resemblance of them in whose virtues they also claim an interest, as the dignified representative of our sex in very female virtue adorned with all her sex's beauty, grace and loveliness.”70

  And they constantly invited family to stay with them for as long as they wanted, especially Dolley's sister Anna, who had moved away when she married Richard Cutts. Dolley was ecstatic to learn Anna was visiting in 1810. “It is almost my first wish in this world that you should be happy & well & I will certainly advance it on every way that I can. Come then, with spirits & hope. I will have a fire made in your room and all prepared for your reception, with a sparkling bottle & warm hearts.”71

  Madison had been a good secretary of state. He not only had to advise the president but also make hundreds of decisions himself on US relations with dozens of foreign nations. He kept up a brisk correspondence with US ambassadors abroad, met regularly with foreign ministers in Washington, kept up a steady st
ream of letters to world leaders and ministers, and ran the State Department, which, small as it was, took considerable skill and time. He was cognizant of the views of all diplomats whom he talked to, and he knew the history of their countries and the history of their relations to the United States and the political situations they found themselves in. He knew how to deal with them and understood that events and decisions of world leaders would derail the best-made plans. He knew all about previous American dealings with foreign countries and could always, in his head, figure out the motives of foreign officials. His days as secretary of state were filled with decisions on matters in the new Louisiana Territory and in dealing with Spanish officials still there. He wrote Governor Claiborne at one point that he and Jefferson wanted the governor to strike some sort of deal with the Spaniards to give them post offices, but to suggest that they might be more pleased without post offices. It was that kind of clever dealing that made Madison successful.72

  In international decisions, Madison exhibited the same shrewd understanding of politics and people. When he had to recall Charles Pinckney as ambassador to Spain, he told his successor, Monroe, that he had to be very careful about what he said about Pinckney. “I could not permit myself to flatter him, and truth would not permit me to praise him. He is well off in escaping reproof for his agency has been very faulty as well as feeble. Should you find him in Madrid, he may, however, give you some clues that may be useful.”

  He shrewdly added in his letter to Monroe that certain Spanish politicians ran the court, not those whom everyone believed ran it. To those people, Madison told Monroe, he had to pretend that the United States wanted a strong alliance with France in order to obtain a stronger one with Spain.