As he approached the end of his address, the new president added a personal sentiment. He praised his immediate predecessor, asking to be “pardoned for not suppressing the sympathy with which my heart is full, in the rich reward he enjoys in the benediction of a beloved country.” Margaret Bayard Smith, wife of the editor of the National Intelligencer, described with pathos the affectionate respect Jefferson received from the ladies who visited the President’s House expressly to see him one last time. At the evening’s inaugural ball, Jefferson, who was among the first to arrive, seemed uncomfortable and was heard to inquire: “You must tell me how to behave for it is more than forty years since I have been to a ball.”6
A month from his sixty-sixth birthday, Thomas Jefferson had been writing home frequently in eager anticipation of his return. “My heart beats with inexpressible anxiety and impatience,” his daughter appealed in mid-February, hopeful that his retirement might be passed “in serene and unclouded tranquility.” The mayor of Washington City presented a letter of farewell on behalf of the local citizenry, all of them members of a “great and flourishing nation,” the “solitary republic of the world.” They would “pray” for his “felicity,” and his release from the world of contention: “Happy, thrice happy retreat! where patriotism and philosophy, friendship and affection will animate, direct and soften the purest feelings of the heart!” Jefferson responded the same day with only slightly less florid language.7
“Father Never Loved Son More Than He Loves Mr. Madison”
A number of vignettes descend to us in which Jefferson’s quiet dignity yields to tenderness in conversation, and strangers (men and women alike) find an immediate attraction to his passion for knowledge. No one ever described a personal encounter with James Madison as an inspirational moment. He seemed too small to fill Jefferson’s shoes. At a glance, the Adamses, John and John Quincy, hardly seemed built of presidential materials, but the latter’s wife, Louisa Catherine, regarded Madison’s physique as almost cartoonish. He was, she wrote, “a very small man in person, with a very large head.” The agreeable Dolley Madison, “tall, large and rather masculine in personal dimensions” made her husband look that much odder. To Mrs. Adams, James was “her little man”; but she acknowledged too that once one got over his appearance, he could be a “lively” and “playful” conversationalist.8
The closest to a portrait of warmth comes from Albert Gallatin’s sister-in-law Frances Few, whose commentary differs somewhat from Mrs. Adams’s. The day before the inauguration, Few noted in her diary that Madison, up close, looked like “parchment,” his face so weather-beaten that he first appeared to have had smallpox. But after observing him a short while, she looked past his wasted appearance and discovered eyes that were “penetrating and expressive,” a smile that was “charming”—and once again, “his conversation lively and interesting.” Though Dolley’s complexion was “brilliant” and stood in stark contrast to that of her husband, the first lady struck Mrs. Few as tasteless in her choice of wardrobe and opaque as a human being. “She is all things to all men,” the diarist recorded.9
President Madison did not wish to be all things to all men, certainly not in the sense that Jefferson had tried, when in his first inaugural address he reached out to the Federalists who distrusted him. Madison was rather less interested in force of personality and more interested in carrying out his duties. As he was eight years younger than Jefferson, he was the same age now as his predecessor had been when he first took the oath of office. He dressed routinely in dreary-looking outfits but was capable of flashing a warm and welcoming smile. At Montpelier he was known not only to tell good stories to his guests but also to send them into fits of laughter in the telling. With a less-than-formidable presence, he was nonetheless comfortable as a host and had a taste for fine foods and Madeira wine.10
The Madisons did not move into the President’s House until the outgoing president had vacated. After the inauguration, Jefferson needed time to gather up his belongings and take care of essential correspondence. Before leaving town a week later, he brought his account with Joseph Milligan, his preferred Washington bookseller and leather binder, up to date. Accompanied by two slaves, the now ex-president paid the toll at the Georgetown ferry and headed out in snowy conditions. Owing to the weather, it took a good bit longer than usual to reach Monticello.11
He would never return to the nation’s capital; he was finished with Washington. Yet his closeness to his successor prevented him from turning a deaf ear to political news. He intended to find more innocent diversions and told Madison that he was “reading the newspapers but little and that little but as the romance of the day.” But given the state of the nation, this inattention could not last.12
Dolley Madison was forty when she became the first lady. She took great pains to make the President’s House a place for socializing. Whereas Jefferson had laid out gardens, she redesigned the interior. In a few short months the state dining room, accented with portraits of the first three presidents, and Mrs. Madison’s sunflower-yellow parlor were readied for company. Fireplaces in the halls were supplemented by sunken stoves, keeping the downstairs warm. At regular Wednesday drawing-room gatherings, guests sported their best clothes and helped themselves to whiskey punch. For domestic help, the Madisons called upon the Montpelier house servants. Outside, a packed gravel driveway led to the main (north) entrance, over which a pair of stone eagles stood watch.13
In his first letter to Madison after turning over the keys to the President’s House, Jefferson reported on how bad the roads had been as he trudged south on his “very fatiguing journey” back to Albemarle. Once home he regained his strength, though his return to the life of a farmer was anything but smooth. “The spring is remarkably backward,” he testified. “No oats sown, not much tobacco seed, and little done in the gardens. Wheat has suffered considerably.”
Despite his wish to leave all political matters to Madison, Jefferson divulged his concerns for the near future, fearing the country’s unpreparedness for a major foreign conflict. He was quick to blame both the newspapers and credulous congressmen for the state of things: “I feel great anxiety for the occurrences of the ensuing 4. or 5. months. If peace can be preserved, I hope and trust you will have a smooth administration.” But nearly everything he wrote to his successor dictated against that hope and trust. Thinking of how the nation had divided over the embargo, he growled: “I know no government which would be so embarrassing in war as ours. This would proceed very much from the lying and licentious character of our papers; but much also from the wonderful credulity of the members of Congress in the floating lies of the day. And in this no experience seems to correct them.” Unsparing in his censure, Jefferson identified “the present Maniac state of Europe” as another unknown variable. Madison absorbed these anxious comments but replied to Jefferson’s letter without addressing any particular concern. Other than the cumbersome “I wish your exemption from ill effects from the snow storm may be permanent,” he limited himself to matters of an almost clerical nature.
Jefferson could not rest. To a Philadelphia physician with similar political leanings, he wrote as of old, warning that the “monarchists of our country” still had to be watched. But he said he had no fears that Madison would cave in to pressure from them: “Our enemies may try their cajoleries with my successor. They will find him as immoveable in his republican principles as him whom they have honored with their peculiar enmity.”14
There must have been days when Jefferson did succeed in forgetting the larger world. Turning his attention to matters of the field, the kitchen, and other domestic concerns, he bought a new plow, ordered cotton seed, and hired a man to dig brick cisterns to store fresh water. He bought considerable quantities of beef and fish and brought in his chef from the President’s House to complete the training of two of his accomplished female servants in the art of French cooking. Then he gave his thoughts over to his Poplar Forest retreat, an octagonal house on his productive farms
in Bedford County, ninety-odd miles southwest of Monticello, where he was to spend months at a time throughout his retirement. It was an even quieter place than his much-venerated mountaintop estate, which was ever under construction. As the years passed, legions of curious citizens would arrive at Monticello unannounced, disturbing the family’s privacy. When he wished for an even more remote existence—though even there he could not remain anonymous—Jefferson would escape to Poplar Forest. There, granddaughters and books would be his chief amusement.15
But Jefferson would not be Jefferson if he could resist having a hand in solidifying political friendships. It was a talent Madison did not possess, or at least not in the same degree. On March 30, 1809, Jefferson wrote to his successor with hopeful signs for the reanimation of the Madison-Monroe alliance, the fount from which Republican power had to flow: “Colo. Monroe dined & passed an evening with me since I came home. He is sincerely cordial: and I learn from several that he has quite separated himself from the junto which had gotten possession of him.”
“Sincerely cordial” was one thing; a willingness to reconcile with Madison was quite another. Monroe and the prickly John Randolph had parted ways. That was what Jefferson meant when he said “the junto.” But he also had to acknowledge that Monroe was not his source. “I did not enter into any material political conversation with him,” he explained, while eagerly predicting: “I have no doubt that his strong & candid mind will bring him to a cordial return to his old friends.” Monroe was returning to Highland, his home down the road from Monticello, and Jefferson, with paternal care, had resolved to lean on him gently and orchestrate a Madison-Monroe rapprochement.16
Before long Jefferson weighed in on foreign developments. He envisioned opportunities to absorb the rest of the North American continent, incorporating all reachable territory that did not require a large, expensive navy to stand guard against European schemes. Conquest of the underpopulated expanse would perfect the American republic, he said epigrammatically, yielding “such an empire of liberty” that the founders’ dream would be fulfilled and their posterity forever rescued from the European extremes of luxury and squalor: “I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self government.” He believed deeply in the inevitability of American empire.
Napoleon’s recent conquest of Spain made Jefferson think that the French emperor would be willing to accept America’s “moral right” to Florida, East and West, as well as Cuba. “Napoleon will certainly give his consent without difficulty to our recieving [sic] the Floridas,” he wrote confidently. Cuba, he said, might take a little more work. To this, Madison replied that he expected Napoleon to dangle the Floridas before him in order to extract concessions on America’s right to trade with Haiti, which the French emperor still aimed to reconquer.
Feeling he understood the nature of Napoleon’s ambition, Jefferson anticipated a French takeover of Spain’s colonies in South America. He considered it in America’s best interest to position itself so that Napoleon would have to curry favor as his armies established a presence in the southern hemisphere. The ex-president envisioned a scenario in which the French would turn over the Floridas and Cuba to the United States, and the Madison administration, prudent and practical, would take Canada, finally eliminating all colonial threats in the vicinity of the United States.
Jefferson came close to meddling in his successor’s foreign policy. He had an unguarded conversation with the French ambassador, Louis-Marie Turreau, affirming American designs on Cuba. When Turreau, posted to Washington since 1803, evinced concern, Secretary Gallatin was obliged to disavow his former boss and to state that President Jefferson no longer spoke for the government. To calm Turreau, Gallatin said that even if Cuba were offered to the United States, the administration would refuse it.17
The Virginia presidents were hesitant, lest they upset the French. They were far less concerned about antagonizing the notoriously weak Spanish. Yet policy with respect to the future of the western hemisphere was dictated by more than the comparative strength of colonial regimes. Madison and Jefferson alike differentiated between two kinds of republican revolutions in America’s neighborhood: white and black. The United States would maintain outward neutrality, with Monroe at the helm, when the colonies of Latin America rose up against Spanish rule, beginning in 1818. It would embrace the new governments that formed, whose leaders bore European features. All the while, under Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, the United States consistently withheld recognition of Haiti. It had nothing to do with Napoleon and the French. A nearby black republic was simply too disturbing.18
Though dreams of empire were never far from the minds of Madison and Jefferson, they required a greater military than the two presidents had provided for, a sense of national unity that did not exist, and a spirit of concession that the European powers would not exhibit. Although England was prepared for some accommodation with the United States amid the shock of Spain’s capitulation to France, Madison’s administration was off to a rocky start in all other respects. In congressional elections that took place in April 1809, the Federalists picked up twenty-four House seats, three in Virginia alone.19
These factors were on Jefferson’s mind when it appeared that London was encouraging its U.S. minister, David Erskine, to find a broad-based solution to Anglo-American maritime problems. The Washington-based diplomat had worked out an agreement by which his government’s 1807 Orders in Council (the edict that threatened all neutral shipping) would be lifted. Even so, a cynical Jefferson doubted this would happen and showed his annoyance to Madison. The British “never made an equal commercial treaty with any nation,” he contended, “& we have no right to expect to be the first.” Convinced that he had seen through yet another British ploy, Jefferson hazarded a prediction: “It will place you between the injunctions of true patriotism & the clamors of a faction devoted to a foreign interest.” In other words, he figured that London and the Federalists were in cahoots, and that those at home who wished to wreck Madison’s administration would rebuff any tough talk directed at the British.
Madison announced the imminent restoration of trade with Great Britain, and Jefferson was aggrieved. To his mind, America had no leverage anymore. He went so far as to compare the maritime policies of the British ministry to an “Algerine system”—its methods as unprincipled as those of the Barbary pirates. Jefferson believed the embargo had worked, though it had needed two years to succeed. Now, with the renewal of commerce, he sighed, “we never can have them [any] more in our power.”
If Jefferson was correct, Madison was in a bind. With Anglo-American relations in limbo, Napoleon would choose to toy with America. Madison agreed with at least one of Jefferson’s assessments: as France displayed the arrogance the United States generally expected of Britain, it would now hold hostage Americans’ desire for Florida until the administration agreed to an unequal commercial relationship. The young United States was still not considered a significant enough threat that the European powers gave a second thought to Madison’s proclamations.
As to London’s diplomatic initiative, Madison felt none of Jefferson’s concern—at least for the moment. The new president was certain he could be neither manipulated nor bullied. He reassured Jefferson that no matter what the British proposed, the United States would prepare itself with “a prudent adherence to our essential interests.” His optimism was atypical when he insisted: “The case of impressments, hitherto the greatest obstacle, seems to admit most easily of adjustment.” On the same day that he wrote the above to Jefferson, Madison penned a letter to Lafayette expressing his hope that the French emperor would change course and recognize neutral rights. “It will be a source of deep regret,” he said, if Napoleon did nothing to alleviate the “very obvious and painful dilemma” that the administration faced in navigating (on the high seas, as well as diplomatically) between the European belligerents.20
There were other demands on the preside
nt’s time, not all of which commanded a response. Within days of his taking office, Madison received a letter from Rebecca Blodgett, daughter of the Reverend William Smith, late provost of the University of Pennsylvania. A noted wit and beauty, Blodgett was not on intimate terms with Madison, though she had been, by her own account, acquainted with Dolley Madison, who had always greeted her on the streets of Philadelphia with affectionate smiles. With unapologetic bluntness, Blodgett called on the president to show compassion for the “lovely drooping” Theodosia Alston and end the persecution of Theodosia’s father, the exiled Aaron Burr. Blodgett termed the former vice president a faithful friend of many years, to whom she owed, she said, “whatever is valuable in myself.” In crediting Burr (a champion of gender equality) for enlightening her mind, she petitioned Madison to “begin your Administration with an act of generosity & Magnanimity.” But she did her cause no great service by explaining why she had waited until this moment to plead on Burr’s behalf: “I despised your predecessor too much to condescend to become his petitioner—to beg a favour infers an inferiority on the part of the petitioner—& Heaven forbid that I shou’d ever place myself in the light of an inferior to Thomas Jefferson, a thing whose principles religious, moral & political, are alike weak & wicked. A shifting, shuffling Visionary. An old woman in her dotage! A wretch without nerve!” This was not tact. “Pardon me Sir,” she affixed to her mockery. “My pen has a strange trick—& ’tho I often caution it, it will tell all the secrets of my heart.” She hoped that it was not the president of the United States so much as an old and forgiving friend of Aaron Burr’s, who was to attend to her heated letter. Burr would eventually return from Europe and take up residence in New York during Madison’s presidency, but without any assistance or assurances from him or from his administration.21
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