The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

by Thomas Fleming

  To her surprise and delight, Dolley found unexpected support elsewhere in the country. The numerous newspaper accounts of her festivities had made the White House a popular national symbol. People reacted with outrage when they heard that the British had burned the mansion. Next came a groundswell of admiration as newspapers reported Dolley’s refusal to retreat and her rescue of George Washington’s portrait and the copy of the Declaration of Independence. A paper with a national circulation declared, “The spirit of the nation is roused.”

  Madison’s opponent for the presidency in 1812, DeWitt Clinton, said there was only one issue worth discussing now. Would the Americans fight back? His answer was a resounding yes. A revived President Madison issued a proclamation on September first, “exhorting all the good people” of the United States “to unite in their hearts and hands…to chastise and expel the invader.”12

  The citizens and soldiers of Baltimore soon demonstrated they were listening to these bold words. The British fleet assaulted the busy port in mid-September, hoping to batter its guardian fort into submission and force the city to pay a huge ransom. The men manning the guns in Fort McHenry fiercely resisted a nightlong bombardment. Francis Scott Key, an American aboard the British flagship, was sure that the fort would surrender. He had gone aboard the ship at the request of President Madison to try to negotiate the release of a doctor, William Beanes, seized by a British landing party. When Key saw the flag still flying at sunrise, he scribbled a poem that began, Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming? Within a few days, the words of “The Star Spangled Banner” were put to the music of a popular drinking song and were being sung all over Baltimore.

  Good military news reached Washington from more distant fronts. An American fleet on Lake Champlain won a surprise victory over a British armada escorting an invading army. The discouraged redcoats fought a half-hearted battle with American forces and retreated to Canada, “leaving their sick and wounded behind,” the victorious American general reported. In Louisiana, an American army commanded by General Andrew Jackson seized Pensacola and Mobile, depriving another invading British army of a place to disembark. President Madison hailed these victories in a message to Congress.

  But the unhappy politicians, meeting in the cramped quarters of Blodgett’s Hotel, which they shared with the Post Office and Patent Office, were unimpressed. The House of Representatives voted 79–37 to consider abandoning Washington. Madison staunchly resisted the idea. Dolley summoned all her social resources to persuade the congressmen to change their minds. Octagon House dinners and receptions became mini-versions of her White House galas. For the next four months, the congressmen and senators debated while Dolley and her allies worked on them. Finally, both houses of Congress voted to stay in Washington and approved funds to rebuild the Capitol and White House. The president worked equally hard to achieve this victory, using patronage and all the other resources of his office.

  V

  The Madisons’ worries were by no means over. In December 1814, the Massachusetts legislature called a conference of the five New England states to meet in Hartford, Connecticut. Vermont and New Hampshire refused to attend, but Connecticut and Rhode Island sent delegates. Rumors swept the nation that the Yankees were going to secede. At the very least, they were likely to demand a semi-independence that could become the death knell of the union. They were determined to demand a number of vital powers from the president and Congress, such as the right to declare an embargo and to order state militia into the national army. Another probable ultimatum was leaked to the press by one of the delegates: President Madison’s resignation.13

  Meanwhile, the British army attacking New Orleans had landed and clashed with General Jackson’s troops. If they captured the Queen City, as many people already called it, they would control the Mississippi River Valley. In Hartford, the disunion convention adjourned and sent three delegates to Washington to confront the president with their demands. On the other side of the Atlantic, American envoys, headed by Albert Gallatin, Madison’s secretary of the treasury, were negotiating with the British about possible peace terms. The reports they sent to Madison were glum. The British were making outrageous demands, aimed at reducing the United States to subservience. “The prospect of peace appears to get darker and darker,” Dolley wrote to a friend.

  On January 14, 1815, a profoundly worried Dolley wrote to Hannah Gallatin, the treasury secretary’s wife: “The fate of N Orleans will be known today—on which so much depends.”14 She was wrong. The rest of January trickled away with no news from New Orleans. Meanwhile, the delegates from the Hartford Convention reached Washington, and the Madisons were relieved to learn the Federalists were not recommending secession. But they wanted amendments to the Constitution restricting the president’s power and vowed to call another convention in June if the war continued. There was little doubt that this second session would recommend secession.

  Federalists and other pessimists predicted New Orleans would be lost, and some people called for Madison’s impeachment. On Saturday, February fourth, a messenger reached Washington with a letter from General Jackson. The president opened it with shaking hands and read the story of an astonishing total victory. Jackson and his men had routed the British veterans, killing and wounding almost 2,500 of them with a loss of only seven Americans. New Orleans—and the Mississippi River—would remain American territory. The news swept through Washington, and as night fell, thousands of cheering celebrators marched along the city’s streets carrying candles and torches. Dolley placed candles in every window of Octagon House. In the tumult, the delegates from the Hartford Convention slunk out of town, never to be heard from again.15

  Ten days later, even more astonishing news arrived from Europe. On February fourteenth, Henry Carroll, secretary to the peace delegation, reached Washington. He had landed in New York the previous day, and rumors of peace preceded him. Some people cheered him and others watched breathlessly as he rushed to Octagon House. A buoyant Dolley urged all her friends to come to a reception that evening. When they arrived, they were told that Carroll had brought a draft of a treaty of peace and the president was upstairs in his study, discussing it with his cabinet.

  The house was jammed with congressmen and senators from both parties. A reporter from The National Intelligencer marveled at the way these political enemies were congratulating each other, thanks to the warmth of Dolley’s smile and everyone’s rising hopes that the war was over. “No one…who beheld the radiance of joy which lighted up her countenance” could doubt, the reporter wrote, “that all uncertainty was at an end.” This was a good deal less than true. The president was not thrilled by the document, which offered little more than an end to the fighting and dying. But he decided that accepting it on the heels of the glorious news from New Orleans would make Americans feel they had won a second war of independence.

  Outside the room where the president was making up his mind, Dolley had shrewdly stationed her pretty cousin Sally Coles. When the door opened and Sally saw smiles on every face, she rushed to the head of the stairs and cried: “Peace, Peace.”16 Octagon House exploded with joy. People rushed to embrace and congratulate Dolley. The butler began filling every wineglass in sight. Even the servants were invited to drink, and according to one account, they took two days to recover from the celebration.

  For a few days, no one found fault with anyone or anything. From a president with a popularity rating that was close to zero, James Madison ascended to the zenith of national hero. Everyone knew there were two reasons for this miraculous transformation: General Andrew Jackson—and Dolley. Soon demobilized soldiers were marching past Octagon House. Dolley stood on the steps beside her husband, accepting their salutes. The partners in politics had become partners in fame.

  VI

  After the brutal partisanship of their first six presidential years, the Madisons’ last two years in Washington were a comparative love feast.
The president’s popularity continued to soar. Congress was amazingly cooperative. Dolley’s parties at Octagon House soon outsqueezed the crowds she had drawn at the height of her White House entertaining. Only one thing cast a shadow on their high spirits: the behavior of Dolley’s handsome son, Payne Todd. Hoping to profit from the example of John Adams, whose son, John Quincy, had benefited from his youthful diplomatic experiences, Madison had appointed Payne to a secretarial post in the peace delegation.

  Alas, Payne’s reaction to this exposure to European culture was closer to that of Benjamin Franklin’s grandson. Like Temple, Payne was primarily interested in pursuing women. He added an even more dangerous vice: gambling. When he returned home, he owed $6,500—over $100,000 in today’s dollars. Payne had borrowed the money from London bankers, using his stepfather’s credit. Now he blithely assumed Madison would pay these debts. Though he was deeply disappointed in the young man, the president paid—and never said a word to Dolley, who continued to adore Payne as the incarnation of manly perfection.

  In the final weeks of his term, the president seemed to acquire new vitality and dignity. He broke his rule of never attending parties outside his residence and made a surprise appearance at a Christmas ball at the French embassy, where he chatted and joked with all comers. His secretary of the navy, William Jones, told a friend he had never seen Madison so happy. And why shouldn’t he be? Jones added. He had “the applause of the nation” and he would soon be on his way home, liberated from public office.

  Dolley presided over her final receptions at Octagon House with a constantly beaming smile. Everyone was welcome, from ambassadors to “the under-clerks at the post office.” The last party turned into a frequently tearful farewell as Dolley’s women friends talked of her innumerable acts of kindness for so many people. They soon began bewailing the prospect of life in Washington without her.17

  The citizens of Georgetown, remembering Dolley’s sixteen years of hospitality, decided to give a party for her. It was one of the most elaborate galas in the social history of Washington. The house was decorated with transparencies and paintings that recalled the major events of the Madisons’ lives, along with framed tributes in poetry and prose. As a farewell gift, these decorations were carefully packed and shipped to Montpelier, where the Madisons used them to decorate one of the rooms in the mansion.

  VII

  Once settled in Montpelier, Dolley became a busy hostess again. The house had almost as many visitors as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. At one point she fed ninety people (all of them local gentry) at a holiday dinner. She repeatedly assured her Washington friends that she was happy and contented. But her letters soon revealed that she missed the capital and its politics and colorful social life. As early as 1818, she confessed to her sister Anna that the beauty of spring at Montpelier reminded her of “the many happy scenes I have passed [in Washington] never, I fear, to return.”

  To another close friend, Dolley confessed boredom: “Our amusements in this region are confined to books and rural occupations.” More and more, her letters begged friends for the latest political news and gossip. When her sister Anna, busy with numerous children and a lively social schedule, failed to write to her for a few days, Dolley came close to reproaching her for neglect.18

  Theoretically, Dolley could have gone to Washington for a week or two at any time. But her husband was so dependent on her affection and company that she refused any and all invitations. Madison’s health remained fragile. He regularly succumbed to flu-like fevers and was seldom without a cold during the winter months. He recruited Dolley to help him organize his voluminous papers, a task that stretched from months into years. Dolley recognized the importance of the papers to the nation’s history and labored at his side, writing letters to old friends in pursuit of documents and taking dictation from Madison when rheumatism began making it difficult for him to write. “I cannot press him to forsake a duty so important, or find it in my heart to leave him during its fulfillment,” she told one friend who sent her an invitation for a visit.19

  The one person who might have eased Dolley’s sense of isolation, her son Payne, spent as little time as possible with his mother and stepfather. Instead, he filled Dolley’s nights and days with worry and anxiety, disappearing for weeks at a time. Only when bills he ran up at hotels and restaurants, or unpaid loans from Madison friends arrived in the mail did they discover where Payne was spending his time—and their money. In 1829, they were appalled to learn that he was in debtor’s prison in Philadelphia. In his old age, Madison estimated he had spent $40,000—more than 800,000 modern dollars—settling Payne’s debts. Most of the time, Madison never mentioned this drain on their finances to Dolley, knowing how much it would upset her.20

  Dolley’s brother, John C. Payne, was another drinker and gambler who became a financial leech. After various expensive adventures, he settled on a farm near Montpelier with a wife and growing family, where he continued to drink and require constant supervision. Another unpleasant surprise was the financial collapse of Anna’s husband, Richard Cutts, who went bankrupt in the Panic of 1819. Although he had a government job, Cutts’s bad investments overwhelmed him. He was soon on the brink of destitution. Dolley persuaded Madison to buy their house on Lafayette Square near the White House, and the Cutts continued to live there, thus surviving the crisis without public embarrassment.21

  VIII

  For twenty years, Dolley remained at Madison’s side at Montpelier. Toward the end of his life, rheumatism made him an almost helpless invalid. But his mind remained marvelously unimpaired, and politicians continued to visit him and seek his advice on the country’s problems, above all the mounting conflict over slavery and states’ rights. In the 1830s, a coalescence of these two ideas threatened to sunder the American union that Madison had devoted so much time and thought to creating.

  Orators in South Carolina began accusing Congress of favoring northern merchants with a policy of high tariffs. They insisted they had the right to “nullify” an act of Congress if it suited them. If Congress objected, the South Carolinians were prepared to secede from the union, which they argued was merely a “confederation” that individual states could vote to leave whenever it pleased them.

  As the quarrel deepened, President Andrew Jackson turned to Madison for advice. The president’s private secretary, Nicholas Trist, was married to Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter Cornelia Randolph, and belonged to the Philadelphia family that had played an intimate role in Madison’s life during his years as a continental congressman. Trist became a link between Madison and Jackson.

  The anti-tariff zealots had an alarming number of allies in Virginia. In 1831, a group met at the Orange County Court House, only five miles from Montpelier, and issued a statement that Madison found “extraordinary” for its total ignorance of the Constitution’s arrangement of political power. If Virginia joined the South Carolinians, the union might well collapse. The zealots pointed to the two sets of resolutions that Madison and Jefferson had written to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts. Madison’s statement had been endorsed by the Virginia legislature, Jefferson’s by Kentucky. Jefferson’s language was far more radical. He had used the word “nullification.” The Virginia zealots tried to convince themselves and others that Madison agreed with Jefferson. Northern orators such as Daniel Webster truculently declared Congress’s power was virtually absolute. Suddenly the threat of civil war was in the political air.

  Though his rheumatic fingers could barely grip a pen, Madison plunged into the controversy, with Dolley’s enthusiastic help. He published a long letter in the influential North American Review, declaring that the union created by the ratified Constitution was indissoluble, and explaining how it worked: Congress had certain powers such as the right to tax; other powers were left to the states. It was a “mixed” government with power carefully distributed to avoid two ever-present threats, tyranny and anarchy. The zealots were courting anarchy with their reckless talk of secession ove
r a minor disagreement about the tariff. As for Mr. Jefferson’s tilt toward nullification, Madison dismissed it as part of his friend’s habit of “expressing in strong and round terms the impressions of the moment.” Jefferson’s entire political career testified to his devotion to the union.

  The zealots’ reaction was neither respectful nor friendly. They dismissed Madison as senile. He fired back hard-hitting answers that clearly proved they were wrong. Soon, to his and Dolley’s delight, other Virginians were castigating the “youthful arrogance” of the nullifiers, who dared to ignore the living voice of the man who had created the Constitution. President Jackson, no great shakes as a constitutional thinker, instinctively sided with Madison. When South Carolina nullified a new tariff law and all but seceded from the union in 1833, Jackson was ready to act with the confidence that he had Madison’s backing and approval. The president ordered the nullifiers to retract their stand or face an invading army under his personal command. The South Carolinians collapsed and the Union was preserved. The Madison partnership had saved the country a second time.22

  IX

  To an amazing extent, Dolley retained her vigor and good looks during these Montpelier years. When her colleague in decorating the White House, architect Benjamin Latrobe, visited her, he was stunned. “It seemed to me I had parted with her only yesterday, so little has time been able to change her personal appearance,” Latrobe later wrote. “Not a wrinkle, no alteration in her complexion, no difference in her walk.”23 This escape from what Latrobe called “the spoiler” of old age made Dolley’s devotion to Madison all the more remarkable. She could have found excuses to escape the narrow world in which she was confined. But her love for her husband made such an idea unthinkable. “I never leave him [for] more than a few minutes at a time,” she told one friend, “and have not left the enclosure around the house for the last eight months.”