James Madison: A Life Reconsidered

James Madison: A Life Reconsidered by Lynne Cheney was originally posted to YouTube on July 26, 2021, but can now be watched on Rumble or listened to on Podbean. Or just keep reading for the general gist of it.

James Madison was born March 16, 1751, as the oldest of 12 children, of whom only 7 would survive childhood, which was not uncommon in the 18th century. The family home was not at the current site of Montpelier, although the family did own the land on which Montpelier would be built.  The family home was Mount Pleasant which was a tiny little 416 square foot house…so 12 children, 2 adults, fourteen people crammed into 416 square feet. I mean, half of them died, but that’s a tiny little house for a huge and growing family.

But that was the family home when Madison was born, and the family started there before moving to the site at Montpelier, which Madison would expand on until it is the house we know today.

Madison’s parents encouraged learning for all their children, and when Madison was ready for college, he opted for College of New Jersey, site of modern-day Princeton, which he preferred over the College of William and Mary for health reasons. The Piedmont region of Virginia where William and Mary is located was kind of swampy, versus the mountainous region he grew up in. All of this cost money, and Madison managed to save his family some money by going into college already advanced in languages. This allowed him to cram together his studies for junior and senior year, essentially shaving a year off his time at college, which helped the family financially.

This caused some health issues, which is hypothesized as possible epilepsy, which in Madison’s day was seen as a sign of spiritual weakness and caused Madison some depression. He went through a down period as a result of this, but this led to one of the defining characteristics of Madison himself: He shrugged off that belief regarding epilepsy. And rather than submitting to the church’s judgment, he sought medical advice and also looked for other historical figures and how they might have handled it. And was able to control it to a remarkable degree with diet and exercise. He became an avid horseman, exercised frequently, recognized the signs so as not to have a fit in public.

His father was also a political creature, so when the stamp act and intolerable acts passed, there was no divide in the family. The whole family agreed Britain had overstepped and the country should rebel. And when revolution was declared, he attempted to join the militia, but was denied due to his epilepsy. He was one hell of a shot, he could hit what he aimed at, but they couldn’t risk him having a seizure in the field during battle. So, he was excused from service.

He could have fallen into depression, but instead, he turned his mind to politics. If he couldn’t serve as a soldier, he’d serve as a voice. And that’s what he did. And what a voice. Historically speaking, Madison is seen as being somewhat shy. But I don’t think he was shy. I think he was incredibly intelligent, so much so that he realized if you let people speak, they’ll tell you exactly who they are. But you gotta shut up long enough to hear what they’re saying.

He served in politics his entire life, and he made very few missteps in who to trust in that very long career. And once he realized a misstep, he was quick to cut ties. Alexander Hamilton being one example.

Madison was instrumental in getting the Constitution both written and passed. I don’t think he wrote the whole of the Constitution, and very few of the arguments made on the floor were made by him, but he was like an enormous puppet master, pulling the strings on the various political creatures to get the sections that were important to him passed, without ever making an argument himself.

I fully believe he was capable of this level of manipulation based on the notes he took from the Constitutional Convention. Madison was not the secretary of the convention, that honor went to William Jackson from South Carolina, who was the official secretary. But Madison’s notes were so detailed and well compiled that we have a really comprehensive journal of everything that went on and was said there.

After the convention, Madison remained active, working with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay on the Federalist Papers, that series of essays that ultimately led to the Constitution being passed and ratified. Madison wrote about 35% of the Federalist Papers.

One of Madison’s more interesting traits was the ability to absorb points made by other people and then change his mind based on new information. Something so very few people are capable of doing today.

One such argument on which he changed his mind was the bill of rights, which he initially saw no need for, because the Constitution specifically said, “This is what the government CAN do,” and it was assumed everything else was delegated to the states. But while campaigning to get the Constitution passed, he came to see this as a necessity.

Madison wanted to serve in the Senate; however, when the Constitution was first passed, Senators were not direct elected by the people but rather were selected by the body politic of the individual states, and then governor of Virginia Patrick Henry despised James Madison. So instead, Madison stood for and was elected to Congress. Which was no mean feat. Henry so hated Madison, that he divided up the districts so that Madison was in a district where the people were anti-Federalist and against the passage and ratification of the Constitution. And Madison STILL managed to win, with 57% of the vote.

He became Congressman, went to Congress which at the time was in New York City, where he helped to write the first ten amendments. Now, unlike the other founding fathers, who did not want ANY political parties, Madison saw them as necessary for the running of the Union.

I don’t think he thought there would only be two EVER. I think he probably envisioned something more akin to modern Europe where there are at least thirteen parties in operation. He believed that many parties with smaller representative interests would be better for the people as a whole.  Because then no one party would ever be able to obtain a majority in the legislature, thus ensuring restraint on the federal government. That was his belief at the time, and I really wish that would have happened here.

From the absolute start of the country, we’ve had political parties. All the books I’ve read on the presidents say the same thing. Parties were here from the beginning. Washington and Adams were identified as belonging to the Federalist Party. So that was our very first political party: The Federalist Party. And then the Anti-Federalist, although that was for a very short twelve years, because Jefferson and Madison working together created the Republican Party. Now, Lynne Cheney is very clear that this early version of the “Republican party” bears no resemblance to the modern day Republican Rarty.

So, I am very curious to see how politics in the 19th century destroyed the party of Jefferson and Madison, because this early day Republican Party sounds an awful lot like…modern day Libertarianism. Sad they ever went away, because…we really need them.

So, Madison was elected to Congress right out of the gate. He was the very first Speaker of the House. He served four terms as Congressman, so eight years, before “retiring” from politics to Montpelier with his new wife Dolley and stepson Todd Payne, and sister-in-law Anna who he and Dolley helped raise from the time she was 14 years old until she married.

Retirement lasted until he was called to be Jefferson’s secretary of state, which position he served in for eight years before being elected president in 1808, serving from 1809 until Monroe stepped in in 1817.

Most of those years were covered in the book on James and Dolley Madison which I read in June 2021, but a few more details. The War of 1812, while the initial land actions were catastrophic due to older Revolutionary War generals still serving, as they began to die off and retire, younger generals were promoted, and America began to win some of those land actions. There were two impediments to the war, one was Secretary of War John Armstrong, who seemed to think is position as secretary of war allowed him to countermand Madison’s directives and control the army, making decisions that were not his to make, given that per the Constitution, Madison was the Commander in Chief. Madison delegates the authority, but Armstrong was only supposed to act on the orders Madison gave him. Which he didn’t.

And it’s not like there was a delay in communications. Madison would be right there in the same camp, and Armstrong would issue his own orders. Ultimately this led to Armstrong resigning mid-war, right after the British had destroyed Washington DC. This allowed Madison to move then Secretary of State James Monroe into the position of Secretary of War. And the generals were all happy to work with Monroe, they thought he was very capable.

The other impediment Madison faced during this war was the northern states, who had an active trade with Great Britain, or had had, until the embargo was enacted by Jefferson. So, the northern manufacturing states of New England were not in support of this war, which had already cost them valuable trade dollars. And there were members of Congress who were pushing to have the Northern States labeled Seditious and in a state of rebellion for their refusal to back the war.

But Madison, because he was an ardent supporter of and genuinely believed what was written in the Constitution, did not see them as Seditious. He saw them as exercising their right to free speech. And free speech will frequently criticize the government. And so, he acknowledged their right to disagree with him, but that we were still going to fight Great Britain over impressment of our citizens to Britain’s Navy because this is what’s needed. And so, the war continued.

We know the war ended with a stunning victory at New Orleans, courtesy of General Andrew Jackson, who absolutely annihilated the British at the Battle of New Orleans. And it was a MASSIVE annihilation. The British lost 2,600 troops. The American’s lost 7. With an additional 6 wounded. So, 13 to 2,600 was our ratio. So, we kicked the ever-loving shit out of the British at the end of the War of 1812.

This battle ended the war but was ultimately a Pyrrhic Victory. The war was fought to end the impressment of US Sailors. The reason the British were impressing the US Sailors was to fight their own continuing battle with Napolean, which ended definitively at Waterloo in 1815. So, the British no longer had any need to impress American Sailors. So, the Treaty of Ghent basically returned US/British relations to pre-1812 status quo. There was no agreement made NOT to impress sailors in the future. Just the belief that impressment was no longer necessary, because the war with Napoleon had ended. The war on the continent had been ended to Britain’s satisfaction. Leaving us with a shit treaty.

But the war was not a total waste. Because our incredibly tiny navy, and I mean it was TINY compared to Britain’s Naval prowess, once our Navy was given leave to act, we let Britain know America was not a nation to fuck with. Even with the restoration to pre-1812 status quo, Britain never again attempted to impress American sailors. Because we beat the tar out of them at sea. So…GO NAVY! You guys’ rock!

Once the war was over, Madison opted not to run a third term, following Washington’s example of two terms only. There was no law prohibiting it, but Madison followed Washington’s lead in this, allowing for Monroe to run and step up in 1817. So, he did in fact retire at this point from public life. And fell into a slow slide into poverty paying off other people’s debts, mostly those of his stepson Payne Todd. Madison died on June 28, 1836, at Montpelier and was buried in the family plot without a headstone, by his own design. Madison believed his works were his legacy. There is a headstone there now, but Madison didn’t ask for nor commission one. The headstone that is there was paid for by contributions from admirers, who didn’t want his final resting place unmarked.

The men of that time were so incredible. They accomplished so much in their lives, but I think that Madison was a giant among men. Not physically. Physically he was I believe our shortest president, standing at only 5’4” tall. But his ideas formed a nation. He consistently lived within the laws that he constructed, never believing he was above those laws. As far as I know, his biggest regret was never having solved the problem of slavery while he was in a position to do so. And this book, incidentally, is why I read. As much as I will always adore John Adams, I think that Madison may have replaced him as my favorite…or maybe tied for first place.

I mean, Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which are an abomination in a free country. But Madison actually owned slaves, which is a WORSE abomination in a free country. But without Madison we would not have the Constitution and the freedom that we have today. And while almost from the word go this document has been interpreted differently by people in political power, Madison always…consistently…. saw it as LIMITING the government. So, whenever Congress passed legislation that expanded government control, Madison vetoed it. Like a President should.