The Madisons at Montpelier: Reflections on the Founding Couple

2. Continuing Public Involvement

2 Continuing Public Involvement In june 1824 an itinerant bookseller, samuel whitcomb, commented on two Virginia customers he had recently visited: Mr. Madison is not so large or so tall as myself and instead of being a cool reserved austere man, is very sociable, rather jocose, quite sprightly, and active. . . . [He] appears less studied, brilliant and frank but more natural, candid and profound than Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Jefferson has more imagination and passion, quicker and richer conceptions. Mr. Madison has a sound judgment , tranquil temper and logical mind. . . . Mr. Madison has nothing in his looks, gestures, expression or manners to indicate anything extraordinary in his intellect or character, but the more one converses with him, the more his excellences are developed and the better he is liked. And yet he has a quizzical, careless, almost waggish bluntness of looks and expression which is not at all prepossessing. Whitcomb further observed that Madison took many newspapers and, much more than Jefferson, remained well informed on current issues. In fact, from the moment he left Washington, James Madison remained an active elder statesman, fully abreast of public affairs and in close touch with the nation’s political leaders. Dolley maintained the same interest. In the first years of Madison’s “retirement,” President Monroe and Richard Rush, who had been in Madison’s cabinet and was American minister in London, both forwarded diplomatic dispatches to Montpelier, almost as if from force of habit, and consulted Madison on Latin America, continuing public involvement 49 Florida border disputes, the increasingly harmonious relations with Great Britain, the tariff, internal improvements, and other matters. A stream of letters answered from Orange. Madison took special interest in the convulsions racking South America as the Spanish colonies sought independence , consciously and at almost every step seeking to emulate their revolution-founded northern neighbor. The former president urged his successor to give “every lawful manifestation” of United States approval of the revolutionaries, “whatever may be the consequences.” He saw with pleasure Britain’s inclination to prevent other European powers from helping Spain retain control. In 1823, as the repressive intentions of the Holy Alliance became clear, French armies invaded Spain, and Russia declared its right to expand down the Pacific coast, Monroe sought his predecessor’s advice on a crossroads confronting American foreign policy. Britain had proposed cooperation with the United States to prevent the Holy Allies from “reducing the Revolutionized Colonies . . . to their former dependence.” Madison replied to Monroe’s queries that United States sympathy with the “liberties and independence [of] . . . these neighbors . . . and the consequences threatened by a command of their resources by the Great Powers confederated against their rights and reforms” made it imperative “to defeat the meditated crusade.” It was fortunate, too, he observed, that Britain, whatever its motives, sought the same object. “With that cooperation we have nothing to fear from the rest of Europe, and with it the best assurance of success to our laudable views.” “In the great struggle of the Epoch between liberty and despotism,” Madison observed to Jefferson , “we owe it to ourselves to sustain the former in this hemisphere at least.” Madison suggested a joint proclamation with Great Britain on behalf of Latin American independence. “With the British fleets and fiscal resources associated with our own,” he noted to Rush several days later, “we should be safe against the rest of the World, and at liberty to pursue whatever course might be prescribed by a just estimate of our moral and political obligations.” Later dispatches from London, John Quincy Adams’s distaste at the United States being “a cock-boat in the wake of the British man-of-war,” and Monroe’s own inclination toward a unilateral American proclamation resulted in the famous Monroe Doctrine. Though Madison’s proposed joint statement fell through, the effect was much the same. The 50 the madisons at montpelier United States, with implicit British support and approval, had declared against colonialism in the Americas. Madison congratulated Monroe a few months later that despite the enmity of the Holy Alliance toward “free Government everywhere,” the British-American stand had had “a benumbing influence on all their wicked enterprises.” Madison’s support of Latin American independence and of United States action with whatever friendly powers might help resist the spread of despotism were, of course, consistent with his lifelong views on foreign affairs. He had shown himself, as well, fully able to...