Key takeaways from Numbers 1 through 24 (part 1)

While I'm finishing my McKinley essay, a decided to put up a list of some of the key takeaways from eac president. Here's part 1.

George Washington
The first president served the country ably and admirably, both as the figurehead leader and the functional president. Although naïve in thinking he could avert the formation of political parties, he performed the greatest act that any leader has ever done in modern history: rather than become king for life, he permanently walked away from power and became a private citizen once more.

John Adams
Adams the president deserves a place almost equal to Adams the founding father. His political theories, which he put into practice as president, helped assure that the United States would be a democratic-republic, and not just the “for the people” democracy that the Jeffersonians thought that they wanted. And Jefferson unwittingly owed the success of his presidency to the very political philosophy that he repeatedly attacked in Adams!

Thomas Jefferson
Despite the fact that Jefferson did not want his presidency remembered—at least as an accomplishment—Jefferson moved the presidency and the nation forward in many positive ways. The idea that the United States government was one for the common man is certainly his most endearing contribution: Lincoln drew upon it in the nation’s darkest hour, FDR used it to contrast liberty with fascism, and many a politician today claims to speak “for the people.” The idea that local government should have more control of affairs than a central government still resonates as well—especially among modern-day conservatives—despite the seeming discredit of states’ rights in 1865.

James Madison
Madison wasn’t that great of a president, but he was a steady one. Choices of incompetent cabinet officers—and retaining them after the war began—and the utter lack of real direction in the early stages of the war hurt him and the country. But Madison rose to the occasion, and corrected his deficiencies. He never panicked. And that itself is key. Bad things often happen when presidents act out of haste instead of deliberation.

James Monroe
The fifth president a hard-working man who was fully aware of his limitations and worked well within those boundaries. Once he set his mind to a task, he accomplished it. He wasn’t afraid to surround himself with brilliant men (Crawford, J. Q. Adams, Calhoun), seek the advice of his mentor friends (Jefferson and Madison) and reject their advice when he made his decisions. He had the courage of his convictions, and never appeared wishy-washy on anything. Monroe also had a strong grasp of the Constitution, his executive powers and limits, and an equally strong grasp of foreign affairs. He was an excellent communicator in that he kept on top of letters, correspondence, orders, bills, etc. Overall, Monroe is a model for steady leadership and the recognition of limitations.

John Quincy Adams
The younger Adams should stand as the model of what not to do when trying to become president. Do not make bargains with political allies that could—or will—backfire on you massively, causing your time in office to be one continual battle against knee-jerk reactionaries. The “corrupt bargain” of 1828 killed Adams’ presidency before it even started, more so than his dismal performance in office. On a brighter note, J.Q. Adams’ career attests to the fact that, post-presidency, men can go on to even greater things.

Andrew Jackson
Jackson was the first truly strong president and had his way throughout his presidency, largely through stubbornness. He should stand as an example of heavy-handed bluntness AND the king of unintended consequences. His personal war with Nicholas Biddle precipitated the Panic of 1837—right after he left office. His strong stance against disunion inspired Lincoln and Fillmore.

Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren had the unfortunate luck to become president just when the nation entered severe economic crisis. His presidency never fully recovered from the Panic of 1837. He also stands as proof that brilliant political organizers do not necessarily make strong presidents.

William Henry Harrison
Harrison never had a chance to prove himself as president, but he left an indelible mark: the popular presidential campaign, with rallies, singing, stunts and mass media overload.

John Tyler
The nation owes John Tyler a debt of gratitude for firmly establishing the constitutional right of presidential succession. The vice president became president, not a mere cipher for the cabinet or the Senate.

James K. Polk
James Polk stands as the archetype of the president who accomplished every single one of his goals before leaving office. He’s also proof that you don’t have to be a likable man to obtain high office or govern effectively.

Zachary Taylor
The underrated Zachary Taylor went against his slave-holding class to reach a compromise between increasingly antagonistic sections. Like his successor, he believed in reaching amicable solutions but laying a firm demarcation line between unsavory ambitions and following the rule of law.

Number 5: James Monroe

Years in office: 1817-1825
Pre-service occupations: soldier, diplomat, Confederation congressman, Virginia legislator and governor, U.S. senator, secretary of state (Madison), secretary of war (Madison)
Key events during his administration: acquisition of Florida (1819) and first Seminole war (1819); Missouri compromise (1820), Monroe Doctrine (1823); states admitted to the Union: Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Maine (1820), Missouri (1821); Panic of 1819

Presidential rating: Mostly successful and popular

ESSAY

On Christmas Day, 1776, George Washington led his army across the ice-clogged Delaware River to attack a Hessian force encamped at Trenton, New Jersey. The battle was more complicated than legend says—the Hessians weren’t caught in a drunken stupor—but Gen. Washington’s men achieved surprise and carried the day.

Only two Americans were wounded, both seriously. One was young Lieutenant James Monroe, shot in the shoulder while rushing an artillery battery. A doctor clamped his severed artery, which prevented his bleeding to death.

Lt. Monroe would return to the army in late 1777 in time to freeze at the infamous winter camp at Valley Forge. He would later fight in Washington’s solid victory at Monmouth Courthouse in 1778, and would leave the army for good as a colonel. Bitterly disappointed that he couldn’t obtain a field command, Monroe turned to politics in 1780, a path that lead him to the White House 36 years later.

James Monroe was the last man to become president as a hero of the Revolution—as an officer of the line, not as a political, theoretical or rhetorical hero. But no other man connected with the Revolution itself—politician or soldier—ever attained the White House again.

Remembering Monroe
Monroe is the only president to be remembered primarily for a policy bearing his name—a policy that is still in effect. The Monroe Doctrine, in biographer Gary Hart’s odd words, makes him our “first national security president.” But it’s by no means all there was to Monroe, or all that defines his era. Monroe lead the nation in a time that was mislabeled the “Era of Good Feelings” where westward expansion truly commenced, commerce started anew after the war—and the nation’s first economic depression set in following that war—and the nation shook with the first of many major convulsions over slavery.

It was a time when America first got cocky. After all, we had just defeated the world’s mightiest power—at least, we fooled ourselves into thinking that—and seemed, for a little while, invincible. The era did seem full of good feelings. And James Monroe seemed like the right man for the job to carry forward Democrat-Republican principles from the east coast to the ever-expanding west.

Congressional nomination
By 1816, James Monroe was one of the most qualified men in the country to be considered the next chief executive, if not the most. Governor, state legislator, congressman of the Confederation, senator, secretary of state, secretary of war, diplomat and foreign minister: he was indeed an amazingly well-rounded man. But the experience that counted most in men’s eyes was that prize of presidential appointments: secretary of state.

He was also well-known, thanks to his foreign adventures: he helped negotiate with Napoleon for Louisiana, and waged war and peace with Madison in the late conflict with England. But all was not well in his party. New Yorkers in particular weren’t keen at the thought of yet another Virginian becoming president. Purist Republican members of Congress held a caucus in early 1816, in hopes of choosing another candidate, but in another caucus among all Republican members a few days later, Monroe was selected. This had the dual effect of Monroe being selected by Congress to be the next president, thus “owing” his ascendancy to them, and also ensuring that Monroe would be the next president. The Federalist standard bearer, Rufus King, never actively campaigned, and Monroe swept to an easy victory.

A strong cabinet and one-party unity
Unlike his predecessor’s choices for officers, Monroe’s cabinet choices were superb. At state, he named John Quincy Adams of New England, a Federalist convert to Republicanism and famed not so much for his father but for his established skills as a diplomat. For war, he had asked Henry Clay, but Clay declined in a puff, mad that he wasn’t given State. (Clay would become his nemesis in Congress.) The post would go to John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. At treasury, Monroe retained Madison’s last secretary, William H. Crawford.

Monroe’s wish was to have a strong representative from each section of the nation in his cabinet, in part to have a voice from those sections—smart—but also because he wanted to continue Jefferson’s mission of burying the Federalists. Monroe wanted to return to the earliest days of America where there were no parties, and it seemed like an obtainable goal with the Federalists marginalized to New England.

Good feelings
The so-called “Era of Good Feelings” actually began shortly after Monroe’s inauguration. The new president embarked on an unprecedented—and never repeated—good-will tour around the Union. At first, he wanted to remain inconspicuous, and just visit coastal defenses as a pretext to building them up (a major hallmark of his presidency), but Republican well-wishers and ordinary citizens turned out wherever he went. Even Federalist New England received him well—a Connecticut newspaper editorialized that “The demon of [political] party for a time departed, and gave place for a general burst of National Feeling.” (Cunningham, p.36)

Monroe was not an eloquent speaker, or even a memorable one, unlike his predecessors in the presidency. But he could speak on the fly, and often responded with off-the-cuff or rapidly prepared speeches several times a week or even several times a day during his tour. He also became the first president to venture west of the Appalachians, traveling as far west as Detroit—which fit perfectly with his idea that the west was the future of America. (Keep in mind that, back then, the Ohio and Tennessee river valleys were the American west, with the Louisiana territory being considered the American desert.) The president visited the northeast and the northwest in 1817, and went on a second tour through the south and mid-western states and even the Cherokee nation in 1819. He was urged to make a third trip to visit New Orleans and western territories like Missouri, but the trips were exhausting, and he never went again.

Still, no other president has equaled Monroe’s goodwill travels, nor been so repeatedly enthusiastically received everywhere he went. (A president coming to town in those days was a once in a lifetime event, so naturally they were grand affairs.)

Headaches with General Jackson and Florida
The goodwill sparked by Monroe’s travels lasted for some time—even throughout the era, for there were no wars, and the major domestic political issues of the day were settled rather quickly when compared to the usual snail pace of matters in Washington. But the “Era of Good Feelings” masked some of the tensions of the period, which saw the smallest hint of a flexing of America’s muscle, now that she seemed, at last, free from the possibility of foreign interference.

Gen. Andrew Jackson, however, seemed determined to impose his will on the new president, Monroe’s policies be damned. Jackson, victor of the battle of New Orleans, commanded the southern department. Monroe and his secretary of war, James Calhoun, ordered Jackson to deal with the aggressive Seminole Indians in Florida. Florida was not yet a state and still belonged to Spain, except for a western segment that would eventually form the gulf segments of Alabama and Mississippi.

Jackson, however, “interpreted” his orders to pacify the Seminole to include eliminating those agitating the Indians: the Spanish. Against orders, Jackson advanced on and captured two Spanish forts and Spanish-held Pensacola, and executed two men he claimed were British agents. While Jackson’s actions actually did pacify upper Florida, they created an unwelcome diplomatic situation for the president. Jackson had already proven troublesome by refusing an order from the War Department until Monroe straitened out that matter; now he threatened to bring war with Spain.

Monroe and his party definitely wanted to add Florida to the Union (a goal of Jefferson’s, actually), but he wanted to do it legally and without war with Spain. Subsequent congressional investigations produced nothing. In a fascinating letter exchange between the president and Jackson, Monroe soften his dismay and rendered the matter a misunderstanding; Jackson, however, was miffed that he was even questioned. Monroe eventually dropped the matter because Jackson’s actions exposed Spain’s weakness in Florida and led directly to the Adams-Onis treaty (see the Monroe Doctrine below). Jackson, by the way, emerged more popular than ever.

Historians differ over who was at “fault” here: an ambiguous Monroe or an over-zealous Jackson. I’m inclined to think the latter, based on the letters exchanged between the two men, Monroe’s coolness and Jackson’s reputation for being a hothead.

An expedition into the wilderness
Florida was not the only region to lay in Monroe’s expansionist plans. He also looked to the west and upper west, and with the enthusiastic support of secretary of war Calhoun, he commissioned a joint military-scientific expedition to the mouth of the Missouri in 1819-1820. The idea was to both place a military presence in the Yellowstone region and begin mapping and recording the vast Louisiana territory beyond what Louis & Clark had done nearly 15 years earlier.

You’ve probably never heard of the Long expedition because things went wrong from the start: supply problems, steamboat troubles, money woes, death, and other concerns dogged the expedition so that in never came off as planned. In the end, the scientific arm of the expedition wound up reaching the mouth of the Platte, then cut south then back east. Despite being something of a fiasco, it nevertheless brought back a plethora of scientific data, maps, reports and diaries—and even excited the nation for a brief while. It’s a small feather in Monroe’s cap that has seemingly been lost to history.

The Panic of 1819 and presidential style
Monroe had a hands-on approach to his presidency, as proven by his involvement in the Long expedition (but not to the extent that Jefferson was in planning Lewis & Clark’s journey) and also in the written record of his communications with his department heads. Although Monroe was not brilliant like Jefferson or Madison, or commanding like Washington, he was able to have his way as president by seeking his cabinet’s opinion—or that of Congress—and then making his decision. Never one to act hastily, Monroe would gage all sides of an argument, often hearing contradictory advice from Adams, Calhoun and Crawford (his principle cabinet) and then acting. Although the Jeffersonian tradition was that the executive did not place direct pressure on Congress, Monroe’s department heads actually had a hand in writing legislation—which, of course, means that Monroe had a hand in moving Congress, however indirectly.

Sometimes, though, because of his style, he missed some of the signs. While the “era of good feelings” churned along, it was about to come to a crashing halt with the very first panic, or economic depression, in United States history. (There had been depressions in colonial history but this is the first for the nation itself.) President Monroe was caught somewhat off guard by this, as he either misread the warning signs while on his second tour in 1819, or was not fully informed by his cabinet officers of the seriousness of the situation. A scandal in the Second Bank of the United States was dealt with and that seemed to mitigate matters, but the Panic nevertheless came on in later 1819. It lasted into the next year, and interestingly enough, Monroe took little action to combat it other than to economize and make sure that the government remained fiscally solvent. (Can you imagine a president doing that today?)

Military crunch
Partially in response to the Panic of 1819 and partially because of the belief that America’s freedom was secure, Congress ordered a military cutback. Secretary of War Calhoun proved quite adept at meeting Congress’ demands, expertly crafting a military structure that was heavy on officers. His idea was that in time of war, the army would have plenty of officers, with only the easily trained private ranks needing to be filled.

Meanwhile, Monroe, based on his brief tenure as Madison’s secretary of war and perhaps his own army experience, was quite keen to build up America’s coastal fortifications. These projects were well underway until Congress cut off funding. Congress was less stingy with money for the navy, recognizing the need to protect American shipping from pirates, for example. Several major ships of the line and frigates were laid down during Monroe’s term.

The Compromise of 1820
The Panic of 1819 didn’t fully shatter the illusion of the Era of Good Feelings; something more sinister did. The admission of Missouri to the Union was proceeding normally until two northern congressmen introduced amendments stating that slavery be prohibited from any new state west of the Mississippi River. The issue of slavery, which had lay beneath open national discussion seemingly as part of a “gentleman’s agreement,” if you will, soon became the talk of the nation. For months, Congress considered no other business except Missouri, and discussion became incredibly heated.

The issue literally threatened to rend the nation. Representatives of slave states argued that congress had no business telling a state whether it could or could not have slavery. Free state representatives argued that Congress could indeed decide the terms on which a state could enter the Union. Monroe, for his part, did not directly enter the debate—believing it not the executive’s place to do so—but worked through his son-in-law, George Hay, to publish “anonymous” letters expressing his opinion. And that opinion was that Congress could not impose restrictions on a state’s entry where none had been imposed on any other. Contrary to some opinions, Monroe actually did make his presence felt directly in the debate, particularly with his close, informal contact with members of Congress, especially the Virginia delegation.

The president committed to veto any bill that placed restrictions on Missouri’s admission, so when Congress finally voted on a compromise, Monroe embraced it publicly. Missouri would be admitted as a slave state, Maine as a free state, and no slavery would be permitted north of 36 degrees 30’ latitude.

Monroe, himself a slave owner and destroyer of a slave rebellion in 1800 in Virginia, was not happy with this sectional hostility, and blamed Federalists and extreme Democrat-Republicans.

Second term
But the Missouri Compromise actually had little effect on the presidential election that year. With the Federalists shrinking ever closer to oblivion, the dominant party, in absence of real opposition, naturally began to fracture. By the time Monroe sailed to an easy re-election in 1820 (there was no one who offered a serious challenge and he won an electoral landslide) the fractures were apparent.

Some members of Congress, including his House nemesis, Henry Clay, considered his presidency to have ended as soon as his second term started. The contraction of funds for the military, a sign of Monroe’s weakness during his second term, iwas tself a sign of the weakening cohesion of the Republican party founded by Jefferson and Madison. The fractioning of the Republicans left Monroe without a solid party base from which to draw strength; factions were forming around possible successors to Monroe. Even his own cabinet contained three possible strong contenders: Adams, Calhoun and Crawford at Treasury (his vice president, Daniel Tompkins, was a non-entity).

The question of succession often left Monroe isolated: He was at odds with Congress over military funding, Indian affairs and internal improvements. Monroe vetoed measures by Congress geared toward internal improvements, e.g. roads. He felt that such improvements were more the purview of the states instead of the federal government. He was also at odds with COngress over foreign policy. Congress thought Monroe’s policies were too timid—but Monroe had the experience to back up his policies, and he had John Quincy Adams on his side.

The “Monroe Doctrine”
Of all the actions that Monroe took during his eight years in office, none has had more lasting impact than the doctrine that bears his name. Few presidents, in fact, could make claim to having so enduring a legacy that is practical in nature.

The Monroe Doctrine was partially the brainchild of Monroe’s secretary of state, the accomplished Adams, but Monroe deservs the credit. It sprang from a complicated set of circumstances in Latin and South America and the Russian-controlled segment of North America. Many colonies rebelled against Spanish control, and Congress, led by Henry Clay, was itching to recognize them. Monroe wasn’t, but not because he didn’t sympathize. He just wanted to do it when he felt the time was right. Monroe wanted to make sure that Spain would ratify the Adams-Onis treaty ceding Florida to the United States and establishing the boundaries between the U.S. and Spanish possessions to the west.

Spain ratified the treaty in 1820, and the U.S. signed it in 1821. With the treaty signed, Congress stepped up pressure to recognize the colonies. Fearing that the mislabeled “Holy Alliance” of Spain and a few other European nations would send troops to suppress the revolutions, England proposed, through diplomatic channels, an alliance with America to stop this move.

After much consultation with his cabinet and his mentor friends, Monroe decided on a position. With Adams’ help, Monroe delivered what became known as the Monroe Doctrine in his December 1823 message to Congress. He stated that the United States would consider any interference in any American state by a European nation as a hostile act, and that the American continents were closed to colonization.

Congress and the public hailed the message; Europe, on the other hand, figuratively laughed—but no “Holy Alliance” armies came to reclaim the colonies, more because of England’s fleet than the declaration of the upstart American president.

The “Monroe Doctrine” was not actually labeled as such until two decades after Monroe’s death in 1831. While hailed in 1823 as a seminal event, it quickly faded over the excitement of the 1824 presidential election.

Indian policy
One last aspect of Monroe’s presidency deserves mention. In his final report to Congress (note: the same thing as the modern State of the Union address), Monroe proposed removing all Indian tribes to the west bank of the Mississippi. Previously, Monroe had advocated removal only if tribes agreed to exchanging land for land. Throughout his entire term, he resisted Georgia’s call to remove by force the Cherokees who refused to leave.

Monroe changed his mind about removal—but made no official policy and took no official action—because he thought that forced removal to western lands, and the introduction of schools and other “civilized” practices, would prevent their extermination. In a way, he was right. But it would be many decades before the United States adopted a policy toward making Indians actual citizens.

Exit Monroe
I won’t go into the details here of the election of 1824 or the “corrupt bargain” that elevated John Quincy Adams to the presidency (that’s for the next entry), except to say that, given how close Monroe was to two of the top four candidates (Adams and Crawford, with Calhoun destined to easily win the vice presidency), Monroe bowed out of any kind of participation.

His exit was graceful, and many a state legislature voted their thanks for his half-century of service to the nation. He left office in a dire financial condition, with Congress actually recompensing him more than $29,000 of a requested $53,000 for various services rendered, including two diplomatic missions and refurbishing the White House from his own funds. It would be many, many years before Congress would authorize a pension for presidents.

Final Assessment

James Monroe is one of the easiest presidents to write about. An unassuming, inoffensive man, Monroe was not a brilliant theorist like John Adams or James Madison. He wasn’t a charismatic, luminary like Washington, nor was he a dazzling speaker, writer and personality like Jefferson. What he was, however, was a hard working man who was fully aware of his limitations and worked well within those boundaries. Once he set his mind to a task, he accomplished it.

He wasn’t afraid to surround himself with brilliant men (Crawford, J. Q. Adams, Calhoun), seek the advice of his mentor friends (Jefferson and Madison) and reject their advice when he made his decisions. He had the courage of his convictions, and never appeared wishy-washy on anything.

He had a strong grasp of the Constitution, his executive powers and limits, and an equally strong grasp of foreign affairs. He was an excellent communicator in that he kept on top of letters, correspondence, orders, bills, etc. As a public speaker, though, he was unmemorable. Reading his speeches and letters is something of a chore, as they contain none of the soaring prose of Jefferson or insights of Adams (but run-on sentences that anticipate Faulkner.)

On the downside, Monroe was such a workaholic that he could often miss the forest for the trees. When on his tour in 1819, people were telling him that things were starting to go sour, but he was seemingly blindsided when the Panic hit. And the desire to bury the Federalists and fulfill Jefferson’s dream of “we are all Federalists; we are all Republicans” had the unintended effect of leaving him without a party to lead, as the party fractured by his second term—leaving him more isolated than engaged as the hunt was on for his successor.

One final note: The Monroe Doctrine has of course long since outlived its creator, and has been cited many times by presidents to justify actions almost to the present day. Critics have decried its use, saying it is justification for United States hegemony over the Western Hemisphere.

Final assessment: Monroe was mostly successful in his endeavors (though definitly not entirely), and popular throughout his two terms.

Resources

I must admit that I was wary about reading The American Presidents volume on James Monroe, because it’s written by uber-liberal and failed presidential wannabe Gary Hart. I’d heard that Hart used this book to attack George W. Bush. Well, that proved to be true, but it was a small portion of Hart's book. But that's not why I dislike it. The volume is easily the weakest in The American Presidents series, because Hart goes to great pains to remind the reader that Monroe created the Monroe Doctrine—like, repeatedly, and several times, and over and over. What in the world possessed series editor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. to commission Gary Hart to write this volume? If Hart wanted to write a book about just the Monroe Doctrine and the mind behind it, and make the case that Monroe was the first "national security president"—a notion I find intriging but somewhat forced—he succeed. But in the process of making his thesis he sidelines everything else in Monroe’s presidency.

Superior resources to Hart’s misplaced volume are Noble E. Cunningham’s The Presidency of James Monroe (1996) of the University of Kansas’ presidents series—this was my primary resource—and Harry Ammon’s James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (1990).



Illustrations

1. James Monroe painted by Gilbert Stuart, 1817, while on his first tour of the Union. (public domain image)

2. Washington Crossing the Delaware, painted by Emanuel Leutze. Original in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this highly fanciful painting, James Monroe is depicted holding the flag right behind George Washington. (public domain image)

3. James Monroe painted by Samuel F.B. Morse. Official White House Collection (White House Historical Association)

4. Map of the Adams-Onis Treaty. See here for rights for the map.

5. Monroe lies in state in the House of Representatives, the same place where he was sworn into office in 1821. (Library of Congress image)

6. Monroe’s final resting place in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. Originally he was buried with family in New York, but was moved here in 1858. (Library of Congress image)

Number 4: James Madison

Years in office: 1809-1817
Pre-service occupations: Virginia state legislator, delegate to the Second Continental Congress, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, U.S. Congressman, Secretary of State (Jefferson administration)
Key events during his administration: War of 1812 (1812-1815), battle of Tippecanoe (1811), Second Barbary Pirate War (1815), Bank of the United States re-chartered (1816), Louisiana (1811) and Indiana (1816) admitted to the Union, annexation of western Florida (1810)

Presidential rating: Mixed (but ultimately successful on the war), and mixed on popularity

ESSAY

Oh, say can you see
By the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed
By the twilight’s last gleaming…

Most people undoubtedly don’t realize it, but every time they sing the national anthem, they’re invoking the war that James Madison started and nearly lost—a war that, if it had been lost, would have meant the end of the United States of America before its 30th birthday.

But the war was won, and James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” brilliant constitutional defender amid a trio of anonymous authors, and drafter of the Bill of Rights, has gone down in history as a great man instead of a great failure. It’s fascinating to behold how Madison was so book smart, but when it came to putting theory into practice, he very nearly lost the country he helped create.

However, looking at Madison that way fashions a two-dimensional portrait of brilliant thinker/incompetent president. But he wasn’t incompetent. It’s just that being president wasn’t quite his forte.

Early political career
Naturally, most Americans associate James Madison with the Constitution, The Federalist and the Bill of Rights. His presidency seems to have taken second place—or even have been forgotten. And the War of 1812 is remembered primarily for Francis Scott Key’s poem and its accompanying, hard-to-sing drinking song, and for the battle Andrew Jackson fought after the war had ended. It’s unfortunate, too, because his presidency, while in of itself was nothing spectacular, was critical to the nation because of that war.

But let’s look first at Madison’s early career. Biographer Gary Wills zeros in on specific points that would later play key roles in his presidency. For example, Madison was a terrific organizer, having observed his father’s diligent and careful planning and organizational skills while master of his Virginia plantation. When Madison was elected to the chaotic 2nd Constitutional Congress (after a stint in the Virginia legislature), he brought calm and collected order of the likes they hadn’t seen before.

Following the war, Madison joined with “conspirators” to “amend” the weak Articles of the Confederation. He was instrumental in securing George Washington’s participation, which lent the secret Constitutional Convention its air of authenticity. Madison brought his exceptional mind and organizational skills to the convention, and later, he collaborated with Alexander Hamilton in a brilliant series of essays to convince New Yorkers to accept the Constitution. Those anonymous essays, when joined with John Jay’s pieces, would constitute The Federalist, still the most powerful defense of the Constitution.

A curious bit about Madison’s ideas is that he wanted the federal government to have the authority to veto any state’s law. This never got out of the starting gate, and Madison was adamant, for personal reasons, that his proposal remained secret until he was dead. But it’s interesting to see how in modern America, Madison’s proposal has pretty much come to fruition—sometimes through Congress, and sometimes through the Supreme Court. (Does anyone doubt that Roe v. Wade was a “veto” of all state laws concerning abortion?)

The wishful thinker
Madison would soon fall out with Hamilton and later Washington and fell in with Jefferson. And when I say “fell in,” he became party to Jefferson’s monarch scare, believing Hamilton, Adams and the arch-Federalists as seeking to bring about a new monarchy in America. It’s a pity, really, because it lead Madison to reverse himself on his constitutional arguments simply to thwart first Washington and later the Federalists.

And herein lay Madison’s biggest problem, one that would cause him much grief as president. Madison was prone to pounce on events that verified what he wanted to happen, or thought were happening, without first verifying that they were in fact happening. In other words, Madison had a bad case of wishful thinking.

Madison—brilliant legislator, excellent theorist, skillful defender of the government he was instrumental in creating—was nevertheless naïve when it came to dealing with political and international opponents. He was more prone to believe what should be than what was, the fiction over the reality, the proposed over the accepted, the fantasy over the fact.

More than any other factor, wishful thinking sadly explains why the United States went to war with England in 1812. (Historians don’t fully agree, but I find Wills’ explanation persuasive.)

The heir apparent
In modern America, the surest path to the White House is first through a state house. Four of the last five presidents have been governors (Carter in Georgia, Reagan in California, Clinton in Arkansas and G. W. Bush in Texas). But in the first several decades of the Republic, the office of the secretary of state was seen as the path to the presidency. Jefferson was Adams VP but he was also Washington’s secretary of state. Madison was Jefferson’s man at State. Later in Madison’s presidency, Monroe would serve at State (and also for a time at War); Monroe’s successor at State would also be his presidential successor, John Quincy Adams.

By serving as secretary of state throughout Jefferson’s entire presidency, Madison all but guaranteed he would become the next president. That’s not to say that he and Jefferson agreed on everything; but the two were of mind enough that Madison sailed to an easy election victory in 1808, despite the failure of the embargo.

The embargo imbroglio and a bad start
The troubles with the British Empire didn’t end in 1783. They simmered throughout the first three administrations. Rather than resort to war over impressments of American sailors, President Jefferson accepted Secretary of State Madison’s advice to place an embargo on all exports to Europe on the theory that European markets would suffer without American raw materials. The embargo largely backfired: Europe hardly noticed, while American markets suffered.

Jefferson, and more importantly, Madison, stubbornly clung to the policy, even convincing themselves that it was working. It was hugely unpopular, especially in Federalist-controlled New England. Jefferson even had to resort to using the army and navy to enforce the embargo. Toward the end of his term, when Jefferson figuratively walked away from his presidency, Madison still maintained hope that the embargo would make England come to her senses. But Congress had other ideas, and lifted the embargo on all but England and France at the end of Jefferson’s presidency.

The new president still believed that this non-confrontational approach would win the day against England—and that he could avoid resorting to guns. Coupled with fights within the Republican party, and his belief that he could use commerce to force England to back down, Madison made uninspired cabinet choices at State, War and Navy. All three were, in fact, dangerously incompetent. The only top-notch high cabinet member was his real choice for state, Albert Gallatin, who went to Treasury instead.

In addition to his lousy cabinet choices, he was encumbered with an opposition vice president during his first term: George Clinton, a purist Democrat-Republican and ally of Randolph, who had broken with Jefferson over the latter’s “overbearing” uses of executive power. Clinton would work against Madison; in the Senate, when a tie-breaking vote was needed, he would vote against the administration. In addition, the split in the Republican party meant that Gallatin was left in the Treasury while a compromise man, the hapless Robert Smith, bungled through State (until he was succeeded by the much superior James Monroe in 1811).

To make matters worse, Madison balked on the army’s senior officer, a scoundrel named James Wilkinson, who had been a thorn in Jefferson’s side and supposedly a plotter with Aaron Burr to form a new country in the west. Gen. Wilkinson was not competent, and would cause much grief for America when the war came. But Madison bears much blame because when even though he ordered Wilkinson’s court martial in 1811 for dereliction of duty, he wound up exonerating the general in part because of favors he and Jefferson owed him from the previous administration during the trial of Burr!

In fact, his presidency seemed to drift along for the first two years, from 1809-1810, while he searched for a non-violent solution to British and French meddling in American shipping—including reviving some version of the embargo.

National bank blues
The bank of the United States was set to expire in 1811, a fact that actually upset both Madison and Gallatin—though you wouldn’t think that about Madison, considering he was a Republican and had become so in part over opposition to Hamilton, creator of the fiscal policies that the Jeffersonians so abhorred. Jefferson and his fellow Republicans, including Madison at that time, adamantly argued that a federal bank was unconstitutional. But President Madison privately said—rather lamely—his sound arguments had been rendered inapplicable by long usage (see Wills, p. 76; Madison’s reasoning promoted this acid remark from Wills: Unconstitutional things become constitutional if accepted as such?”)

It was a curious and odd reversal for Madison; perhaps he finally understood the wisdom of having a central bank instead of having the government borrow from several state institutions. Gallatin was a supporter, but, again, oddly, when the secretary went to Congress seeking re-authorization, Madison failed to publicly support him. The national bank died—and would be sorely missed when the war came. Gallatin and his successor tried and eventually succeeded in getting Congress to recreate a national bank, but such an institution would not become a permanent fixture until the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

Instigating the War of 1812: Madison, Congress or the people?
It’s not my intention to re-fight the War of 1812. An excellent summary of the course of the war can be found here. For book readers, I recommend the recently released 1812: The War That Forged a Nation by Walter R. Borneman. I’m more interested in why Madison got into this war and how it was ended.

Historians disagree on this point. Some Madison scholars, like Robert Allen Rutland (The Presidency of James Madison, 1990), conclude that Madison was riding the currents of popular war sentiment among the public and Congress and couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to. Not so, says Wills, who argues that Madison, through a combination of his own naivety and mechanizations with his new secretary of state, James Monroe, and Rep. Henry Clay, brought on the war with England. I find Wills more persuasive.

There are, ultimately, two things that brought on this war. The first was bungled diplomacy and Madison’s being suckered by Napoleon. The second was the lure of the prize of Canada.

Diplomatic conundrum and Bonaparte’s sucker punch
The Jefferson-Madison embargo had failed, but Madison still had faith in it. England’s minister to America gave the new president a mistaken impression that it had in fact worked. Madison pursued a policy of “nonintercourse” with England and France until 1810, when Congress passed a truly strange act (Macon Act 2), which stated that America would resume trading with England and France until one country or the other recognized America’s neutrality. At that time, America would trade exclusively with that country alone and be hostile with the other!

Napoleon tricked Madison into believing that he was accepting the offer, even though he was doing no such thing. Madison rescinded nonintercourse against France and resumed it against England, while England had actually revoked the Order of Councils against America. Madison had pounced on the first inkling of a solution rather than waiting for the situation to develop. Napoleon, whose “continental system” forbade any trade with England, would have no problem with another belligerent against England—even though his ships still helped themselves to American vessels. But England, which was actually smarting because of the tremendous pressures from Napoleon and the loss (until after 1812) of timber from Spain and Russia, decided getting at Napoleon through America wasn’t worth it.

But by the time England had rescinded its Orders of Council in the summer of 1811, Madison had already turned his thoughts to war. In November, Madison asked Congress to prepare for war, and Congress responded by authorizing a 25,000-man army but (much to Jefferson’s delight) no increase in the Navy.

England’s newest minister to America, however, arrived that winter and warned Madison that if nonintercourse continued, England would retaliate commercially. But Madison soon droped a bombshell: letters from a Canadian “spy” that supposedly proved Canada was inciting a rebellion in New England. The letters were later proven false, but the damage was done. War fever grew against England—and also France, which continued to go after American shipping.

But Madison has his sights set on England, and in the summer of 1812, asked Congress to declare war. Even one final tepid try at an embargo couldn’t stop this war.

Oh, Canada!
Historians have long argued whether we actually sought to conquer Canada to add it to the Union. As far as Madison was concerned, though, he eyed Canada as a bargaining chip: take the “weakly defended” Canada then dangle it before England. This was actually a stark reversal for Madison. Throughout the Jefferson embargo and his own presidency’s attempts, Madison deliberately downplayed Canada’s importance to England. But now, he reasoned that the empire, fighting for its life against Napoleon, would cease the outrages against American ships in order to once more get raw goods from America and Canada.

At least, that was the idea.

The American invasion of Canada went badly. Without getting into details, the incompetence of American generals such as Wilkinson, Dearborn and others was stunning. The belief that Canada was a low-lying fruit ripe for plucking, reliance on untrained and squabbling militia, widely scattered U.S. forces, and lack of a coherent plan doomed the U.S. effort. Madison wanted Canada taken in 1812. Instead, Britain’s Canadian and Indian forces delivered one humiliating defeat after another — when American generals weren’t busy defeating themselves.

The only bright spot for America in 1812 was the exploits of the Navy’s handful of frigates—the very ships that Jefferson and Madison had opposed during Washington and Adams’ administrations—which delivered spectacular victories. (For example, the USS Constitution earned her moniker, Old Ironsides, while taking out the HMS Guerriere.)

England decided to adopt a defensive stance in America in 1812-13 because of Napoleon. Utterly. That held off American defeat, as well as American actions on the Great Lakes, especially Oliver Hazard Perry’s Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813, and William Henry Harrison and Andrew Jackson’s land battles in the west in 1813-14.

The regular U.S. army finally came into its own in 1814 and reversed the humiliations of the early defeats. Better generals, including Winfield Scott and Jacob Brown, trained and led armies to standoffs or outright victories in upper New York and the Niagara region, so much so that the British were worried enough to send a diversionary force—to the American capital.

Capital humiliation
Aug. 24, 1814, for some reason, is not a day of infamy in American history. Few people, it seems, remember it. Far more people unwittingly remember the bombardment the following month of Fort McHenry protecting Baltimore, thanks to our national anthem, than they do the sacking and burning of our nation’s capital.

Why did Washington burn? Why did Madison ultimately fail to protect Washington? It’s not simple, and to fully explain it would take several scroll-down pages of text. But I’ll use Gary Wills’ four points to summarize the reasons:

1. Lack of (military) intelligence. When your commanding general and secretary of war are themselves scouting enemy positions, you have a serious problem.

2. Lack of a clear command structure. This actually had been plaguing the entire war effort from the start, and the fault was squarely Madison’s and his first hapless secretary of war, Eustis.

3. Military appointments made based on politics, not merit. In other words, the Jeffersonian aversion to a standing, professional army that was not beholden to politics hut us badly in this war.

4. Over-reliance on militias. We romanticize militias coming at the beck and call when danger arises, but when these untrained farmers and clerks faced a hardened British force that had been fighting Napoleon for more than a decade, they fled—fast.

By contrast, Baltimore had none of these problems, and used engineers trained at the new West Point academy. That’s why Washington fell and Baltimore didn’t. It’s why things started going much better in Canada in 1814, and Washington was a disaster.

The problem is, across the Atlantic Ocean, not all of this was clear yet.

Peace commission
A weakened President Madison won re-election in 1812 despite the debacles in Canada. His challenger was DeWitt Clinton, an arch-Republican and relative of his late vice president, who had died that spring. (Federalists didn’t even bother with a candidate and threw support behind Clinton.)

Perhaps the failures in Canada unnerved him, perhaps he was having serious second thoughts, but Madison authorized a peace commission, sponsored by Russia, to negotiate with England. Albert Gallatin (now no longer secretary of Treasury) and James A. Bayard joined John Quincy Adams, then minister to Russia, to begin mediated negotiations in St. Petersburg. The trouble was that because of the failure of Canada, and the fact that America had no fleet to speak of, England was the stronger party.

Those negotiations fell through, but they got a second life in Ghent, Belgium, and included Henry Clay and Jonathon Russell, and no longer had a mediator. Meanwhile, in late 1813, Madison once more re-instated his favorite weapon: an embargo against all imports and exports of all products of British origin—from anywhere.

New England sits out the war
In the current war on Islamic terror, liberals have all but opted out. They derisively label the war—especially Iraq—as Bush’s war. This isn’t without precedent.

During Madison’s time, an entire section of the nation refused to participate. New England never sent any militia. Massachusetts city councils condemned the war. In October 1814, a council of New England states met to air grievances against the federal government, mainly the president, because it was their livelihood more than anyone else’s that was being severely hurt by the war and successive embargos. Not for nothing was the War of 1812 also dubbed “Mr. Madison’s War.”

The conventioneers even talked of seceding from the Union, but it never went beyond agitated talk. Eventually, the Hartford Convention sent a list of watered-down grievances to President Madison that nevertheless drew scorn from the rest of the nation and further sealed the fate of the already-dwindling Federalists.

Peace and Madison resurgent
When the allied forces finally knocked out Napoleon in 1814 (albeit temporarily), both England and Madison knew that the empire could turn greater attention to America.

England’s ministers’ initial peace proposal at Ghent was an arrogant affair that, at first, it seemed, America was in no position to debate: give up a buffer zone between the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, sealing America from those waterways, and surrender a large portion of t he Northwest to create an Indian nation. But England’s Lord Castlereagh fortunately softened the terms, recognizing rightly that England was incredibly tired of war.

What’s more, when word arrived of American successes in New York, Niagara and the west, Wellington, brilliant victor of the long and incredibly tough war on the Iberian peninsula (and in a year, over Napoleon himself), declared that further fighting there would be fruitless.

Better terms were arranged—this times with Americans giving in—and the Treaty of Ghent was signed in December of 1814. Of course, as any good student of American history knows, Andrew Jackson won the famous battle of New Orleans in January 1815 after the war ended but a few weeks before word of the treaty reached America.

Despite the sourness of New England and the ashes of Washington, Madison was riding high on the successful conclusion of the war. Successful, in that the United States survived, and British (and French) impressments finally ceased.

Canada never entered the American fold in any way, shape or form; but western Florida did. And in the west and southwest, William Henry Harrison and Andrew Jackson had defeated, respectively, Tecumseh and the Creeks, further securing lands to the west. Jackson also completed the “conquest” of west Florida, which had begun before the war.

The war’s ultimate outcome and Madison’s legacy
What had been gained? One major unintended, but critical consequence: a major sense of national identity emerged from the war. America felt a rush of power—largely illusionary, to be sure—at having beaten, at least on paper, the world’s greatest power (now that Napoleon was gone). The next 10 years was the so-called “Era of Good Feelings,” which began with the euphoria of the war’s end. Even the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which heralded the beginning of the next great crisis that wasn’t to end until the great civil war, couldn’t dampen the newfound spirit.

Republican Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, 0a Madison appointee, argued that the war was a triumph for Republicanism. The war certainly made it seem that way, as Madison enjoyed a smooth final year in office, for once unmarred by fighting in his cabinet. He was popular, and his chosen successor, James Monroe, easily squashed his challenger in the election of 1816.

But the war was by no means a triumph of pure Jeffersonian principles. The central government was strengthened. A standing army and navy were both greatly strengthened, and the national bank once more became reality. American manufacturing became more critical—making war supplies, of course—and took deeper root in the nation’s fabric. America had struck against a powerful foreign adversary not through diplomacy but through force of arms. Madison was calling for a national system of roads to connect all regions of the country. And the Federalists, even though they should have agreed with those developments in spirit, shrank even further to oblivion.

Thus is Madison’s legacy—none of which was a stated objective for going to war with England, of course. But there’s another part of his legacy that must be recognized. Madison was an excellent wartime president as far as the Constitution was concerned. When compared to Lincoln, Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Madison did nothing that seriously stretched the Constitution or violated civil liberties (I’m reserving judgment on George W. Bush for later). For example, when New England states refused to fight, Madison didn’t make them. He also carefully followed the Constitution prescription for war, making sure that Congress declared war and that he himself didn’t force it on Congress.

Finally, Madison also probably never realized it, but the American mainland would not be seriously threatened by an enemy for more than 150 years. The oceans would keep us “safe” until one fiery September day.

Dolley Madison
I’d be remiss in talking about James Madison if I failed to mention his extraordinary wife, Dolley. She’s generally thought of as the first first lady. More so than Martha Washington or Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison created the role of White House hostess, even though the title of first lady was not widely used until much later in the century. She served as unofficial hostess for the widowed President Jefferson then fulfilled the role for her own husband.

When British marines closed in on Washington, Dolley Madison secured precious state documents, including the unfinished Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and the official diary of the Constitutional Convention.

(Note: It’s a common mistake, but Dolley Madison was the first lady; Dolly Madison is the pastry brand.)

Final Assessment
Writing about James Madison the president is not an easy thing to do. Most of the troubles of Madison’s presidency came from the president himself, including his naïve wishful thinking and his tendency to seek an intellectual solution rather than a realistic one. The uninspired and unfocused first two years of his presidency—the lousy cabinet choices, pressing for another embargo, etc.—coupled with his personality quirks help set the nation up for a war it was not prepared for.

Madison wasn’t that great of a president, but he was a steady one. The president was certainly culpable for those incompetent cabinet choices—more importantly, keeping them on, once the battle was joined—and the utter lack of real direction in the early stages of the war. But Madison rose to the occasion, and corrected his deficiencies. He never panicked.

He merits a successful rating because of the simple fact that the War of 1812 was won—amazingly so—and the United States emerged a stronger nation because of it. Madison himself left office quite popular. Historians generally rank Madison right in the middle: average.

But Madison probably wouldn’t care what kind of ranking I or anyone else put on him, as long as we acknowledged that he accomplished what he set out to do with every public office he held: union. Biographer Rutland explains:

“As president, Madison labored—as he had when he first entered the Continental Congress in 1789—to maintain the spark of freedom he had first seen lit in 1775. His first duty as president, he believed, was to maintain the Union, for national unity was essential if liberty’s flame was to be kept burning.”

Indeed. And in that regard, President Madison performed admirably. Even though we don’t remember him for his presidency or “Mr. Madison’s War,” but as the Father of the Constitution, President Madison faithfully fulfilled his oath of office to defend the nation and preserve the very Constitution he helped create.

Resources

Surprisingly, there aren’t too many modern, full-length biographies on Madison. The best remains Ralph Ketchem’s James Madison: A Biography (1971), still considered the standard on his entire life.

Also highly useful is Gary Wills’ entry on James Madison in The American Presidents series. It was quite good, because Wills examined key themes from Madison’s pre-presidential career in Virginia, the Continental Congress, the constitutional convention and the three previous administrations as to how they related to his own presidency. Another good resource is The Presidency of James Madison (1990) by Robert Allen Rutland, from the University of Kansas’ The American Presidency series.

You can also read Henry Adams’ classic The History of the United States: During the Administrations of Madison (1889-1891), which has held up rather well, although Adams, a fan of Jefferson, portrays Madison as a weak and vacillating president who was not up to the task.

Illustration credits:
1) James Madison, painting by Chester Harding
2) James Madison, official WhiteHouse.gov portrait
3) A Boxing Match, or Another Bloody Nose for John Bull, contemporary cartoon, Library of Congress collection
4) Battle of Lake Erie by William Henry Powell, United States Senate collection
5) Contemporary print of the burned Presidential Mansion, 1814, Library of Congress collection
6) Dolley Madison print, Library of Congress collection

Number 3: Thomas Jefferson

(February 2007, revised November 2008 and January 2009)

Years in office: 1801-1809

Pre-service occupations: delegate to the first and second Continental Congress, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, secretary of state (Washington administration) vice president (Adams administration)

Key events during his administration: Louisiana purchase (1803), Lewis & Clark expedition (1804-1806), Barbary Coast war (1801-1805), Embargo Act (1807), outlaw of international slave trade (1808), Ohio admitted to the Union (1803)

Nicknames: “Mad” Tom, the Sage of Monticello, the “Negro President”

Presidential rating: First term: highly successful and very popular; second term: somewhat unsuccessful and ultimately unpopular.

ESSAY

Nearly every day of my college career at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I’d pass the Thomas Jefferson marker on the Quad. The small obelisk is Jefferson’s original tombstone, which was awarded to Missouri in 1883 when Congress made a new grave marker for the Virginian. It reads:

HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Notice something missing?

Jefferson left specific instructions that his marker have nothing added. So, no mention at all that he was president, despite the fact that he was immensely popular, won re-election in a landslide and succeeded wresting the government from the arch-Federalists, who believed they were the government.

Jefferson is an enigma to historians, which makes writing about him a challenge. If you read one of the recent biographies about George Washington, you come to dislike Jefferson as duplicitous and scheming. If you read about John Adams, you come to detest him until late in Adams’ life. But if you read about Jefferson himself, you’re sometimes left scratching your head. He either doesn’t quite live up to the hype of fawning admirers, nor down to the depths of critics’ damnations. Rather, he occupies an often-contradictory place of his own.

A contradictory champion of the common man

Thomas Jefferson was, in historian Robert Rutland’s words, the “unquenchable idealist.” His eloquent and even beautiful words embodied the Revolution, and he guarded that embodiment jealously. He, along with fellow Virginian James Madison, was particularly keen that America had permanently overthrown the monarchy, and would spend his entire post-war life making sure it never came back. There’s no question that he loved the country he helped bring about, and was wary of anyone he thought would bring it down—hence his suspicions of one-time close friend Adams, and especially Hamilton and the Federalists.

Jefferson couched the election of 1800 in terms of a second Revolution, where the government wouldn’t be accessible just for elites, but for everybody (”everybody” then meaning propertied white men). There is a lot of truth to this, and we truly owe Jefferson a debt of gratitude for it. He believed that the “common” man, not a governmental elite, should control the government, the latter of which had been the staple of classical political thought since Aristotle. These republican values meant that in a decentralized agrarian society, free men could govern their own affairs and would—or should—reject the commerce/manufacturing nation envisioned by Hamilton coupled with the stronger central “elite” government of the Federalists.

While Jefferson’s vision of a gentile agrarian paradise never came to fruition, his opening of government to ordinary Americans had lasting impact.

Indeed, Jefferson’s belief in the common man over the elite still stirs the American soul.Not only that, Jefferson also held that each successive generation should be free to decide its affairs, and not be beholden to the past. It was not a call to overthrow the government each generation, but rather allow for an infusion of new ideas each generation. Writes biographer Joyce Appleby,

“In countries left free, the forms of social existence would be emergent and fluid. Without set practices, sacred constitutions, and inhibiting authorities, experience itself would flourish men and women with the material for making decisions. Liberated once and for all would be man the doer, the inventor, the adapter, the improver—home faber—the universal man hidden from himself by tyrants, priests and overlords. One can see in all of these expectations the source of Jefferson’s enduring appeal, for his were the values that continue to flourish in the United States today.” (p.49-50) (And yes, Appleby’s biography is very much pro-Jefferson.)

In opposing the Federalists, he often chased phantom monarchists—a “reverse red-scare” as John Adams’ biographer John Patrick Diggins labeled it—and even though he envisioned himself the champion of liberty and justice, he strangely embraced the tyranny and terrorism of the French Revolution and shed no tears for the murders carried out for “liberty, equality and fraternity” in Paris. He was suspicious of anyone who didn’t see his point of view—ironically, living the type of republican government that Adams believed was necessary; for what is constitutional government with its checks and balances, if it’s not built on a healthy modicum of suspicion of the other branches?

Thus, Jefferson was truly the most radical of the founding fathers; so, naturally he found the cautious nature—the conservatism, if you will—of Washington, Adams, the Federalists and his arch-foe, Hamilton, difficult to stomach.

The president in slippers

Personally, Jefferson was truly a fascinating character, and to be invited to dine with the president at his decidedly informal Presidential Mansion (not yet called the White House) would have been an event to be treasured for life. He could carry on about any subject: biology, agriculture, letters, politics, architecture, religion, you name it. (President Kennedy, once holding fourth with a group of Nobel laureates, famously said that it was the greatest gathering of minds in the White House “since Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”)

His loathing of the formalities and elitism of the Federalists led him to develop a super-relaxed presidency, one that even today we couldn’t fathom, what with the incredible security needs and schedule of the modern president. Practically anyone was welcome to drop by. Even Jefferson himself would answer the door.

He insisted that foreign ministers and heads of state be treated no differently than the gentleman farmer down the lane, which led to this funny incident in 1803: England’s new foreign minister, the delightfully named Anthony Merry, arrived in the new capitol city and came calling at the Presidential Mansion with all appropriate English pomp and circumstance and wearing full diplomatic regalia. Merry, of course, expected the American head of state to receive him with the proper decorum. But for several minutes, Secretary of State Madison was unable to find the president. Finally Jefferson appeared, wearing slippers and what could only be charitably described as business casual.

Merry was not amused, and never called on Jefferson again. But it wasn’t so much of a tweak of a stuffy Brit by a Francophile than the tossing away of all convention by a pure radical.The portrait of Jefferson I chose to illustrate this entry, painted by Rembrandt Peale in 1805, shows the president wearing a fur-lined robe—not at all the garb one would expect a head of state to wear, especially in a portrait! Compare that picture of Jefferson to this one of England's King George III, painted shortly after his coronation, and you can begin to understand just how much Jefferson hated elitism—and why he wouldn’t consider himself a hypocrite to be master of Monticello yet “champion” of the common man.

On a more personal level, the charge persists that Jefferson had an affair with his slave Sally Hemmings, and fathered several of her children. A DNA test in 1998 provided some scientific proof that a male Jefferson did in fact sire Hemmings children. The charge became a factor in the 1804 election, and fodder for those seeking to charge Jefferson with hypocrisy (hence the unflattering nickname "Negro President.") Personally, here, I don’t care, because although it was a juicy slur or scandal (depending on one's point of view), this scurrilous election issue didn't have much of a bearing on his presidency. (Fascinating note: Descendents of both Jefferson and Hemmings now attend Jefferson family reunions together.)

So, knowing something of his political philosophy and personality, then, what kind of president did he make? When the Democrats get together for their annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, are they celebrating the man who co-founded what became their party, or the man of the “revolution of 1800,” or the president, or all three? Jefferson’s reputation as president has had its ups and downs; let’s see what he actually did.

Mr. President: The title Jefferson wanted to forget

Jefferson’s presidency lasted two terms, a pattern repeated by his two successors, also fellow Virginians.

Jeffersonianism stretched through the 16 years of Madison and Monroe, and inched through the four years of John Quincy Adams until the party he founded gained a new champion in Andrew Jackson.Jefferson’s presidency made a lasting impact in four areas. I’ve already talked about one: his republicanism and belief in democracy. The other areas are the use of executive authority as it relates to the Louisiana Purchase, the Barbary Pirates and the disastrous 15-month embargo; the purging of the Federalists, which led to the unintended creation of judicial review; and the end of the slave trade.

A strong executive when it suited him

The events that most people immediately associate with the presidency of Thomas Jefferson are 1) the purchase of the Louisiana territory from Napoleon, and 2) the Corps of Discovery, otherwise known as the Lewis and Clark expedition. Initially, Jefferson was only interested in the port city of New Orleans, seeking to buy it from the ailing Spanish empire. Without getting into the long, winding history of the purchase, suffice it to say in the final deal, Jefferson had instructed his ministers to purchase New Orleans and some of the surrounding land. They were prepared to pay $10 million. Napoleon surprised the American ministers by offering the entire Louisiana territory for $15 million.

The purchase brought Jefferson some grief. Jefferson’s aversion to Adams’ version of the strong executive seems to have been overlooked here. The Federalists pointed out truthfully—and smarmily—that the purchase violated his stated beliefs on executive power. Now, the Constitution does give the president the authority to negotiate treaties—but not purchase land, and certainly not annex a huge swath of territory. Jefferson, aware of the Constitutional pickle he was in, even drafted several versions of a Constitutional amendment to address the issue. But Secretary of State Madison, the author of the Constitution, said little. Congress and the country accepted the purchase regardless of its seemingly questionable constitutionality.

Nevertheless, the purchase doubled the size of the United States; however, it brought hundreds of thousands of new people unwillingly into the new nation: Indians. The President’s policy on the tribes, those both east and west of the Mississippi, was to turn the “savage” nomads into farmers, push them out of U.S. territory or exterminate them. Remember, Jefferson’s rights of man extended only to white men, not Africans or Indians, who he—and to be fair, most everyone else—considered inferior. (When Lewis and Clark set up relations between tribes and the “Great White Father” Jefferson, they thought they were setting up a superior/inferior relationship. The tribes, naturally, believed they were being received as equals.)

Regardless, the purchase was eventually seen as a proper use of executive authority, and Jefferson deserves praise for his foresight. He also deserves praise for another first-term foreign policy venture, taking on the Muslim Barbary pirates.

Relations with Congress and the Barbary Pirates

Jefferson sought a good working relationship between the executive and legislative branches to get things done, particularly because he was better with the personal appeal than with a speech. Of course, it helped greatly that his party enjoyed strong majorities in both Houses, so I can’t help but wonder what he would have done had the Federalists retained the majority.For instance, would a Federalist majority have howled in outrage at Jefferson’s actions against the Barbary Pirates? The Republican majority didn’t, even though Jefferson sent in the Navy and the Marines without a declaration of war. (The Federalists probably wouldn’t have.)

In the 21st century we tend to make more of Jefferson’s fight with the Barbary Pirates than was made at that time. I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t a major affair; I’m just more concerned with how Jefferson did it. First off, he used the Navy that Adams had built up during the Quasi-War, regardless of the fact that he sought to cut that Navy’s funding. Second, he never asked Congress for a declaration of war. He simply did it, and informed Congress. Both actions, while not unconstitutional, nevertheless appear to have once again violated the spirit of Thomas Jefferson the radical revolutionist, the man who fought so hard against Adams’ idea of the strong executive.

But they actually didn’t, because Jefferson had argued for fighting the pirates back during Washington’s administration. And like his predecessor acting to protect American ships at sea from French corsairs during the Quasi-War, Jefferson believed quite correctly that he was within his authority to send a fleet and Marines to the Africa coast to deal with the Muslim pirates—without seeking Congressional authority to declare war. It’s probably the nature of the attacks by self-proclaimed pirates and not a major nation-state that negated Jefferson’s need to declare war—unlike the continuing troubles with the Royal Navy, which produced the disastrous Embargo.

Troubles with the British and the cursed “O-grab-me”

The American economy was quite good during the first half of Jefferson’s term. It’s due in part to Hamilton’s vision, but also to the Republican ideal of opening America up to “everyone.” But America had yet to create a solid manufacturing base of its own, and relied largely upon overseas trade with England and France and other European nations. President Jefferson had no intention of involving American in the Napoleonic wars, which teetered on the edge and finally resumed midway through Jefferson’s administration. (The concept of “no entangling alliances” is sometimes credited to Washington, but it is a firm Jeffersonian statement.)

Britain’s Royal Navy didn’t take too kindly to its sailors deserting to America, and England didn’t much like America trading with Napoleon, either; so, RN ships stopped U.S. Navy and civilian ships to catch the deserters. In one bad incident, a British ship fired on the USS Chesapeake, killing her captain and wounding several sailors. One deserter was found. The incident, though, outraged America and anger against England and war fever became similar to the fever of the XYZ Affair during Adams’ administration.

But Jefferson didn’t want war with England, despite the repeated outrages against American ships—which may seem surprising, considering how much he favored France over England. Jefferson, rather than risk an all-out shooting war with England, ran with Madison’s idea of an embargo of shipping to all European powers; Congress agreed and voted the embargo into law in 1807. But by agreeing with Madison’s proposal, he made a critical mistake in judgment. He believed he could use American shipping and commerce as a diplomatic weapon rather than engage in a shooting war—declared or otherwise—and that European, especially English, markets would be so hurt by the loss of American goods that the impressments of American sailors would end and America’s status as neutral shipper to the belligerents in Europe would be preserved. He was wrong, especially because the policy, which lasted 15 months, hurt the wrong economy—the American economy.

The “O-grab-me,” as one political cartoon lampooned the embargo, hit the Federalist and manufacturing stronghold of New England hard, and also every port on the northern Atlantic coast. Many shippers turned to smuggling, and many industrious people turned to manufacturing on their own—a mini-industry that collapsed when the embargo lifted. Jefferson even declared a portion of New York in a state of insurrection in late 1808 due to smuggling and violations of the embargo.

Jefferson brings no glory to himself in how he handled the demise of the embargo; he removed himself entirely from the matter and left its repeal up to Congress, which did so three days before he left office. Jefferson figured that his hand-picked successor, James Madison, would deal with the matter, as Madison created the embargo (and even sought to use it again when he was president!). But that doesn’t score Jefferson well in the leadership department.In the end, it was a terribly failed policy that also dinged Jefferson’s reputation badly. But it showed the power of the federal government, even in those early years, to control trade. (And using American commerce as a diplomatic weapon was a sound policy, albeit about a century before its time.) And problems with England didn’t dissipate, but simmered throughout his successor’s first term.

A vengeful president leads to a strong Supreme Court

Jefferson used the federal government in another way; while the embargo was a proper exercise of executive and legislative authority (regardless of the failure of the policy) his and his party’s treatment of Federalist office-holders and bureaucrats left much to be desired.

When he first took office, Jefferson’s immediate concern was to purge the government—there’s no kinder word for it—of Federalist influences. He spoke magnanimously that “we are all Federalists, we are all Republicans.” But he didn’t mean it in a conciliatory manner. He sought to bury Federalism.

As I wrote earlier, Jefferson comes off badly when writing about Washington and Adams; even though the Federalists could be just as petty. Jefferson immediately attacked Federalist policies, as would be expected; nothing unusual or outrageous in that, no matter how much Federalists screamed and howled. We take it as a matter of course today that presidents of opposing parties attempt to undo previous administrations’ policies. For example, Jefferson reduced the size of the federal government, eliminated taxes, cut the size of the army to two regiments, and made similar reductions in the Navy.

But regardless of Jefferson’s lofty rhetoric about the rights of man and democracy, he began a practice that still exists today that, frankly, stinks. While it could be argued that the politics of revenge had its genesis in Adam’s administration with the Sedition Act, it really began with Jefferson’s administration and the Jeffersonian congress. Pursuing the opposite party’s office-holders and bureaucrats just because they are of the opposite party has got to be one of the greatest failings not only of Jefferson’s presidency but also of American republic-democracy. And it hurts Jefferson’s legacy; but without Jefferson’s attempted purge—specifically, his and the Republicans’ attempted purge of the courts—the judicial system in this country might not be anywhere near as strong or independent as it is today.

One of John Adams’ “midnight” judicial appointments was a man named William Marbury. Before he donned his robes as chief justice, John Marshall, as secretary of state, had literally left a pile of Federalist judicial appointments on the secretary of state’s desk. Incoming secretary of state James Madison, after conferring with Jefferson, refused to physically deliver the commissions, meaning Marbury and the rest could not take their seats as judges and justices of the peace. Jefferson argued that because the commissions were not delivered, they were void. Marbury sued directly to the Supreme Court. In 1803, John Marshall delivered a brilliant ruling, of which the end result was the establishment of judicial review—the power of the court to strike unconstitutional laws. You can read about the case here.

Long story short, in trying to be petty, Jefferson let a critical change happen to the government: the elevation of the Supreme Court to equal footing with the other two branches.

Elsewhere in the judiciary, Republicans tried to remove Federalist judges through impeachment. Again, the “crime” was being a Federalist. In one case, against a judge named Pickering, the case was actually more on solid ground because of the judge’s seeming incompetence and drinking. But another one, against Judge Chase, was purely partisan. Not that Chase himself wasn’t a partisan either; he had been one of the most outspoken of the Sedition Act judges. The case went to the Senate, but the charges were dismissed. Jefferson was not at all happy with how these cases were resolved, but there was little he could do about it.

A noble act

Regardless of his tortured personal odyssey with slavery—and the Sally Hemmings allegations—Jefferson’s only action regarding slavery nevertheless was quite significant. One of Jefferson’s final acts as president had lasting implications: He signed the order outlawing the international slave trade from America in 1807, which took effect in 1808. The Constitution had prevented the banning of the importation of slaves before 1808; Jefferson could just have easily have vetoed this bill when it came out of Congress in 1807. But never again would the United States accept slaves from Africa. Though slaves would come in from the Caribbean, the international slave trade was effectively dead in America (although the Royal Navy would end the slave trade on the high seas). It had the effect of making slavery turn inward for new slaves (e.g. from the slaves themselves).

Jefferson was really in a tight spot with slavery. Giving him the benefit of the doubt—that he really did want to rid America of slavery—we still must recognize that this self-styled champion of democracy would see democracy as a whites-only establishment. As president, he would not—could not—embrace the slave revolt in Haiti that led to the establishment of a second republic in the western hemisphere. Jefferson gave lofty rhetoric against slavery, but he embraced it fully in practice. Slave owners, Jefferson said, had the “wolf by the tail” with slavery. It was a wretched system to keep, but in his view too dangerous to let go because of Haiti and the possibility of a similar revolt in America. The end of slavery in America would await another president. But at least the international slave trade was ended in America.

Church and state: Separate?

Questions about constitutionality in Jefferson’s terms bring up another point. Long an aspect in the argument on the intent of the founders, Thomas Jefferson really did believe that a wall of separation existed in the Constitution between church and state, even though no such wording can be found there. Jefferson actually voiced the principal in a letter; the Supreme Court codified this in the 20th century, though that body’s reasoning is, putting it charitably, curious.

Without rehashing the arguments, Jefferson violated his principles concerning church and state with his Indian policy when he deemed that Christian missionaries should be sent to the tribes by the federal government with the express purpose of Christianizing them. (Note: both Jefferson and Madison worked on separation of church and state opinions, though the concept is identified more with Jefferson; Madison, however, wrote a portion of it into Virginia law before he even met Jefferson.)

Walking away from the presidency

During the final four months of his last year in office, Jefferson essentially walked away from the presidency—figuratively and literally. The failure of the embargo, and his near-dictatorial tactics used in enforcing it, had soured the presidency for him—and soured him with the public.

There is precedence for this in Jefferson’s past. When he was governor of Virginia during the Revolution, British soldiers attacked Richmond. Jefferson vacated the capital and retreated to Monticello. All well and good, but he essentially abdicated any further responsibility for defending the state. And while serving as Adam’s vice president, he left his duties in the Senate (e.g., president of the Senate) to campaign behind the scenes to undermine the very administration he served.

So, in 1808, we find Jefferson once again retreating to Monticello, leaving the whole mess of the hugely unpopular embargo to the hands of its architect, Madison, and its authorizers, Congress. Jefferson argued that since Madison would soon be president, it was proper for him to deal with it anyway.

What piffle. Jefferson was president of the United States until the moment James Madison was sworn in. He walked away from his presidency four months before it officially ended. It’s the equivalent of a boy taking his toys and going home because he doesn’t want to play anymore.

Final Assessment

Thomas Jefferson is honored throughout the nation: He’s one of the four men on Mount Rushmore; his memorial anchors a corner of the Mall in D.C.; and Missouri’s capital is named in his honor, as is the museum and park attached to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. His beloved Monticello remains a favored attraction in Virginia. He appears on the nickel, and if you happen to find one, the 2 dollar bill. And there’s still that small obelisk that students unwittingly pass by everyday at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

So, why did he want us to “forget”—or at least not focus on—his presidency, which was truly one of the most consequential presidencies of them all? It’s part of the mystery of the man. Certainly his first term was more pleasant than the second; even though he won re-election in a landslide, his first term ended with the literal bang of scoundrel Vice President Burr’s duel-induced death of Hamilton and Burr’s mechanizations out west. The second term was actually somewhat bitter; despite the triumph of Lewis and Clark’s return in 1806, Jefferson’s second term was marred by more shenanigans from Burr, defections from the Republican party because Jefferson wasn’t a pure enough Republican (!) due to his executive actions, and the 15 months of the unpopular and harmful embargo. During that failed policy, Jefferson ironically used the same type of power against American ship owners that he had decried against King George III—again, displaying that his lofty spoken and written ideals sometimes took a back seat to presidential necessity.

Perhaps that is ultimately the reason why Jefferson didn’t want his presidency remembered as a crowning achievement.

But overall, Jefferson moved the presidency and the nation forward in many positive ways. The idea that the United States government was one for the common man is certainly his most endearing contribution: Lincoln drew upon it in the nation’s darkest hour, FDR used it to contrast liberty with fascism, and many a politician today claims to speak “for the people.” The idea that local government should have more control of affairs than a central government still resonates as well—especially among modern-day conservatives—despite the seeming discredit of states’ rights in 1865. No other president added so much land to the nation in one stroke than did Jefferson. (Polk is right up there with him, though.) And no one can deny the power of judicial review, for good or ill, even though it was most certainly not a Jeffersonian intention!

In the final assessment, President Thomas Jefferson was a mostly successful president—even unintentionally so, as relates to the judiciary—and also largely popular until the final year, when his second term ended badly. The apparent contradictions between his stated ideals and actual workings of executive power can be explained in that he stayed within the bounds of the Constitution.

Resources

Jefferson is such a study in contradictions—and such a Sphinx, as one biographer labeled him—that biographers are often left frustrated with their subject. You can read Joyce Appleby’s entry on Thomas Jefferson in the American Presidents series (2003) but the effort is a less satisfying than R.B. Bernstein’s Thomas Jefferson (2003), which is an excellent and balanced examination of Jefferson’s entire life. Bernstein finds Jefferson less confusing than previous biographers because he looks at every aspect of Jefferson in context and does not compartmentalize anything—as Jefferson himself was wont to do.

Appleby sometimes seems too much of a cheerleader for Jefferson. She takes Jefferson’s own criticisms of the Federalists at face value, even using his and his allies’ own language, and rarely examines whether they had merit; her biography suffers for it, but it's otherwise worthwhile. The real value of Appleby’s volume is that it is not organized chronologically, but thematically around Jefferson’s philosophy, politics and goals.

Illustration

Rembrandt Peale painted this wonderful picture of Jefferson in 1805.