James and Dolley Madison

by Bruce Chadwick

  To become involved in such international political intrigue, Madison had to know his own ministers, know the foreign diplomats, have information from others on both, and use all to obtain his goals. He had to instruct his ministers on how to play their political cards as well as they could to get what he and Jefferson wanted. He also had to comb through dozens of newspapers to find out information about them. Madison was probably the best-read man in the country when he was secretary of state. He would preface his marks to many, “I have read in the newspapers…”73

  He had a broad understanding, too, of the United States’ place in the world and how both foreigners and Americans saw that place. It would be foolish to gain one goal at the price of losing another, greater goal. Foreign victories might be small if brought about by domestic losses. He bluntly told a Maryland man that “national degradation as the only calamity which is not greater than those of war. To avoid, if it be possible, amidst the unbridled passions which convulse other nations, both of these alternatives, is our true wisdom, as well as our solemn duty.”74

  He had also done a stellar job as a political analyst for Jefferson, constantly discussing how each party and every member of it saw an issue and how the actions of all were good or bad for the Republicans. He had, in his head, complicated analysis of politics at the national, state, county, city, and even village level. He had served as a political mastermind for years and now, as he assumed the presidential office, he was better at it than ever. James Madison was, in 1809, uniquely qualified to be president, and his politically and socially savvy wife made him even more qualified.

  Now that he was president, Madison remained faithful to his Republican principles, as had his predecessor. He firmly believed that the country, and its government, belonged to the people, and that the president, and his party, had to represent all of the people. That's why he hated the now quickly disappearing Federalists; he believed they served a single, small faction of the American people. He also believed that it was the government's responsibility to rule fairly and not charge off on unnecessary domestic campaigns or foreign wars in order to build power. In a speech way back in 1792, when he was a congressman, he told his countrymen that each generation should not be burdened with the costs of the mistakes of previous generations. Americans are citizens, not caretakers. He argued, too, in that era, that a big government did not have to act in a big way.75

  He understood, too, after a lifetime of friendships with politicians of both parties, that human nature and personal interest governed all politics. “In all…assemblies…passion never fails to wrest the scepter from treason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian Assembly would still have been a mob,” he wrote in 1788.76

  James Madison the new president was not much different than James Madison the secretary of state or the founder of the Republican Party or the congressman or the architect of the US Constitution. He was, as friends and political allies said, an even-tempered man who never became exceedingly angry and saw all, despite their station in life, as equals. He was, his secretary Edward Coles said, “the most virtuous, calm and amiable of men, possessed of the purest heart and the best temper with which man was ever blessed.”77 Coles added that he never heard Madison “utter one petulant expression, or give way for one moment to passion or despondency…nothing could excite or ruffle him.”

  These were virtues that would serve him well when the War of 1812 began and he had to serve as commander in chief and political leader of his country at the same time. Charles Francis Adams, a historian and the son of John Quincy Adams, said that “foreign war and domestic discord came together upon him in a manner that would have tried the nerves of the strongest man,” and yet he did not flinch.78

  When he took office on March 4, 1809, Madison had advice from everyone. A correspondent who called himself “the old soldier” wrote just after his inauguration that it was time for tougher measures than an embargo. “[Only] if we could, for a moment, forget the insults and murders of the British and suppress our passions we should prefer this inoffensive mode of making war,” wrote one man to a Philadelphia newspaper.79

  Nobody had to tell him to watch the British; no one was more aware of Britain's truculence and duplicity than President Madison. In the winter of 1809, he still smarted from the complete lack of remorse by Britain for firing on the ship Chesapeake nearly two years earlier. “Every view of what had passed authorized a belief that immediate steps would be taken by the B. Govt. for redressing a wrong, which the more it was investigated appeared the more clearly to require what had not been provided for. No steps have been taken for the purpose,” he wrote in the autumn of 1808. In a second letter on the Chesapeake, he ranted that the lack of any British apology was “evidence of hostile inflexibility on rights which no independent nation can relinquish” and that it would drive the United States “into an armor.”80

  Regardless of his talents and shortcomings, most American wished him well when he took office. Residents of Newark, Delaware, enthusiastically toasted him at a town gathering. “May we always be happy in celebrating the fourth of March to the memory of the virtues and wisdom of his administration,” they toasted and cheered.81

  President Madison was on his way.

  When James Madison took over the presidency, he wanted to give it a different appearance. Jefferson had run the country for eight years and achieved great success. Madison wanted to leave his own thumbprint on the presidency. He wanted to do it in foreign affairs, in domestic issues, and with judicial appointments. But he also wanted to change the entire look of the federal government and saw the White House as representative of that. Madison wanted people to “see” the brand-new administration that he was talking about, and there was no better way to do that than to create a new White House.

  There were numerous changes at the White House in Madison's first term. Madison asked for and was given five thousand dollars to permit his wife to redecorate the White House, which she claimed looked shabby. Jefferson did little upkeep during his eight years there. In 1809, under Dolley, the drawing rooms were furnished with new curtains and forty new pieces of furniture, highlighted by bright-yellow sofas and chairs. A huge mirror with a rising sun over it was placed on the wall. Dolley's own drawing room was now upholstered in yellow satin with stiff sofas and high-backed chairs. The long windows were hung with damask. Huge mirrors adorned the walls of different rooms. She purchased a new set of silverware from Philadelphia. There were yellow-fringed drapes over the windows. Chairs were set up in small semicircles throughout the room. Tables in it, and in nearby rooms, overflowed with cakes, meats syrups, ice cream, and hot pastries. Waiters brought around glasses of wine and cups of steaming hot coffee. It was there in the newly refurbished drawing room and other parlors that Mrs. Madison entertained guests. Now that she was the official First Lady, she went out of her way to raise the level of elegance at the President's Mansion.1

  Within two years under the Madisons, the White House had become an elegant and richly furnished home. Visitors entered the front door and were at once in a large hall, which was used as an entry. Pillars of immense size were dispersed through this entry. It was handsomely furnished and had large lamps throughout. “The President's house is a perfect palace,” said Elbridge Gerry Jr., the son of the late vice president.

  Four large rooms were off the main entry hall. One was the dining room, said to be three times the size of any in America, and it was richly appointed. Dolley's sister said the sideboard was so large it would fill the entire parlors of most large American homes. Mrs. Madison's drawing room was off of the first-floor hallway, and it led to a larger, official drawing room that was oval and filled with large chairs and had portraits on the walls. A door opened from the drawing room to a terrace from which the Madisons could see the Potomac River. The enormous windows were the height of the drawing room and had silk-and-velvet curtains made of fabric that cost four dollars per yard (an astronomical sum for drapes in those days). The
White House parties were held in the drawing rooms. The first floor also contained a parlor for the president and another for Mrs. Madison. Nearly half of one side of the rest of the first floor was taken up with a cabinet room and offices.2

  Dolley upgraded the look of the First Lady and the president in a White House that seemed to see change everywhere. She ordered a new carriage, decorated by Benjamin Latrobe, with a huge, blazing letter M on each door; but this one was drawn by four horses and not two. Madison declined to have a six-horse carriage, as the Washingtons had. The carriage had expensive, English, lace curtains inside of it. Latrobe even consulted an Englishman who made carriages in London. Dolley approved everything before it was put into the carriage.3

  Dolley expanded her circle of friends to include new arrivals in both politics and business. Her husband's close friend James Monroe was soon the secretary of state and lived in town, so the Madisons saw him and his wife frequently, entertained them at the White House, and visited their home. When the Madisons spent their summers back at Montpelier, they visited the Monroes, who lived nearby. John C. Calhoun arrived from South Carolina in 1811, and the Madisons saw him as a political leader right away and included him in their social circle.

  Dolley continued to follow the latest fashions, such as wearing hats and bonnets as often as possible. She continued to do much reading, played the piano, and tended to her pet macaw. The bird was kept in a cage near a window in the White House, as it had been at the Madison's home, and Dolley fed it regularly. The president said hello to the bird when he could, and visitors spent much time looking at her. The macaw was as much an attraction at the White House as the Madisons. People who knew Dolley had a pet bird insisted that she needed more pets and sent them over. The biggest surprise was a large box of tiny, white mice.

  James Madison, as president, could not visit Congress or the Supreme Court except on official business, but his wife could. She had done that for years and continued to do so as First Lady. She and a group of girlfriends would sit in the gallery and listen to the Senate and House debate and sit in on announcements of Supreme Court rulings. She was always well dressed, as were her friends. They drew such attention in Congress that sometimes upon their arrival a speaker who had just finished an address would stand up and deliver it again, for their benefit.4

  The president smiled at that. He spent as much money as he could on Dolley, providing her with an enormous wardrobe and fine carriages. “Let me know how much [money] would be serviceable to you for your Philadelphia purposes. Let me know without reserve and I will do all I can in that as in all cases to evince the happiness I feel in giving proofs of my unlimited affection & confidence,” he wrote her in 1805, when she was convalescing in Philadelphia.

  When they traveled, they always stayed in the best inns. He was upset when he could not find superior lodgings for his wife. Once, when he had taken rooms for them in Richmond, he wrote sadly that “I found at Mr. Watson's a room prepared for me, and an empty one immediately over it, but they are both in a style much inferior to what I had hoped. You must consequently lower your expectations on this subject as much as possible before you join me,” he told her.5

  Mrs. Madison began the job of finding a cause to which she could devote her time. First Ladies over the next two hundred years followed her lead. Causes and charities are perfect tasks for First Ladies. They give the presidents’ wives plenty to do, but the work is nonpolitical and does not draw negative attention to themselves or their husbands. She decided to become the head of the City Orphan Asylum, which grew as the population of the city expanded. Dolley did not merely lend her name to stationary letterheads, though; she plunged into the work of the orphanage, chairing meetings, raising money, donating her own money, and even designing and cutting clothes for the children. “I never enjoyed anything so much,” she told a friend.6

  She also had to fend off a surprising number of people, mostly Federalists, who hated the brand-new Washington and staged an early effort to move the capital of the country back to Philadelphia (they would try again in 1814). They argued that Washington was not a fit place to live. It had a sparse population, a thin social scene, little public entertainment, few parks, few public schools, and small libraries, and it was made up of people who were all from somewhere else. Philadelphia had been a fine capital, a complete, large city with residential neighborhoods, a large entertainment scene, and an established social life.7

  Dolley and her husband, working with others in a heated behind-the-scenes movement, halted the efforts to move the capital back to Philadelphia. The decision had been made to build a new capital, but to put it in the middle of the country and to make its governmental buildings large, bold, and impressive. The new capital was the center of America's political universe and would be for hundreds of years. They had to stay put. And they did.

  Madison read letters from editors in just about every American paper telling him that now that he was president, and not secretary of state, he had to do any number of things, and right away.8 And he had to continually refute charges that he was a sick man and, as such, would be a weak president. A man wrote in the Natchez Chronicle that Madison was “a weak, debilitated man, greatly affected by fever” and “unable” to do his job.9

  There were critics, too, who, despite the Republican electoral advantage, saw them as the devil incarnate. A man wrote in a local newspaper that since they were going out of office with Jefferson's retirement, it was time to judge them as “weak” and “foolish” public officials who had left the world worse for their eight-year reign.10

  And Madison still had to deal with members of Congress, such as John Randolph, his archenemy, who had spent the last year lambasting him over his embargo. “I never said the carrying trade was not incentive and a profitable mode of employment for our ships [but I] do not think it of sufficient importance to be retained at the expense of a war,” said Randolph.11

  That had been just the latest Randolph tirade. In 1807, in a three-hour-long speech in Congress, Randolph had sneered at Madison for his 200-plus-page pamphlet against British impressment policy, shredding it page by page. Then he accused Madison of ruining Jefferson's cabinet. He finished off his scalding blast by accusing Madison of bribing the French to get them to help the United States obtain all of Florida, stunning the members of the House. Madison smiled when he heard of the criticism. Republican congressmen cringed at Randolph's abusive language, and even his friends told him he had gone too far. One told him that when all was said and done, years from then, history would overlook his vicious criticisms and consider Madison a great man. Randolph scoffed.12 Less than a year later, Randolph called Madison “a polecat,” sending even more shudders throughout the political world.13

  The problems Madison faced as president were compounded by the “success” he had gained with his policies as secretary of state. As an example, he had always been a strong advocate of the migration of hundreds of thousands of Americans from the eastern seaboard to the Mississippi valley region. He was pleased by the invasion of settlers, but that fertile Louisiana world soon had troubles of its own. Attracted by the new traffic, small bands of robbers began to appear on all the dusty dirt roads in the area, which caused enormous distress to travelers and increased law-enforcement costs. Sales of land were in the tens of thousands of acres, and purchasers discovered that they had bought land that several hundred people already lived on—and refused to leave. That dispute went to local state courts and then all the way to the White House, where a disgruntled Madison had to order the forcible eviction of the squatters.14

  At the same time that he was running the country, Madison was also still running his plantation back in Montpelier. His manager, James Dinsmore, whose only concern was the farm and not the president's overload of responsibility, constantly wrote him letters asking for decisions on mundane items such as bookshelves (the president had to decide whether or not to make the windows smaller to accommodate the larger bookshelves or keep the windows wi
de and get smaller book shelves).15

  Personal tragedies beset him, too. Just one day after the bookshelf dispute at Montpelier, he learned that Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson's aide who, with William Clark, had headed up the landmark Lewis and Clark expedition into the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, which had gained worldwide attention, had committed suicide. He then had to investigate the sad end for the famous explorer, and that took time. Then he had to tell his friend Jefferson about it. On the home front, Madison continually struggled with his brother-in-law John Payne's alcoholism. It had depressed his wife, Dolley. Finally, Madison gave John Payne a job as a clerk in the minister to Tunis's office in Africa, hopeful, as his wife wrote friends, that new scenery would curb his drinking. It did not. A few months later, Lucy Washington was writing to her sisters Anna and Dolley that their brother John had resumed his drinking in Tunis. Lucy wrote her sisters, “I know not what to say or do, but greatly fear for him. It seems to me impossible his sisters can render him any essential service without ruin to themselves and then perhaps it may answer no good and—heaven help him I pray.”16

  Dolley wrote her brother and invited him to move into the White House with her, her husband, and other members of the family. “You promised to return to us long before this and I hope and trust that if you are disappointed in our prospects where you are, that you will not suffer those weak reflections [drinking] on yourself, which affect me, in your letter, to stay you one moment from my arms & heart, that are open to receive you. You would return to sisters & brothers that love you & whose happiness it would be to do everything for you, if you required.”17 She also asked him to give her power of attorney so she could sell his lands and wrap up his failed business ventures in America. She told him, too, that she and her husband would pull strings to get him a better job in the foreign service in Europe if he so desired. Unbeknown to him, she also sent letters to people in France and Africa who might see him to remind them to discreetly tell him to report for jobs and do what was required of him.