James Madison: A Life Reconsidered

by Lynne Cheney

  Word of the congressional purchase led creditors to demand payment, and Dolley was soon making plans to sell off paintings that had hung at Montpelier, which she had managed to keep out of Payne Todd’s hands. In the years before Henry Moncure bought the estate, Payne had regularly removed valuable items from the mansion to sell—including some of his stepfather’s papers—but Dolley had some items remaining, and she intended either to auction or to raffle them to raise cash to fend off creditors.8

  Dolley found comfort for her trials at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House, where she was confirmed as a member, and in loving friends and relatives who were with her in her dying days. Not long after her eighty-first birthday, she fell into a coma from which she woke occasionally to smile at those gathered around her. On the evening of July 12, 1849, she drew her last breath. Her funeral, held at St. John’s four days later, was the largest that the capital city had ever seen. Afterward, a cortege of dignitaries, led by President Zachary Taylor, accompanied her body to the Congressional Cemetery, where her casket was placed in a vault. Her son, Payne, did not long outlive her, dying on a cold and stormy day in 1852.9

  In 1858, one of her beloved sister Anna’s sons traveled with her remains to Montpelier, where she was buried in the family graveyard next to James.10 Once again she was with her darling—and he with the woman to whom he had pledged his unalterable love.

  • • •

  JAMES’S GRAVE was marked by an obelisk now, paid for by admirers who could not bear to let his final resting place go unacknowledged. Five years after Mrs. Madison’s interment, his grave marker would be sketched by a soldier in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Private Watkins Kearns drew the obelisk in August 1863 after he had retreated with General Robert E. Lee from Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Upward of fifty thousand men had been killed or wounded.11

  The Constitution, without which there would have been no Union, could not prevent the war that threatened the Union’s destruction, but when peace finally came, the Constitution remained. It was amended to end slavery according to the process Madison had drafted in Philadelphia three-quarters of a century before, the same process he had used to achieve the Bill of Rights, the same process that would be used to extend the vote to women, the same process that would achieve—by way of the Fourteenth Amendment and later rulings—one of his longest-sought goals: the protection of individual rights in the states.12

  The founding framework endured and pays tribute to Madison’s genius still today, as does the great nation that the Constitution has made possible. The United States of America is testimony to the strength of the well-founded commonwealth—and proof of the righteousness of James Madison’s unbounded faith in liberty.

  Serving in the Continental Congress, James Madison, although in his early thirties, looked much younger. One member thought he was a recent college graduate.

  Madison’s 1783 romance with Kitty Floyd ended badly, and she changed her mind about marrying him.

  George Washington presides as a delegate signs the Constitution in September 1787. Madison, holding a quill, is to the right of Washington.

  Madison’s first contribution to The Federalist is his most famous. In Federalist 10, defying conventional wisdom, he argued that a large republic would better protect minority rights than a small one.

  Alexander Hamilton worked with Madison to produce The Federalist, but they later became fierce opponents.

  Madison wrote Washington’s first inaugural address and was his most influential adviser as the new government began.

  By this time of this portrait in 1792, Madison was the powerful leader of the House of Representatives. Always simpler in his dress than his fellow Virginians, he would eventually wear only black.

  In 1794, Madison, one of the nation’s most prominent politicians, wooed and won the glamorous widow Dolley Payne Todd. Ten years later, after Madison had become secretary of state, Gilbert Stuart painted their portraits.

  Madison’s father built the original brick home at Montpelier.

  After his marriage, Madison built an addition to the left with a separate entrance for him and his family. His parents lived in the original part of the house to the right.

  As president, Madison added a central doorway, which together with the portico unified the structure. He also added wings.

  Thomas Jefferson won the presidential election of 1800 with Madison’s help, but it was close. Jefferson’s intended vice president, Aaron Burr, received an equal number of electoral votes.

  The refusal of Burr, shown here, to give way to Jefferson threw the election into the House of Representatives, destroyed Burr’s political career, and made Madison, whom Jefferson had named secretary of state, the likely successor to the presidency.

  Washington City became the capital of the United States in 1800, and to the secretary of state-designate and Mrs. Madison, arriving by carriage in late April 1801, it might have looked something like this.

  When James and Dolley Madison arrived in Washington City in 1801, they found just one wing of the Capitol finished.

  One of the early diplomatic challenges for Secretary of State Madison occurred when President Jefferson, who had his own ideas of etiquette, escorted Dolley Madison rather than Elizabeth Merry, wife of the British minister, shown here, into a dinner at the president’s house.

  The Spanish minister, the marquis de Yrujo, who was married to the former Sally McKean, a childhood friend of Dolley Madison, took up the Merrys’ cause. Secretary of State Madison helped control the diplomatic damage.

  Marquis de Casa Yrujo and Marchioness de Casa Yrujo, Gilbert Charles Stuart. Collection of Thomas R. and Susan McKean; photographs courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

  John Randolph of Roanoke was Madison’s bitter enemy. Eccentric to the point of instability, Congressman Randolph railed with such vitriol on the floor of the House while Madison was secretary of state and president that his speeches became largely ineffective.

  Anna Payne, Dolley Madison’s younger sister, who was virtually raised by the Madisons, had her portrait done by Gilbert Stuart. The painter entertained himself by shaping the curtain in the background into his own profile.

  In 1804, Anna Payne married Congressman Richard Cutts at the Washington Navy Yard. His later financial insolvency would be expensive for James Madison.

  John Payne Todd, Dolley Madison’s son from her first marriage, was a toddler when the Madisons married. He grew up to be a handsome, hard-drinking gambler.

  The USS Chesapeake as she might have appeared before the British frigate Leopard launched a surprise attack on her in June 1807. Madison called the action, which helped provoke the War of 1812, “lawless and bloody.”

  President Madison welcomed news of the stunning victory of the USS Constitution over the British frigate Guerriere. The message arrived in Washington as the presidential election of 1812 approached.

  Convinced that the British would never attack Washington, John Armstrong, President Madison’s secretary of war, dragged his feet when it came to the capital’s defense.

  Madison’s concern that the British would attack the capital city proved well founded. British troops burned the Capitol, the White House, and other public buildings on August 24, 1814.

  After the British attack, Madison named his former rival James Monroe to head the War Department.

  This enormous flag, which flew over Fort McHenry on the morning of September 14, 1814, inspired “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Each star is two feet wide.

  Finding the White House uninhabitable when they returned to Washington, President and Mrs. Madison moved into the Octagon House. It was there that Madison signed the Treaty of Ghent, ending the war.

  This 1816 portrait of President Madison emphasizes the steady resolve with which he brought the nation through its first war under the Constitution.

  This pair of portraits painted in 1817, after Madison had retired from office, shows Dolley stil
l beautiful at forty-nine, but James showing his years at sixty-six. The painting of the former president also hints at the kindness that Madison’s friends consistently attributed to him.

  Montpelier has recently been restored so that visitors can see it as James and Dolley Madison knew it. Twentieth-century additions have been stripped away. Pink stucco that had been applied over the brick has been removed. Interiors are being recreated so that it is once again possible to imagine James Madison playing chess in the drawing room or reading and studying maps and globes in his library.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THE DEBTS I HAVE ACCUMULATED in writing James Madison go back more than a quarter century to my service on the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Former chief justice Warren E. Burger, the chairman of the commission, impressed on us all what a wondrous document the Constitution is, and I will never forget his wise disquisitions on it. As my interest in James Madison, the father of the Constitution, deepened, I was increasingly puzzled by the disjunction between the grandeur of his accomplishments and the portrayal of him as weak and shy. In 2007, I began extensive research to try to understand this seeming contradiction and soon found myself embarked on a book about Madison’s life.

  I am extraordinarily grateful to Clare Ferraro, president of Viking, for having faith in my project. Wendy Wolf at Viking is a paragon among editors, knowledgeable, insightful, and direct. Thank you, Wendy, and my thanks as well to associate editor Maggie Riggs and to Bruce Giffords, who oversaw the editorial production process with precision and patience. I was also fortunate to have an outstanding copyeditor, Ingrid Sterner. My gratitude to Brianna Harden, who designed the striking jacket for James Madison, and to Amy Hill, designer of the lovely interior of the book. I am also grateful to marketing director Nancy Sheppard, publicity director Carolyn Coleburn, senior publicist Meredith Burks, and publicist Kristen Matzen.

  Let me also acknowledge attorney Bob Barnett, my adviser for many years. He encouraged me to write this book and brought to the project, as he has to all the others with which he has helped me, an amazing knowledge of the publishing industry and lively good cheer.

  • • •

  THE INTERNET HAS REVOLUTIONIZED research in recent years, but physical libraries and archives remain indispensable. I cannot imagine writing this book without the amazing resources of the Library of Congress, where I received invaluable assistance from Mary Yarnall in the Collections Access, Loan, and Management Division. I am indebted to Eric Frazier in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, where I was able to read health manuals to which people in the eighteenth century turned, and to Patrick Kerwin and Lewis Wyman in the Manuscript Division, where among other original documents, I was able to study Madison’s letter describing the end of his romance with Kitty Floyd and decipher some of the words he tried to obliterate. Our great national repositories, which are rapidly digitizing their holdings, are also a source of expert guidance through the electronic world. Digital research specialist Jennifer Harbster at the Library of Congress provided help with weather records, directing me to a periodical that reported rain and thunder on May 5, 1787, the day Madison arrived in Philadelphia for the federal convention.

  At the National Archives, another of the nation’s great treasures, I was aided immeasurably by Jacqueline Budell, who helped me find my way to documents on the archives’ Web site, such as letters written by high officials, and to items as yet undigitized, such as an account written by a clerk, Mordecai Booth, who in 1814 helped burn the Washington Navy Yard before the British could seize it. I thank her and also David Langbart for his help. My gratitude as well to Nancy Smith, who was kind enough to arrange for me to bring my grandchildren to the archives so that we could all marvel over the Constitution of the United States, the world-changing document on display there.

  In the Firestone Library of Princeton University, I first saw the draft autobiography that Madison wrote in 1816 in which he described his “constitutional liability to sudden attacks, somewhat resembling epilepsy, and suspending the intellectual functions.” These attacks, he wrote, speaking of himself in the third person, “continued thro’ his life.” In private hands until 1953 and unpublished still as I write, this manuscript persuaded me that it was time to take Madison at his word and explore what he meant by his “sudden attacks.” I want to thank Ben Primer of Rare Books and Special Collections in the Firestone Library for assisting me in locating the draft autobiography. I would also like to thank reference librarian Gabriel Swift for his assistance, and AnnaLee Pauls as well. Andrew Kilberg was an excellent guide to the Princeton campus, where Madison attended college.

  As I tried to understand Madison’s disorder, I had the best advice possible. Dr. Orrin Devinsky, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center of New York University’s Langone Medical Center, met with me, responded to e-mails, and actually believed that I would finish this book someday. I am most grateful to have had Dr. Devinsky’s help—and I hereby absolve him of any errors in my interpretation. I would also like to thank Dr. Brian Litt, director of the Penn Epilepsy Center, who offered an excellent reading suggestion. Stephen J. Greenberg in the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health was helpful as well.

  At the University of Virginia, I would like to thank Karin Wittenborg for her assistance at the Alderman Library and express my gratitude to Robert Perkins of the Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature, and Culture. I would like to thank Clay Davis as well. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the university is a magnificent resource, and it was there that I read the account book that shows James Madison Sr. paying for a cradle for his firstborn. I would like to thank Nicole Bouché, Michael Plunkett, and Margaret Hrabe for their assistance.

  At the University of Pennsylvania, where I saw the second orrery built by David Rittenhouse (I viewed the first at Princeton), I was welcomed by director of libraries H. Carton Rogers III and David McKnight, who directs the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. I was ably assisted in that library by Daniel Traister and John Pollack. At the University of Michigan’s William L. Clements Library, research specialist Janet Bloom provided valuable assistance. William diGiacomantonio of the First Federal Congress project was kind enough to advise about which member of Washington’s administration wrote under the penname Scourge. I am also grateful to Frederick Madison Smith, president of the National Society of Madison Family Descendants, who was helpful with Madison genealogy.

  At the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, I viewed the unpublished Madison family papers in the Shane Collection. They include the pocket-sized piece of paper listing medicines “for an epilepsy” that James Madison’s grandmother Frances ordered. When my time in Philadelphia was unexpectedly cut short, I was graciously assisted by Elaine E. Hasleton of the Family History Library in Salt Lake, which microfilmed the Shane Collection.

  At the Virginia Historical Society, Frances S. Pollard, director of library services, was most helpful, as were Katherine Wilkins, Matthew Chaney, and Jamison Davis. My gratitude for their assistance at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to Lee Arnold, senior director of the library and collections; Jack Gumbrecht, director of research services; Hillary S. Kativa; and Christopher Damiani. At Independence National Historical Park, I am indebted to chief curator Karie Diethorn and historian Coxey Toogood, as well as to Andrea Ashby. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of librarian James N. Green at the Library Company of Philadelphia, as well as Cornelia S. King, Linda August, Sarah Weatherwax, and Erika Piola.

  At the Massachusetts Historical Society, a number of people have been of great help, including Elaine Grublin, head of reader services, and Tracy Potter, reference librarian. I would also like to thank Anna J. Cook, Andrea Cronin, Betsy Boyle, and Rakashi Chand.

  I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Robin Kipps, who supervises the Pasteur and Galt Apothecary in C
olonial Williamsburg, and Del Moore, reference librarian at the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library.

  The homes of the early presidents are sources of enlightenment and inspiration for anyone working in the founding period. I would particularly like to acknowledge the excellent leadership of Kat Imhoff, president and executive director of the Montpelier Foundation, and her predecessor, Michael C. Quinn, as well as the outstanding work of Sean O’Brien, executive director of the Center for the Constitution. They lead a wonderful team that during the time of my research included Lee Langston-Harrison, Christian Cotz, Lynne Dakin Hastings, Meg Kennedy, Matthew B. Reeves, C. Thomas Chapman, Ellen Wessel, Grant S. Quertermous, Tiffany W. Cole, Allison Deeds, and Lisa Timmerman. I also want to recognize Ann L. Miller’s meticulous and valuable work. The energy and inspiration of the Montpelier team has made it possible to see James Madison’s home as he and Mrs. Madison knew it and to better understand the greatness of Madison’s accomplishments. Their ongoing efforts are daily bringing forth more information, not just about James and Dolley, but also about James’s ancestors and Mount Pleasant, the small home to which his grandfather brought his grandmother Frances and their children. The lives of those who were enslaved at Montpelier are becoming part of the historical record thanks to the ongoing work of the Montpelier team.

  At Monticello, Daniel P. Jordan, then president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, was a gracious host, and Susan R. Stein, the Richard Gilder curator and vice president for museum programs, a marvelous guide. I was also the beneficiary of time spent with Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, who directs the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, and J. Jefferson Looney, editor of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series. My thanks as well to Jack Robertson, Endrina Tay, and Anna Berkes.