She added that residents of the new city, official and unofficial, unlike residents of European capitals, turned the very formal assets of the town into very informal places to make friends. Men and women spent time at the capital meeting new people each time they visited. She said that the key to the city's development into a village of friends and not just residents were the drawing-room socials hosted by Dolley Madison and others. It was there, she said, that the wide-open guest lists, with foreign ministers arriving after local merchants and duchesses after college students, made the city whole. Smith said that when she first arrived in town, just ahead of the Madisons, the socials and drawing-room parties drew only a few dozen residents. Now, a typical party attracted some three hundred guests, and far more clamored to be added to the invitations list.2
The city had been bulging in size for years, but the number of new residents really spiked when Madison's first term began in 1809. “The city is thronged with strangers,” a local resident wrote that winter. “Yesterday we saw four or five carriages-and-four come in and already two have passed this morning. I don't know how many [women] have come from Baltimore. There are parties every night and the galleries are crowded in the morning,” she wrote.3
All of those who visited Washington had to travel down narrow, dirt roadways on slow-moving horses or in carriages and buggies whose wheels caught every bump in the road. It took three days to travel ninety miles. The country around the capital that visitors drove through, though, was beautiful, well worth the rocky ride. On mornings, it was often covered with a thick, milky fog. As the sun rose, the fog was broken and the tops of hills and the forests beneath them became visible, all dotted with streams and depressions and jutting rock ledges.
The departure of Madison in 1817 brought on the presidency of James Monroe, the third consecutive Republican president and third consecutive Virginian. He, like Madison, presided over a House and Senate where Republicans enjoyed a comfortable majority in seats. Madison never felt that the Republicans had gained power and held it simply because of their policies. He always told people the reason was also the failure of the Federalists. Many agreed with him. “[People] overlook the overbearing and vindictive spirit, the apocryphal doctrines and rash projects, which stamped on federalism its distinctive character; and which are so much in contrast with the unassuming and unvarying spirit which has marked the Republican Ascendancy,” wrote Dr. William Eustis, looking back in 1823.4
Madison had left the growing and powerful government in the hands of the man who had served him so well when he was president, just as Jefferson had left him in charge when he went back to Monticello. Madison was confident that the federal government, strengthened by the War of 1812, was a good one.
One of the biggest changes in America during Madison's years in office was the tidal wave of European immigrants arriving daily at American seaports. Many Americans were concerned that the new arrivals, hundreds of thousands of them, would take American jobs and reshape American character. Madison was not one of them. He welcomed the new arrivals and saw them as a way to build American spirit. In 1794, he had introduced a bill to allow immigrants to move to America with a wait of only five years before they could become citizens (they had to pledge loyalty to the Constitution). Ever since then, throughout the battles over the Alien and Sedition Acts, he had championed the immigrants.5
The political world of the United States and its immigrants had changed substantially from the day Madison first went to the Continental Congress in 1780 as a young man. Now there were two major political parties, a self-imposed two-term limit on the presidency, a large Congress with two houses, a functioning Supreme Court, and a new national capital. This ever-changing political landscape was heralded by Madison. He had predicted this altered scenery back in 1787. “The [people] have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation and the lessons of their own experience. Posterity will be indebted for the possession and the world for the example of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theater.”6
The steamship trip out of Washington was a pleasant one. The boat was jammed with well-wishers. Madison and his wife were eager to get back to Montpelier. James Paulding, who accompanied him on the trip, was astonished at the buoyancy of the chief executive as he headed into retirement. Paulding said he “was as playful as a child, talked and jested with everybody on board…[like] a school boy on a long vacation.”7
As they sailed down the Potomac, they saw small villages on each side of the river rising up over the slopes of meadows and out of forests, indicative of the tremendous population explosion the country had experienced during Madison's sixteen years as secretary of state and president. When James Madison went to Congress for the first time in 1779, America had just over two million people. The population of the country had increased dramatically, and by the time he left office the country had over eight million residents, quadruple the number that lived within its borders when the revolution began. New York, which had just over ten thousand residents during the revolution, had nearly one hundred thousand when Madison left office, edging past Philadelphia (92,000) to become the nation's most crowded city (Baltimore was third and Boston was fourth).8
President Madison was so popular, and so politically acclaimed, that when he left office, John Quincy Adams, soon to be president himself, told Madison that he could have won a third term easily and won it with huge support from the Federalists. He wrote that “such is the state of minds here, that had Mr. Madison been a candidate, he would probably have had the votes of Massachusetts and consequently of all New England.”9
The Madisons had been packing for weeks and had sent off a long train of wagons containing their possessions to Montpelier before they boarded the boat. After they left the ship, they traveled southwest to Orange Court House by carriage, cheered on by all of the people they met on the way. When the Madisons arrived home at Montpelier, riding up that long, gorgeous entry road from the highway, Dolly found a letter from her friend Eliza Collins Lee. In it, Lee congratulated her and welcomed her to retirement among the trees and fields of her beloved Montpelier. “On this day eight years ago, I wrote to congratulate you on the joyful event that placed you in the highest station our country can bestow. I then enjoyed the proudest feelings, that my friend of my youth, who never had forsaken me, should be thus distinguished, and so peculiarly fitted for it…talents such as yours were never intended to remain inactive,” she wrote, reminding Dolley of her great success as First Lady. “You will retire from the tumult and fatigue of public life to your favorite retreat in Orange County and will carry with you principles and manners not to be put off with the robe of state.” A Supreme Court Justice, William Johnson Jr., wrote Dolley,“[You] carry with you to your retirement the blessings of all who ever knew you…you may long enjoy every blessing that heaven bestows to the meritorious.”10
It was a warm welcome-home present and she cherished it. There were many letters from friends in Washington wishing her well in retirement and thanking her profusely for her friendship. One was from Lucia Kantzow, a diplomat's wife, who wrote that “the kindness I received, and the happiness I found, in making your acquaintance with the respect & gratitude I feel towards you, and your husband, is impossible [to describe].”11
She put all such letters in her desk drawers and then, with her husband, plunged into the work of running the house and the four farms that made up their plantation.
Each morning, after breakfast with Dolley and whoever was visiting, Madison walked to the stables, had a servant saddle up a horse, and then began a long ride through his plantations, the soft breezes in his face, riding partially for exercise, partially for the fun of it, and mostly to check with slaves and overseers on work projects and crop harvests. His rides were usually pleasant, but sometimes they were not. James Paulding went riding with him one day in 1818. “We rode to a distant part of
the estate bordering on the Rapidan River…a ferocious stream, and subject to occasional inundations. There had been a very heavy shower the day before; the river had overflowed its banks and covered two or three acres of fine meadow with gravel some inches deep, so that it was completely spoiled,” said Paulding.12
Madison visited his aging mother Nelly each midafternoon and spent an hour or so talking to her. Nelly, who was rarely sick, lived to be ninety-seven years old. Her son added the north wing of the house to provide her with extra living space. Nelly kept to herself and had her own slave staff to care for her.
Nelly Madison kept busy all of her life. She knitted constantly and spent long hours reading books. “My eyes, thanks be to God, have not failed me yet, and I read most part of the day. But in other respects I am feeble and helpless,” she told one visitor when she was in her nineties.13
She always told guests at Montpelier how much she was grateful to the care that her son and daughter-in-law gave her. “I owe everything to her,” she said to Margaret Bayard Smith, pointing to Dolley, who was sitting nearby in her room “She is my mother now, and tenderly cares for all my wants.”14
Back home at Montpelier in the summers of the 1830s, Dolley made light of the recession, her sagging plantation business, and her son. She was chipper when she wrote lifelong friend Anthony Morris one summer, “We are all in high health, and looking on promising crops, flocks and herds as well as on the world of fashion around us. My great nephew & niece with a pair of neighbors being pleased to get married since our return has brought about more than our usual gaiety. I gave them in unison a large party of two or three days continuance, before and after which Anna and Payne went the rounds as bridesmaid and Best Man.”15
The Madisons joined guests for dinner around 4 p.m. each day. Dinner usually lasted until 6 p.m. or so, depending on how many visitors were at the table. Visitors loved dinners because Madison, far more cheerful among friends and relatives than strangers, regaled everyone with stories from his life, which, of course, featured the most famous and important men and women in the world. Margaret Bayard Smith said that at these dinners, guests listened to “living history” and added that she had been with Madison at other times, with strangers, when the president was cold and repulsive.
A visitor to Montpelier, H. D. Gilpin, who visited him in retirement, said that Madison looked good. “[He] is quite a short, thin man, with his head bald except on the back, where his hair hangs down to his collar and over his ears, nicely powdered, old as he is…and seems very hale and hearty. The expression of his face is full of good humor. He was dressed in black, with breeches and old-fashioned top boots…looked very nice.” Then Dolley arrived with panache, as she always did. Gilpin wrote that she was “quite stylish in a turban and fine gown. She has a great deal of dignity blended with good humor and knowledge of the world.”16
After dinner was over, guests would join the Madisons in the parlor during wintertime, or on the front porch or in the flower-filled back gardens during the spring and summer months. They would spend two hours or more talking about the events of the day, friends, and family.
Madison spent much of the time talking to guests about his own career, the War of 1812, and current politics. It was then, when darkness began to slowly fall over the Blue Ridge Mountains, that the real James Madison emerged, the colorful and funny raconteur who loved to tell stories and listen to a good joke. It was at these after dinner discussions that Madison let down what little hair he had left. The talks were especially engaging when he had old friends from his political days at his side, a glass of wine in their hands. People like Jefferson, Monroe, and Henry Clay, relaxing in large, comfortable chairs, joined Madison in stories of presidents and wars and Congress and arrogant diplomats. They sat for hours, engaging all with the stories of the United States they had made. Their tales soared with drama and shook with humor. It was there, with the sun setting on the hills and with close friends and old political allies around him, that James Madison shone.
The president also loved to talk just after breakfast, before the sun drenched the fields in front of his home. Paulding sat with him many mornings that first summer of retirement. “I seat myself on the western portico, looking towards the Blue Ridge, while Mr. Madison would commence a conversation sometimes on public affairs, in connection with his previous public life, in which he spoke without reserve & from which I gathered lessons of wise practical experience, sometimes in literary and philosophical subject and not infrequently, for he was a capital story teller, he would relate anecdotes highly amusing as well as interesting. He was a man of wit, relished wit in others & his small bright blue eyes would twinkle most wickedly when lighted up by some whimsical conception or exposition.”17
Dolley had always enjoyed gardening at Montpelier and in retirement had plenty of time for it. She worked as hard in her fruit-filled gardens, which were next to the house, as Madison did in the fields. She wrote one of her nieces, “our garden promises grapes and figs in abundance but I shall not enjoy them unless your mamma comes and brings you to help us with them,” she wrote, adding that a frost had killed most of her green peas.18
Work outdoors did not diminish Dolley's beauty. Many thought the gardening, and the hours on her knees and hands caked in dirt made her even more attractive. Margaret Bayard Smith saw her in the gardens in 1827. “Time seems to favor her as much as fortune. She looks young and she says she feels so. I can believe her, not do I think she will ever look or feel like an old woman,” she wrote.19
The president also spent a considerable amount of time discussing farming with guests. All considered him one of the best farmers in Virginia and listened intently to his advice. He told visitors to carefully irrigate and rotate their crops, maintain large forests for firewood, and keep a careful eye on what produce England and European countries needed. That was how he had become so successful. For example, the European need for wheat had dropped throughout the recent war, so Madison shifted over and grew tobacco.
He also experimented with seeds to grow new crops, such as those Jefferson brought him from Monticello. He grew strains of new wheat and corn from seeds sent to him from friends in South America. He produced his own special ears of corn and then sent boxes of them to Monroe and other friends so that they could use them for their own experimentation.20
The former president went into detailed discussions of farming equipment—how much of it he had and how he had always tinkered with it in order to make farm machines more suitable for Virginia soil than for soil they had been tried out upon in New England and the Middle Atlantic States. One example was a plow invented by George Logan in Philadelphia in 1793. Madison and workers fused together the two parts of the plow, making it one machine. He wrote Jefferson that “the detached form may answer best in old, clean ground but will not stand the shocks of our rough & rooty land, especially in the hands of our ploughmen.” In another note, he wrote that “I have tried the patent plow amended by fixing the colter in the usual way. It succeeds perfectly and I think forms the plow best suited to its object.”21
As a farmer, Madison often experimented with his livestock to create new breeds. He tried to breed ordinary sheep with imported Merino sheep that were rams. The president was one of several farmers in Virginia who did that. George Washington had inbred types of buffalo.
At postdinner discussions with friends about agriculture, Madison said that he also believed that farmers led better lives and lived longer. He said the exposure to plants and trees, and just walking about in fresh air all day, was healthy. The president told his friends and relatives that hard farming made men stronger psychologically as well as physically. Farm work was good for the body and the soul. He reminded all, too, that he had farms in other areas of Virginia and in Kentucky. He and Dolley owned a home in Washington as well as Montpelier and, he said quietly, they had nearly one hundred slaves. He thought that depressions and recessions would not hurt the Madisons because they had large assets. He was wro
ng on that. A depression in farming in the 1820s and early 1830s, plus several bad harvests highlighted by lengthy frosts and a lack of rain, plus general crop failure, plus an economic downturn, did cause him severe financial problems—as did his practice of paying for relatives’ college tuitions and covering the bills of his brother-in-law John and stepson, Payne. The reason that he survived the depression was that he had so much land that he could sell off 100-acre patches of it for several thousand dollars each and use that money to pay bills, retire the debts of family members, cover college tuitions, and simply hand out money to friends and relatives—even though there were many who asked for it. Jefferson and Monroe barely broke even on their farms each year, even with an unpaid workforce of slaves. Others, who went bankrupt, left the county and moved somewhere else in Virginia or to another state.22
When the postmeal talks ended, around nine or so in the evening, everyone was escorted upstairs to bed by the servants. If there was a large crowd of overnight guests, the servants would bring out beds and set them up in rooms or in the hallways. In hot weather, doors and windows were flung open for ventilation, much like they had in the times of Madison's presidency.
Madison loved to sit on his front porch and look out over his land in the morning; so did Dolley. Sometimes his wife reminisced about their days in Washington with friends and said she would like to move back there. She missed the parties and the politics. She told her niece Dolley that she was happy in her “quiet retreat,” but missed the “maneuverings and gossip of the old days” at White House socials. She missed Richmond, too. Except for Washington, Richmond was the social capital of the South. Socialite Abigail Mayo wrote in 1804 that in Richmond she attended a ball, dozens of dinner parties, and several theater parties in a month. Everyone there was eager to see Dolley. Mayo wrote her, “I have had many inquiries about you from your friends here, who would delight to see you again in this capital and if you will but make me a visit I am sure you will have reason to believe they are sincere in their professions of admiration and esteem.” Dolley remembered all of the good times there and constantly reminded friends of them. “I told you how delighted I had been with the society of Richmond,” she wrote one in 1800.23
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